The first time I read about farmer issues and about the spiralling suicides among them was through some articles written by P Sainath in the Hindu in 2004/ 2005. Some of those articles were real eye-openers. I had a chance to live vicariously in rural agricultural
India through Sainath.
In early December, a new article gave figures of the number of farmer suicides in India in 2007. It said that more than 16,500 farmers had committed suicide in 2007 alone. The figure took me unawares. I always knew that problems existed amongst the Indian agriculturists, but never thought that the problem was this big. We have been having one Mumbai terror attack almost every week; not in the Taj or the Oberoi, but in interior Maharashtra, Andhra, Kerala; those places which have largely been deemed to be ‘uninteresting’ by the print and electronic media. And these attacks are not by non-state actors from across the border, but by you, and me and all around us, who have cocooned ourselves from the rural reality and have been indifferent to such happenings.
When would we see group discussions on CNN-IBN or NDTV discussing these ‘insignificant’ issues? When would we see a candle light march in the big cities for these tillers of the soil? How much time more would it take for this news to prick our collective conscience?
4 comments:
Hi Anup,
We should think of creating more leaders among our fellow rural citizens. That is the only long term solution to this problem. We should take stock of our own problems because it is not just enough to speak about them, we have to get it done.
I know I am not saying a concrete idea - there is much more to this problem. But we should start of with this concept. And the fastest way to do this would be through a capitalist model - free market enterprise. There is a problem to be solved and with few policy changes this could be made a real sustainable model.
I agree with your proposal to develop more leaders from amongst the farmers.
On your views on cpitalism - most of the problems the farmers are in are due to the same free market enterprise you are vouching for. Maybe we need the free market concept applied differently.
Anup etta I liked the way u linked the events. Then as u have expressed dont you think this sort of a bias exists everywhere. Isnt there a great divide between the rich and poor and the whole world revolves in such a way as to satisfy the greed of the ones who have everything. I mean take for instance the reason why the bush admin is so interested in getting the nuclear deal passed through??
I mean at some point we should realise that even in AMERICA the govt is ruled by the business magnets who very well know the demand for power in a current starving nation as ours and they recognise the presence of untapped pastures here for their firms to grow. Would America true from its deep heart want India to be developed?? I dont have the slighest of hint to say yes.
Moral: you have money you wield power else you would remain a rotten reality and no one would even look at you.........
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