When we see farmers protesting once more on the edge of Delhi, how many of us remember that there is an India away from the razzmatazz of city life where nothing much has changed. My earliest memories are of a farm in Haryana. My father’s family were refugees who were allotted this farm as compensation for what they lost when Pakistan was made. It is perhaps because of those early memories of the harshness of rural life that I have a deep sympathy for farmers.
India may be the fastest growing major economy but in rural India there are few signs of change. It is true that there are now cellphones, online shopping, and banking, and colour TV. But most farmers still live in squalor and deprivation, haunted by the constant fear that one crop failure could ruin them. Data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation says that between 2013 and 2019, farmers’ incomes rose by 30 per cent while their debts went up by 58 per cent. Life for a farmer even in supposedly prosperous Punjab is so hard that the big dream of young men is to somehow get to Canada or the United States. So many have already fled that there are villages in which the only people left are the elderly, women, and children. It is because of these things that farmers are once more back on the borders of Delhi trying to get their voices heard.
Instead of trying to listen to these voices the response of the powers that be has been the same as it was last time. BJP chief ministers in states bordering Delhi have ripped up roads and driven iron spikes into them so that motorized traffic cannot pass and to keep farmers on foot out, there are concrete barricades topped with coils of razor wire. This time, drones have been used to drop teargas shells on the protesters.
Like they did last time, supporters of Narendra Modi can be heard spewing venom on social media. These are not real farmers, they say, but Khalistani terrorists. Many point out that only a small handful of farmers are demanding MSP (minimum support price) for their crops. This is true. But it is this handful that supply government granaries and feed our cities. Nearly eighty per cent of farmers produce only enough for their families and local markets.
This makes it even more important that the government pay attention to what those farmers who can afford the luxury of protest say. The Prime Minister never tires of telling us in nearly every speech he makes that there is a special place in his heart for farmers. But the last time they sat in protest on the borders of Delhi he did not bother to meet them to express sympathy and understanding.
Instead, he let the protests go on for more than a year and then suddenly withdrew the farm laws that caused the protest. After this, almost nothing was done to try and solve the problems that farmers face which is why they are back again. This time with demands that are outrageous and unreasonable but the response from senior ministers should not be to malign them. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting supplied news channels last week with a video of a Sikh farmer saying that the protests this time were an attempt to damage Modi’s popularity. The BJP’s virulent and hyper-active social media warriors are churning out charges of similar kind. How does this help? What is even the point of all this?
There is no question that things must change in agriculture. No question that giving farmers free electricity and water may no longer be necessary. No question that the huge investment in subsidies should be diverted instead towards building proper infrastructure to enable farmers to earn more from their produce through access to wider markets. When this begins to happen, the old system of selling farm produce will change.
Meanwhile, it is important for all politicians to behave more responsibly and stop making reckless promises in the hope of getting more farmers’ votes in the coming general election. These days all we hear are BJP politicians accusing Congress politicians of not having done enough when they were in power and Congress politicians saying that all rural distress is the fault of Modi. Taking potshots at each other in this way get us nowhere.
May I add that it would be a good idea for future members of the Lok Sabha to spend more time in rural parts of their constituencies to see just how grim and brutal rural realities are. Much has changed in urban India since Modi became prime minister which is why all polls indicate that he will win a third term. Almost nothing has changed in the villages. If Modi wins that third term, he would do well to spend time improving the lot of those Indians who live in unsanitary villages where there is no access to basic necessities.
When he next tries to bring agricultural reforms, it would make a real difference if he allowed farmers to join the discussion, instead of relying on the opinions of ‘experts’ who never spent a single night on a farm. My childhood memories of farm life are of flies, filth and long, hot nights spent battling swarms of mosquitoes. Rural life remains almost unchanged even today.
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Life for a farmer in prosperous Punjab is so hard that big dream of young men is to somehow get to Canada or the US
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18.02.2024
When we see farmers protesting once more on the edge of Delhi, how many of us remember that there is an India away from the razzmatazz of city life where nothing much has changed. My earliest memories are of a farm in Haryana. My father’s family were refugees who were allotted this farm as compensation for what they lost when Pakistan was made. It is perhaps because of those early memories of the harshness of rural life that I have a deep sympathy for farmers.
India may be the fastest growing major economy but in rural India there are few signs of change. It is true that there are now cellphones, online shopping, and banking, and colour TV. But most farmers still live in squalor and deprivation, haunted by the constant fear that one crop failure could ruin them. Data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation says that between 2013 and 2019, farmers’ incomes rose by 30 per cent while their debts went up by 58 per cent. Life for a farmer even in supposedly prosperous Punjab is so hard that the big dream of young men is to somehow get to Canada or the United States. So many have already fled that there are villages in which the only people left are the elderly, women, and children. It is because of these things that farmers are once more back on the borders of Delhi trying to get their voices heard.
Instead of trying to listen to these voices the response of the powers that be has been the same as it was........
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