“The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas: i.e. the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time the dominant intellectual force.” {Karl Marx 1845]

Yesterday i came across an article in newspaper loksatta ..basic argument by a well renounced journalist was that farming in India should be treated as any other business and farmers are surprisingly irrational in demanding a “package” from Maharashtra government in wake of recent famine like conditions. Also writer gives basis for his argument of farmers being rich in Maharashtra as well certified sources like his observation of people form farming community wearing lots of gold.
as per the writers claim of considering farming as any other business and should deal with the risks by themselves, i am willing to agree.That being said will people like writer here stop pressuring government to bring down food inflation by artificially keeping food prices down using tactics like banning the export ,cheap selling agricultural produce.I have seen people throwing truckload of onion not because natural risks in agriculture but artificial tactics of keeping their values down for the benefit of non farming class (apparently people cant afford 40rs a kilo for onion but can pay 10 thousand per month for EMI on four wheeler and air-conditioners). if this economy concept is so hard to grasp by writer i will explain you in simple terms.lets say if government capped your salary to 10k per month or started supplying good journalists for 1,2,3 rs salary(like PDS), will you or will you not demand help form government if things went south?
Other than that will writer be agree to let go concessions of government given to newspaper industry? will industries will be ok to give up their subsidies in the form of tax forgone with amounts to 5lakh crore in the exemptions of corporate tax, income tax , excise tax and customs tax? will your government be ok to buy agricultural lands in prices of our own bargain for building amenities in cities?
Even so concessions that are given to farmers are so petty that they hardly even cover expenses for fresh cultivation. cash gets deposited after 3-4 years (personal experience). Fertilizers other than urea are non subsidized and actual selling price of urea is much more than what it should be. Electricity bill are calculated according to horse power of pumps regardless of time for which pump is active (hardly four hours in summer).
this is very disturbing that how writer conveniently neglects government control over agricultural pricing and industry subsidies. Either the writer is naive or he is just blinded by some personal hatred . Either ways there seems to be some truth in popular agricultural slogan of urban india and rural bharat. The habit of well to do urban people, and policy makers in cities to neglect welfare of agriculturalists and brand them as some kind of beggars which are living on sympathetic charity by tax paying class (btw income tax paying population is 3% and all other indirect taxes are paid by farmers equally so stop bushit of this is money from our income taxes getting spent. which gets compensated in uneven infrastructure expenditure in cities and rural area. )
Financial assistance in case of natural calamities is governments responsibility regardless city or rural area. .I fail to understand what motivates author to write such baseless articles and make nonsensical arguments. May there comes a time when government frees agricultural produce and then you will spend thousands for your monthly groceries or sleep with hungry stomach without availability of food then you will regret for your one sided views and baseless propaganda.