FARMERS IN SEARCH OF ONE SQUARE MEAL: TRAGEDY OF 21ST CENTURY INDIA ( 21/03/2015)

The Budget session of Parliament was prorogued on 20^th instant. So was the People’s Parliament (Jan Sansad) on the Parliament Street. For one whole week, our chartered bus detoured from its chartered route as the Parliament Street, Jantar Mantar and the adjoining areas remained out of bound for common commuters. Even last week this stretch was cordoned off due to a two day dharna (sit in) called by Anna Hazare- an event attended by the present CM more to display his ‘respect’ to his former guru, than in support to the cause of the farmers. Delhi anyway doesn’t have any farmer. This week it was venue to a Jan-Sansad (People’s Parliament), organized by leaders of opposition parties, as if the Parliament, just at a stone’s throw away, was no more representative of the aspirations of common farmers. Thousands of farmers donning green cap descended here this week, demanding for withdrawal of the proposed Land Acquisition Bill. Agreed, these farmers were paid and ferried to the nation’s capital, but that does not reduce the importance of the issue at stake. And the issue is, ever since independence even though agriculture remains the primary agenda of every successive Government, the lot of farmers’ remains far from improved. Their life has not changed from the pen picture of the Indian farmer drawn by noted Hindi writer Munshi Premchand in his many stories a hundred years ago- even today they take birth in debt, live in debt and die, rather nowadays commit suicide, in debt. A single suicide by a farmer had stirred the nation in the sixties to such an extent that it had led noted film producer Mehboob to produce a Mother India. Today we have lost even such sensitivities. The numbers of suicides by farmers have increased in recent times, which put governments’ policies towards farm and farmers in the dock. It is high time for a serious introspection as to who actually gets benefitted out of Government’s policies ostensibly meant for the welfare of farmers. One may take sides on the proposed Land Acquisition Bill but one cannot deny that land remains the only capital of a farmer. Asking a farmer to part with his land and remain a farmer is like advising an entrepreneur to part with his capital and run a business. Isn’t it cruel? Isn’t it a fact that the lot of farmers remains pathetic and suicides committed by them have increased manifold in recent times? The rich have become richer while the poor poorer. This is indicative of the skewed policies of the Government, forwarded by economists for whom Peter Drucker had once viewed that “in all recorded history there has not been one such economist who has to worry about where the next meal would come from”. Isn’t it surprising that today the Indian farmer is worried at being unable to arrange one square meal for himself and his family? He is the same Indian farmer who, in the eye of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, “was the only grower and creator- the rest of the society was just a creeper”. Every political dispensation claim to be working for the welfare of farmers but it seldom translates into reality. This is the real apprehension of farmers leading them to oppose the proposed legislation on Land Acquisition. The Government needs to address this apprehension with all its sincerity and not bulldoze with its decision. This is the real challenge to ‘governance’ as successive ‘governments’ have failed in tackling such issues. If that doesn’t happen, it will only aggravate the situation and the nation may stand witness to more suicides by farmers which will indeed be tragic for the 21^st century ‘digital’ India.