Picture the situation of a woman holding the skull of her dead husband. Imagine a group of women marching in the streets of Delhi with the picture of their dead husbands who committed suicide due to agrarian woes, hung around their shoulders.
Nearly thirty-five thousand peasants left their plough and marched down the streets and gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on January 30, 2019. The march was led by All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) politically affiliated to the communist party of India. This is the current plight of Indian farmers. Explicitly, this situation will result in immense havoc in the agricultural sector and also simultaneously in the life of each individual of the nation if it couldn’t be curbed.
According to the Agricultural census of India, 70% of the Indians directly or indirectly depend on agriculture. Surprisingly, both people and the government fail to contemplate the magnitude of these numbers. The way engines are necessary for the bikes to run, so is the agriculture for the country. The nation can’t function without its vertebral column- agriculture. Although the people who are in power can bring in a progressive evolution in the field of agriculture, they are too busy to pay any attention to the problems plaguing the farmers of our country.
In the last two decades, three lakh farmers committed suicide. We are oblivious to the plight of the people who work tirelessly to grow food to feed the entire nation. The statistics vividly show that most of the farmers end their lives due to indebtedness. The liberalisation policies, lack of profitable prices, the decline of public investment, neglect of agriculture by the government and public agencies, growing cost of seeds and fertilizers, only add insult to the injury.
As petrifying as it sounds, farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India. This humongous agrarian crisis is brazenly ignored by our political leaders. The demands of the farmers have been more or less same over the years. The procurement of loan waiver and better prices for their produce are their main demands that need to be catered to.
Sainath, a veteran journalist who is specialized in rural reporting and the man behind the efficacious documentary “Nero’s Guest” which depicts the misery of Indian farmers, has also thrown light on the unprecedented farmer migration from rural to urban areas due to failure in the agricultural sector. P. Sainath termed this as “footloose migration“.
Here’s a tale of ironies- on October 3, 2018, India unveiled the world’s largest statue in Gujarat spending approximately 3,000 Crores. India stupefied other nations with its gigantic “Statue of Unity” and proclaimed the unanimity of the nation. In the same state, a 39-year-old farmer Vijendra Tadvi is struggling to irrigate his crops. The water scarcity has trampled Tadvi’s land out of irrigation. He is on the verge of death due to the denial of the right price for his harvest. One need not have an above average IQ to ponder upon such issues. The citizens are clearly disappointed with the government’s priorities. Sardar Vallabai Patel never demanded a statue, but the farmers here demand a loan waiver and a better price for their yield. Sadly their pleas are falling on deaf ears. Government shapes the lifeless statue but ignores to shape the lives of farmers.
The indifference of Indian politicians towards the pitiable condition of small farmers is unnerving. The shimmering schemes brought in by the government year after year have never brought in any concrete and positive change in the lives of our food providers. The government is reluctant to waive the loans of farmers, but did not think twice before canceling 3.5 lakh crores of dues owned by 11 big Industrialists.
The centre’s flagship insurance scheme is just a ploy to trick the farmers. Agricultural growth has plummeted in a decade, which is not a very good sign for the overall growth and development of India. The farmers’ demands are genuine, but state governments have grossly neglected them.
Farmers should get reasonable prices for their products and the government should regularize farmers’ land ownership. Their products should be procured without any hassle and the money should be transferred to their respective bank accounts immediately.
Moreover, the Government has to ensure that farmers avoid any kind of third-party interference. Monitoring and addressing of farmers issues should start from the grass-root level. Project e-Nam is a good step in this direction which is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
After the general elections, I hope that the agrarian issues will be dealt with urgently in the upcoming sessions of parliament, irrespective of the political party in power.