Creation, or non-creation of jobs, has been discussed as a yardstick of success or failure of a government. It is indeed a meaningful measure of the wellbeing of the economy. An ITI-pass plumber or a welder in a small town can at best hope to earn subsistence wages of about ten thousand Rupees a month. In fact even graduate engineers go abegging for such a salary. Thinking of a marginal farmer or a small milk-producer (gwala) numbs the mind. He has no salary - he and his entire family work for free in the field or in tending to the cattle. He sells the produce out of what is leftover from family's own consumption. That pays for his other needs - clothes, medicines, house-repair, cooking, education of children and the other myriad necessities of daily life.
Now, there is no job like that in the world that doesn't pay wages. Surplus produce cannot be called a wage, certainly not for all the members of the family. The wife, the mother, all the children are actually working for free. Each one of them should actually be getting the minimum wage every day for their back breaking labour, say ₹200 to ₹300 per diem. If they did claim that wage, our milk would cost us seventy-five Rupees a litre and wheat sixty Rupees a kilo. After all a large farmer or a dairy-owner does pay his workers some wage. So, our cheap milk, vegetables and food grain are actually a product of self-inflicted slavery.
So friends, pray to God that the small farmer doesn't became aware of this!
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