Friday, April 24, 2015

Farm genocide

What title do I give? Is it farmers'suicide? Or is it a genocide going by the alarming rise in the numbers?

Early last month, it was eight potato farmers in Bengal committing suicide. And now, it’s a Rajasthan farmer hanging himself from a tree at a political rally. Minutes after this, another grower from the same State ended his life by jumping before a speeding train.
While the media is at a frenzy reporting these showing close-up images of deceased farmers, politicians are busy in the usual mudslinging. And soon the nation will want to know everything about farmers, reasons for their suicides and all that thus bringing their pitiable family on screen.
While the Delhi government/AAP is being criticised for not acting quick enough to stop the death, AAP suspects BJP’s conspiracy to sabotage its rally! And the fresh-from-sabbatical Rahul Gandhi says it all happened because of the ordinance that has been brought by BJP. And we have an union minister giving his pearl of wisdom to farmers about gods and governments!
And noone sees the farmers’ pov. Behind these suicides lies an explosive cocktail of natural and manmade factors – crop loss caused by erratic weather, deficient monsoon, depleting watertable, procurement woes, inefficient policies with respect to taxes, loans and the deadly tentacles of private moneylenders.
The mindset of most of the educated, urban population is even more appalling: so what, they get free electricity, water supply, waiver of loans and all that!! Yes, but are these packages doing enough to address the plight of farmers? And how many farmers have access to these ‘free’ power/water? Do these limited sops do anything for crop yield, farm inputs/loans, assured irrigation, developing cold storage, marketing/pricing facilities? Or how many of the farmers are aware of crop insurance??
It is high time the government tweaked its agri-trade policies and the farmers, instead of being provided with meaningless incentives or false assurances, were educated on alternative source of income such as dairy farming, poultry, fisheries, etc. 
As I key in this, my son is reading a couplet from the Tamil work Thirukkural which runs thus: 
Palakudai nizhalum thamkudaikeezh kaanbar alagudai nizhalavar. (The reign of many kingdoms comes under the reign of those with abundant grain).
I can only think of the 2010 movie Peepli Live and nod my head with a wry smile!