Rajasthan: RSS sees merit in Amartya Sen's ideas!

What are the chances that Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, known for his ‘leftist’ views, will be cited at RSS deliberations? That a BJP margdarshak will flag growing income inequality in the country? Or openly critique the Modi government’s economic policies? Or urge a fundamental rethink away from a (GDP) growth-at-any-cost economic model?

It did happen, though, at a recent RSS vaichariki (deliberations) event in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. BJP stalwart Murli Manohar Joshi, who was eased into the party’s ‘margdarshak mandal’ in 2014 when Narendra Modi took over as prime minister, was a special invitee at the Jodhpur vaichariki, part of the Sangh’s deliberations to mark its centenary. The three-day meeting involved over 300 delegates from 32 Sangh-affiliated organisations.

Joshi’s invocation of Amartya Sen was especially notable, given that Sen has been a trenchant critic of the Modi government’s approach to welfare and the question of equity. To make his point that India needs a value-based reset of its economic policies and priorities, Joshi quoted Sen as having said: “If the economic success of a nation is only judged by income, the important goal of well-being is missed.”

While introducing the idea of ‘degrowth’, moving away from an obsessive focus on GDP expansion, and positing his ideas as a counterpoint to the ‘Modi–Adani’ development model, Joshi pointed out that India’s headline GDP may have improved but the rising tide had not lifted all boats. He critiqued the brag that India’s economy had outstripped Japan’s, underlining that India was way behind in per capita terms. (At $4.187 trillion, India’s nominal GDP in 2025 was marginally ahead of Japan’s $4.186 trillion, but India’s per capita GDP stood at $2,875 compared to Japan’s $33,955.)

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Joshi’s critique, polite if unusually direct for an RSS platform, got approving nods from the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat, whose own tussle with Modi as a rival power centre in the ‘Hindu Undivided Family’ is no secret.

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A Dhankhar show at Rohtak?

Former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar, not seen in public since he suddenly resigned on 21 July, is expected to make an appearance at a rally in Rohtak on 25 September. The news has once again stoked speculation over his political future. Dhankhar’s close ties with INLD (Indian National Lok Dal) chief Abhay Chautala have added more grist to the rumour mills. More so because he is believed to be temporarily staying at Chautala’s farmhouse.

The Rohtak rally will mark the 112th birth anniversary of former Haryana chief minister Devi Lal, a towering Jat leader and Abhay Chautala’s grandfather. If Dhankar jumps in, it could signal a major shift in Haryana’s Jat politics, especially with tensions still simmering over the BJP’s sidelining of the late Satyapal Malik.

Brothers Abhay and Ajay Chautala head rival parties after both were routed in the last state assembly elections. Dhankhar’s appearance on the scene could reshape political alignments in regional politics.

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Cash flow from arid land

In the once-sleepy village of Gurha Kumawatan, 40 km west of Jaipur, large polyhouses resembling warehouses host industrial-scale farms using a technique known as protected farming. The crops grown here require only a fraction of the water, fertilisers and chemicals needed for traditional agriculture. The yields too are eye-poppingly high.

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“Farmers can control inputs like water and nutrients with precision, leading to vastly better yields. For instance, in north India, tomatoes are usually grown for just four to five months. In the polyhouses, they can be grown for nine months or longer. Open-field tomato cultivation yields about 2.5 tonnes per hectare, but under protected cultivation, this jumps to 200 tonnes,” says agriculture scientist Balraj Singh.

Precision agriculture, as the name itself suggests, provides plants what they need when they need it, in exact quantities. With nearly 1,200 acres under protected cultivation, Gurha Kumawatan boasts India’s highest concentration of polyhouses.

Most of the 500-odd farmers here are now millionaires, their combined turnover exceeding Rs 250 crore. They live in mansions and can be seen driving around in snazzy cars. The transformation is so radical that locals call this area ‘mini Israel’, where the practice originated. The credit for this success story goes to Khemaram Choudhary, a farmer, for whom a chance visit to Israel in 2012 proved to be a turning point.

Initially, he doubted the claims of scientists in Israel on increased earnings from arid land. Israel receives just 508 mm rainfall a year, similar to Gurha Kumawatan, which is in one of the driest parts of Jaipur district.

“I’d never made a profit of more than Rs 1.5 lakh, nor had I heard of any farmer in India making much more. They also showed us how to use wastewater for farming. The farmers now earn Rs 45 lakh per annum per acre,” he claims.

Choudhary built his first polyhouse with a Rs 30 lakh subsidy from the state government, loans from PSU banks and technical support from the local agriculture university. The rest, as they say, is history.