October 1, 2007	Monday	Ramazan 18, 1428

While feudalism remains a political and social stumbling block, it continues to be a major deterrent to ample food production, higher quality output and fair distribution of what is produced.

Along with the feudal forces over represented in the assemblies, they dominate the federal and provincial cabinets as well. And hence the federal cabinet is not able to deal with the wheat flour crisis adequately and effectively. It took a non feudal minister from Karachi to expose the failure of the federal cabinet to deal with the atta crisis and the vagaries of the feudal elements at the top.

The multiple dimensions of the atta crisis is coming to be exposed more and more. To begin with, the wheat output of 23.5 million tones was an exaggeration done to please President Musharraf in an election year. That was initiated by Malik Sikander Bosan, minister for food and agriculture. And that initiated a move to export wheat to India which was cancelled the moment its shortages appeared here and there and the situation aggravated because of the hoarding and profiteering.
Along with that, Humayun Akhtar said that only atta was being exported to Afghanistan and not wheat, while it appears that wheat was also exported or smuggled. Wheat has also been smuggled to Central Asia as well as India. It took a serious acrimony between the federal minister for industries and production Jehangir Tareen and the Punjab chief minister Chaudhary Parvez Elahi to blurt out that it is not the duty of Pakistan to feed Afghanistan and Central Asia. Earlier, Jehangir Tareen had accused the Punjab government of sitting tight on four million tones of wheat instead of distributing it and easing the Atta crisis.

At a meeting of the federal cabinet, the same non-feudal minister from Karachi accused the federal ministers of not taking action against those hoarding wheat in textile mills and in petrol stations in the Punjab. He came out with allegations of smuggling of wheat or atta in many directions. Action could not be taken against such elements as there are feudal big wigs with big political clout, more so in an election year. The feudal elements were not doing any thing they did not do before to make some extra bucks from hoarding atta or wheat and profiteering from that.

The surplus farmers as opposed to the subsistence farmers are subsidised by the government in many ways. They are given increasing support prices for their output whether that be wheat or sugar cane every year. They are also given subsidised fertilisers to increase production. And they are given large farm loans which now total Rs157 billion, inclusive of Rs144.6 billion given under the end of June last. Many of them have been given new loans while the old loans had been defaulted because of their political clout.

The big farmers are given water and power at highly concessional rates. Above all they have been exempted from federal income tax. While a small clerk with a modest salary in the cities has to pay income tax.

This is the only country in South Asia which is the heartland of feudalism. India did away with it a long time ago as a major commitment of the freedom movement. We had two land reforms which barely touched the fringe of the problem. Immediately after Mir Zafarullah Jamali became prime minister under president Musharraf, he said the age of land reform is over. This is the period of consolidation. He stressed large loans had been given to the farmers to mechanise the farming ,increase the output and maximise their earnings and now the quality of the agricultural output is to be improved to make it more attractive for exports.

We have the most expensive sugar cane in the area and yet the prices keep on rising. That makes it impossible to export sugar when we have a surplus without a hundred per cent subsidy which is absurd. A move was made in the 1970’s to introduce crop insurance. The feudal lords were excited. Then it was said it is tied to payment of income tax and the farm lords lost all interest in crop insurance which raises its head from time to time.

Now five large dams are to be built beginning with the Daimler Basha dam at a cost of about Rs30 billion to increase the irrigation water and power output. Much of the benefit of the dams will go to the feudal lords, while the money used to fund a dam is to be borrowed from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The farm lords should think of the welfare of the tenants..

Socially whenever there is a dispute between the farm lords and his tenants, the police usually side with the farm lords and seldom file an FIR against them on behalf of the tenants. They are told to compromise instead of creating bad blood in the rural areas.

Then there is a political gain. In that the farm lords and their families represent their area in the assemblies and now women are being given greater representation in the assemblies. Most of the women who have come up are from the feudal families, so feudalism remains doubly reinforced.

Senior military officers and civil servants are land owners and so they identify themselves with the feudal lords rather than with the tiller of the soil. A member of the National Assembly from Karachi or a federal minister without feudal apron strings may expose the follies of the federal feudal lords but they wont be able to do anything more because of the strong feudal hold on the levers of power and the main springs of wealth.

The solution to the problem lies in the emergence of a stronger and larger middle class. But when the elections are going to be so costly, not many middle class elements will be able to win them.