H.S Dillon champions the plight of farmers
By Sylvia Gratia M. Nirang
JAKARTA (JP): Harbrinderjit Singh Dillon always speaks his mind when talking about human rights, farmers and the country's national unity.
He is widely known as a government critic. His criticisms range from agricultural policies to political and social problems. He is now the executive director of the Center for Agriculture Policy Studies (CAPS), a member of the National Commission on Human Rights and a member of the state-sponsored Communication Forum for National Unity (Bakom PKB).
Dillon often expresses his concern for the development of the agricultural sector, which he says should be a top priority because it is an important step in leading the country out of its economic troubles.
"A strong agricultural sector would not only help the country cope with the unemployment problem but would also encourage farming activities to produce export-oriented commodities.
"We cannot build a strong nation if we cannot improve the lives of people in rural areas. To improve their lives we have to develop the agroindustry, because most of them work in the agriculture sector," Dillon told The Jakarta Post in an interview in his CAPS office last week.
Born in Medan on April 23, 1945, Dillon is the youngest child of a business family. His father, Partap Singh, was a leader of the Sikh community in Medan.
Dillon rebelled from the traditional family path of becoming a businessman or a doctor, and studied agriculture. He became totally involved in the sector, he explained, after seeing farmers work themselves into the ground just to enrich the plantation owners.
"When I was young my father often took us outside to Parapat (a plantation town near Medan) or to other places. And we all saw these people working in their black shirts, laboring in the plantation. At that time I always wondered who they were and why they worked so hard.
"And when I grew up I slowly began to realize that they must be the underclass. So I decided then that I would study agriculture even though my father wanted me to be a doctor like my elder brothers.
"I decided that I had to study hard so I could improve the life of those plantation laborers," he said.
In 1964 he studied agriculture and social economics at the state-run North Sumatra University (USU) in Medan. He took 10 years to finish his studies, because, he explained, for three years in the mid 1960s he was involved in a student movement.
After graduating from USU, he started working as a researcher in the Ministry of Agriculture's agroeconomic survey program. He then got a scholarship from the Agriculture Development Council to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
In 1983 he earned his PhD in agriculture economics, with a dissertation titled Growth with Equity: the Case of North Sumatra Smallholder Development Project.
The project, which was prompted by the hardships faced by North Sumatra's plantation laborers, then became the foundation of smallholder estates, in which the government or private companies shared their plantation areas with the farmers.
He returned to Indonesia in 1983 and worked on the Directorate General of Plantation's special team for assistance projects.
He was then promoted to a director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Commodity Analysis Division and then became an adviser for commodity trade and development to the minister of agriculture.
In 1996 he left the ministry, after realizing his principle of empowering farmers was not in line with his colleagues in the agriculture ministry.
"I joined the government because at that time I believed that the government was fighting for the farmers. I have now realized that it is not. There still are good people but they are a minority. The dominating paradigm in the state is self-serving officials. They are not civil servants, they are uncivil masters."
That was the beginning of his new calling as a government critic. He concentrated mainly on pointing out the failures of the agriculture policies. And later founded the CAPS.
Married to Drupadi Harnopidjati, a lecturer of medicine at the University of Indonesia, Dillon is the father of three sons: Haryasetyaka Singh Dillon, 19, Mahawira Singh Dillon, 14, and Mahareksha Singh Dillon, 13.
Drupadi's father was the rector of USU when Dillon studied at the university.
Dillon was very close with the rector. The young couple's relationship began when Drupadi's father asked Dillon to pick up his daughter from the airport when she returned home for her holidays from study in Jakarta.
At first, their relationship was opposed by Drupadi's mother and Dillon's father, partly because of their different cultures and religions. Dillon is a Sikh while Drupadi is a Muslim.
"But we finally managed to settle the problems, as we believed that if we were together we would both be able to realize our potentials higher than if we were separated or married other people," he said.
They both decided to stick with their own religions.
"That's why I am very disappointed with the marriage law which discourage inter-religious marriages.
"Inter-religious marriages help us maintain our national unity, because families get to know other religions better and when you get to know other religions, you can start to appreciate them more."
Dillon is increasingly popular not only as an agriculture analyst, but also as a political and social analyst since the economic and political turmoil hit the country.
His sharp criticisms of the government regarding the abuse of human rights led to him being elected a member of the National Commission on Human Rights in December last year.
"I was very happy that they elected me ... because it provides me a much stronger platform to fight for the economic, social and cultural rights of farmers and rural inhabitants," he said.
Following are further excerpts of the interview with Dillon:
Question: Many people wonder why you, an Indonesian of Indian descent, have become a government critic, instead of jumping into business like many people of foreign descent do.
Answer: This is also one of the motives for my wanting to join the government, to illustrate by example that it is not true that people of foreign origin are only concerned with themselves, or only concerned with pecuniary money-making motives.
Q: What do you think about the current state of our national unity?
A: I have always been very interested in national unity because from very early on I became cognizant on the fact that our founding fathers have been very wise, very aware, of the multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious nature of our society and that is why they framed our constitution in such a manner.
I believe then and I still do that you can not take the national unity for granted in a community such as ours ... You have to keep on working. From time to time you have to renew your commitment and you have to go back to the initial vision of the community. You have to forge the nation out of these different ethnic groups, different religions and all of that. And you have to revitalize this vision.
Being a Sikh I think has helped me accentuate that, because Sikhs are very few, I don't think there are more than 3,000 Sikhs all over Indonesia. They are too small to be called a minority. And then you feel that you are different, and if there is discrimination then you realize that. And I always refuse to accept discrimination.
So I urge all Indonesians from all ethnic backgrounds to bury their racist sentiments because this is the best time to build our country as our founding fathers intended it to be.
You may hate criminals, be they ethnic Chinese, Batak, Javanese or any other ethnicity, but please never hate people because their culture is different than yours.
Q: During the country's worst ever economic crisis, the government seems to have just started to realize that agroindustry could be a leading sector to lift us out of the crisis. Problems in the agriculture sector are immense and require immediate action. What policies should be introduced to enhance agricultural productivity?
A: The crisis has been a logical consequence of bad policies all these years, and has exposed all the faults in our food and agriculture system. Not only is our reliance on food imports very high but, now, there might be 60 million people living under the poverty line compared to less than 20 million prior to July 1997.
The midterm challenges confronting Indonesians are:
* to raise production of all food commodities and products to save foreign exchange through reduction of imports,
* to enhance productivity and exports of agriculture and forestry commodities to generate badly needed foreign exchange, and
* to design institutional and technological breakthroughs so that policies to achieve the objectives would secure the food needs of the poorest households during the transition, and alleviate rural poverty while preserving the environment in the medium term. However, much more pressing is needed to continue providing adequate food at affordable prices to the general public.
Q: Many believe that you are a strong candidate to fill the minister of agriculture's position in the new cabinet, regardless of which parties win. What do you think about that?
A: Really? For me if I can serve my people as a government official that's fine. But if I could serve them better just being as I am now, by being an outspoken person, then I would be happier.