Kejriwal, visit Cuba: Learn Urban Farming to Reduce Delhi’s Pollution

In 1946, India was hit by acute food shortages. ‘Grow More’ campaign was launched by the British government. Army released a lot of its machinery for digging wells, leveling ground etc. Viceroy’s private secretary, G.E.B. Abbey, wrote to Mahatma Gandhi to inform him that ‘in Delhi a considerable part of the central vista’ was to be ploughed up and the gardens of bungalows were to be used for growing vegetables on a large scale. 

Gandhi’s, 21 February 1946, letter to the Viceroy further suggested that that small and medium sized vessels of the Royal Indian Navy, which were on patrol or guard duty during the war, be converted for the purpose of fishing to provide an additional source of food. Gandhi also suggested that a law be passed to convert all public gardens into fields growing vegetables.

After the demise of Soviet Union when Cuba was faced with acute food shortages it turned to urban farming to collectively meet its growing food needs. Today in Cuba more than 35,000 acres of urban gardens produced 3.4 million tons of food. In Havana, 90% of the city's fresh produce came from local urban farms and gardens, all organic. More than 200,000 Cubans worked in the expanding urban agriculture sector.

We need to trigger our minds and think as to why we grow only grass in most of the urban towns and cities. Why don’t we grow the much needed organic vegetables and wheat on India gate lawns? Actually during the industrial revolution there was strong economic logic in switching land use. Growing grass curtailed agricultural activity and ensured the movement of labour from farms to factories. But fields could not be completely abandoned because there was a lurking fear that industry may fail and economy may have to revert to agriculture. Thus lush-green lawns became a part of a hedging strategy that eventually created the rural-urban binary. Today, we are culturally conditioned to think of green grass lawns as beautiful and the thought of interspersed crops and concrete as ugly as well as unacceptable.

The radical solutions offered in 1946, to ‘grow more’ are more valid in twenty first century Delhi or any metropolitan town that is struggling with ‘pollute less’ strategies. The idea of converting gardens into farms is as relevant as it was seven decades ago. Today, urban households are not just subjected to soaring food prices but also to vegetables that stale and chemically treated. The lack of organic farming coupled with unhygienic transportation is an urban nightmare. The trucks carrying vegetables add enormously to polluting the city. Total green area under Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is in the range of 5000 hectares (12,350 acre). In Lutyens Bungalow zone (LBZ) 5,600 acres of land grows only grass. To maintain manicured grass in LBZ gardens the government spends Rs.70, 000/acre, every month. If only total grasslands of Delhi could be used to grow organic vegetables, it could meet Delhi’s vegetable needs locally. Not only will it help Delhi have fresh, organic vegetables it will also reduce the number of trucks that bring vegetable to Delhi from other states, reducing the pollution levels considerably.

Modi's Dubious Connections Exposed by Forbes

When Arvind Kejriwal says that Modis Gujarat model reeks of crony capitalism, the India media doesn’t listen. When he says, there is something fishy in Modi-Adani friendship, it turns a blind eye and launches a frontal attack on Arvinds intentions - raising frivolous issues like Kejriwal's flat size and room numbers. Forbes, a billionaire's mouthpiece, has come out with a scathing story (“Doing Big
Business In Modi's Gujarat”) on the dubious bonds between Modi and Adani. Hope the India media will wake up and take notice. One wishes and prays that at least, a few India journalists will turn ‘conscientious objectors’ and tell their proprietors that they will not partake in the subversion of Indian democracy by remaining quiet on Modis misdemeanors. Modi's complete biases are visible in the price at which he has gifted people's property to his businessman buddy. According to Forbes, Between 2005 and 2007, Modi ensured, "at least 1,200 hectares of grazing land was taken away from villagers" and handed over to his close friend Adani for as low as "one U.S. cent a square meter (the rate maxed out at 45 cents a Getting the land at rock bottom price is just the beginning of the loot of state resources. A part of the same land is then rented out by Adani to other companies including the Indian Oil Co., for as much as $11 a square meter.

The India media that maintains a 24x7 vigil on all Bollywood weddings and funerals seems to have switched off its cameras when the marriage of Adanis son was celebrated last year at Goa. It should have been natural for the media to gravitate to Goa. But Alas! The media failed

to gate-crash and catapult their TRPs by showing Modi attending all “ceremonies over a couple of days, genial and relaxed like a favourite uncle.” Adani is no simple contractor businessman. He is ranked “609 in the world with an estimated worth of $2.8 billion’. His commercial mining interests stretch right up to Australia. As a businessman Adani is entitled to spread his wings far and wide across the globe. But his close connections with Modi raise serious issues. It brings into discussion Modis direct and indirect ties to global finance capital and the big international money - a matter that has direct bearing on India’s foreign policy.

Some sections of the Indian media are just not able to gauge the maturity displayed by a rookie politician, who has made it his life's mission to highlight India's real aliment. India’s strength lies in the fact that we still have lots of scribes uphold the flag of journalistic ethics and professionalism.

AAP IS CONTINUATION OF LEFT POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS

Politics is essentially left. Right is non-political. Rightist forces are traditionally too close to religion and business to moderate them. 

Left with its natural inclination for people’s concern is oriented to keep religion away from completely controlling people’s life and preventing business to ruthlessly purse its profit maximizing ways. 

Therefore, it is natural that close to elections, even the die-hard rightists begin speaking the language of the left - poverty elevation, free food and housing etc. 

The latest entrant into Indian politics AAP is inherently leftist, because it cannot afford to be right. However, it refrains from calling itself socialist, mainly because wearing a left straitjacket is unfashionable in the 21st century India. 

AAP does not seem to be oblivious of the reality that big business has a massive role is fomenting crony capitalism in the country. Corruption is not a matter of demand and supply. Corruption is because of the dilution of politics resulting from the amalgamation of demand and supply- business-politician nexus.

Unlike, the communists, AAP does not intend to confront the capitalist directly by launching an all out war against the rich. Instead, it intends to decouple the state machinery from the tweezers grip of big money and set it free to act against the defaulting capitalists. 

In one of the TV shows, a common man told Arvind Kejriwal that in the absence of right to education, he was forced to be corrupt. Much like his boss, he too wanted his children to get educated in Delhi Public School. He further said that till the time right to education was enshrined in the constitution and its provisions  implemented, Lokpal would continue to be inconsequential. 

A traditional leftist would have jumped from his seat and hugged the common man and asked him to join the revolutionary moment to throw out the capitalist. 

On the other hand, Arvind Kejriwal’s solution  rested on the premise that since private schools cannot be closed, our endeavour is to make the government schools so good that even moneyed people would come to them.

Arvind Kejriwal is thinking of positive change by clearly stating his agenda. The communists, on the other hand, are engaged in typical Delhi politics where they are desperately trying to stitch together a coalition of third parties that are financed by big business. So rather than talking to the public, the communists are engaged in political management. They refuse to learn from history. 

Their single point agenda of preventing communal forces have landed India in such a state where the communal forces do not even need a mask. They are openly projecting Modi - the ugliest communal face - as the future leader of India. 

If only the left had followed a politics of principles and not towed their boats behind Nehru, India would have been a different country and Communist party would have been our AAP.