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ly, these commodities could be sold into the manufacturing hub of the Even as triumphalist national lead-
through the subsidised PDS (public world. In short, the logic of the 1991 ers make loud claims of India’s fast
distribution system) and/or expedi- liberalisation and deregulation which growing economy and emerging as
tiously auctioned to food processing revived moribund Indian industry, a global viswaguru (world teacher),
companies to maintain the fund. needs to be applied to rural India. the country’s short-changed rural
Secondly, all hurdles to establish- Yet at bottom, delivering of high majority, deprived of the gains of po-
ing food processing enterprises should quality education in rural India — es- litical freedom and feeble economic
be immediately removed to reduce pecially in government schools and growth, is incrementally raising ban-
distress selling and colossal waste of colleges — is the essential precondi- ners of revolt on highways leading to
farm — especially horticulture — pro- tion of bridging the India-Bharat di- New Delhi and state capitals. Concur-
duce. This also necessitates that all vide. Population growth is accelerat- rently, a rising tide of ill-educated and
impediments to establishing modern ing fragmentation of already small unemployable rural youth is spread-
warehousing units and stocking limits rural farms (average size: 2.67 acres). ing across the country in the form of
imposed on traders are removed. This necessitates higher per-acre ‘migrant workers’ forced to work in
Simultaneously, government needs foodgrain yields which are currently low-paid jobs in the construction and
to agree not to interfere by way of im- one-tenth of US and European farms services sector and increasingly taking
ports and export curbs when farm and one-fifth of China. In turn, this to crime and violence.
commodity prices rise. Like coffee requires adequately schooled farmers These phenomena are a warning
and tea growers, all farmers should be rather than adults who can’t read a to the Central and state governments,
entitled to make windfall gains when fertilizer or pesticide usage leaflet. It’s the establishment and academia to
global prices firm up. Lessons need to also time to accept that rural school- pay greater attention to public — in-
be learned from neighbouring China’s leavers exhorted by smug economists cluding skills — education in agrar-
example of facilitating the establish- and media pundits to migrate to the ian India. This is necessary to ensure
ment of millions of TVEs (town and factories and workplaces of urban In- that the widening India-Bharat fis-
village enterprises) which have trans- dia, need to be sufficiently qualified sure doesn’t become an unbridgeable
formed agriculture-dependent China and skilled to become employable. divide●

MARCH 2024 EDUCATIONWORLD 77