Gero - Blog Post 12

In Development as Freedom, Sen makes the argument that implementing instrumental freedoms will catalyze development. These freedoms all work to help the average citizen and improve quality of life. I think this argument is especially interesting in the context of the protests in India against the recently passed Farm Acts. This legislation lifts some of the protections traditionally upheld for Indian farmers and increases economic freedom. For reference, over 700 million people in India (51% of the population) earn income from agriculture, and it's estimated that 250 million have participated in union strikes over the past year (NPR). Many have argued that the farming population in India is too large for so drastic of a reform. While most farmers were already living at subsistence, they fear that without government price supports, wholesale markets, or guaranteed buyers, they will be plunged even further into poverty. Furthermore, any gains made in a free market would concentrate wealth in a small group and force hundreds of millions of people out of agriculture. 

To Sen, these changes would likely appear to be development; they increase economic freedoms, allow for free labor, and promote unrestrained physical movement (page 28). However, applying Sen’s five instrumental freedoms to the protests in India would produce mixed results. Political freedoms which are currently being exercised are being ignored by the government, economic facilities are being expanded, social opportunities are stagnant, transparency guarantees are decreasing, and protective security is being undermined. 

Sen repeatedly discusses a situation similar to India’s where a country is developing from agriculture to industry, which often creates opposition between tradition and development. Sen argues that “if a traditional way of life has to be sacrificed to escape grinding poverty or miniscule longevity… then it is the people directly involved who must have the opportunity to participate in deciding what should be chosen” (page 31). Interestingly, in India’s case it is the people who are directly involved, the farmers, who are choosing the tradition of government supported agriculture because it keeps them above unsustainable poverty. While in most situations Sen’s evaluation of a necessary development of industry would create freedoms, it is possible that the farmer population of India is so large that industry would create unfreedoms. I am curious whether Sen would argue that Indian agriculture is still in need of government protections of freedom or if development requires letting go of such protection against popular will.