Of Farmer Stars and the 'Star's of the Farmers….

A couple of months back I had come across a news paper article about the plight of cotton farmers in Maharashtra. It explained how at a time when the Indian textile industry was struggling in the international market, at the behest of the Government, the farmers had agreed to supply the cotton at lower prices in order to allow the industry to sustain itself and recover. But the clever ‘blue chip men’ managing the companies misled the farmers and they continued to supply the cotton far below the market prices long after the crisis blew over. As the leeches grew fat, the farmers began falling into debt traps. And finally when the death punch was delivered by the Mother Nature in the form of drought and pests, resulting in huge losses, the fat pigs chose to look the other way! And one by one the poor farmers chose a glorious exit instead of going out with a begging bowl.

In the recent past, the actions of two ‘arrogant’ CMs from the North and the South of the country had made life difficult for two of India’s popular personalities, one a ‘multi-mega’ star and the other a ‘mega’ star. They did no wrong, just decided to make a living as Gandhiji had advised. They saw immense pride in declaring themselves as farmers and so thought of owning some farm land. But these ‘rampaging’ CMs had other ideas. They ‘went out of their way’ to grab the lands owned by these ‘poor farmers’! Don’t they know about the contributions of these two men who over the years, through their distinctly masculine voices, exhorted people to fight corruption, exploitation, nepotism, injustice and what not?!

P Sainath is one of my favorite journalists. He had come up with another ‘op-ed’ on the topic in The Hindu last month. It told the story of Ms. KALAVATI BANDURKAR, the mother of seven girls and two boys in Jalka village of Yavatmal district in Vidharbha. One of over a lakh of women farmers across the country, who had lost their husbands to farm suicides in the past 14 years.

Her husband's debt of over Rs.50000/- led him mortgage even her mangalsutra. But their nine acres yielded just four quintals that fetched Rs.7000/-. The day he sold his cotton, he redeemed his wife's mangalsutra with the money, went out to the field and killed himself. Kalavati, always a fighter, decided to carry on. "Farming is what we do," she says, as per the report, without a trace of self-pity. "We'll keep on doing it." She now runs a failing nine-acre farm and also works on the land of others for Rs.30 a day. In the off-season she earns just Rs.20 from fetching and selling firewood. Her last source of income is the milk from a buffalo she owns, Rs.60-80 a day and sometimes a little more. On these earnings, some ten human beings survive. Right now they sell all the milk. Even the kids at home don't get to consume a drop of it. She had worked hard and paid off most of her husband’s debts.

And this ever-smiling, matter-of-fact grandmother never got a paisa's compensation from government! The reason: the land they cultivate is not their own but leased from others!! So when her husband Parsuram, hit by debt and crop failure, took his life, his death was not recognized as a "farmer's suicide". The official logic: if there's no land in his name, he's not a farmer!!! She's annoyed at not being recognized as a farmer and thereby losing out on the compensation. "We do own 3.5 acres in Chandrapur district," she says. "But that land is still in our parents' names and has not yet been settled in our names." So technically, they are not ‘farmers’!

Please note the irony,……. the status so easily acquired by the Farmer Stars!

She pays only Rs.10,000/- a year to lease the nine acres, an indication of the poor quality of the land. It's hard work, but Kalavati has no complaints. What bothers her is that the costs of inputs are rising too much. “No more cotton for us. We have to do something else.” she says. Despite the hardships, it's said to be a smiling if very noisy household ruled by lively youngsters.

Ms. Kalavati Bandurkar is one survivor who asserts that she would like her children too, to go into agriculture. This is a rarity in our countrysides these days where people desperately seek jobs outside farming for their young. But she's already planning for the next season. "We'll stay with agriculture" she reiterates.

While emphasizing that nature had provided sufficient gifts for use of all man kind and the other species, Mahatma Gandhi had stated that there was enough for the satisfaction of every man's need, but not for any man's greed.

The vast wealth of our nation & the planet as a whole, generated due to the rapid strides in technology, science and engineering over the last few decades should be more than enough for all of us. But the structures of power within nations and between nations continue to reward the few at the very top while penalizing the majority at the bottom of the pile.

There is a saying that we tend to imitate the very people whom we criticize most. So why blame the 'super heroes' who had to teach a lesson or two to a variety of villains for the most part of their lives?