A Warped World

What sort of a lop-sided development is this? On one hand, we’ve got the Sensex booming, touching never dreamed of figures, across just a year, while on the other hand, we have six thousand-odd farmer suicides in just one region of Maharashtra, over a period of 5 years, and nobody gives a goddamn shit!

Let me guess…you had no clue of this happening until a few days ago, when the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, visited a (unknown to you) region of Maharashtra called Vidarbha…or even worse…you still have no clue that the Dr. PM visited Vidarbha, and is, at the moment, addressing farmers across the region…or (we’re talking extreme case here) you had no clue that the PM of India was Dr. Manmohan Singh…whatever be your knowledge about the present situation, I am pretty sure you have no idea of the plight of those driven-to-suicide farmers, or the state of their surviving families…

Yep, I heard you. You’re saying, “Why should I care? I have my own problems to deal with. I managed to run up a bill of a cool seven thousand bucks on my last Saturday shopping binge, I’ve promised a treat to my colleagues on my birthday this week, and those bastards drink only tequila. And besides, you think money for the EMI’s on the Sony Home theatre, my Ford Fiesta and the cellphone bill’s gonna grow on trees? Why should I bother about stupid farmers growing cotton in parts of India I’ve never heard of? Let me watch the Lakme India Fashion Week in peace, will ya?”. Now you listen to me. Shut up about your own problems, and read on.

Vidarbha has been a cotton-growing region for long. As you probably (don’t) remember, the Deccan Plateau, with its black soil, is very useful for growing cotton. After putting this little titbit of information in their textbooks, the (successive) governments have coolly forgotten about the farmers in the hinterland, leaving them to fend for themselves. The result? These poor souls have had repeated failed/ unpredictable monsoons, throwing their crops into total disarray. The government unobtrusively gets out of the cotton-buying department, sensing greater money (read bribes) elsewhere, and leave it to middlemen. The middlemen have no scruples whatsoever, and happily fleece the farmers. Across the Vidarbha region, there are people who have debts to the tune of sixty thousand rupees, to local moneylenders. Oh! I forgot to mention…the co-operative banks refuse to give these chaps a loan, leaving them at the mercy of moneylenders, who are always looking to make a quick buck. At the same time, sons and daughters need to be married off, to a show of pomp and splendour…driven to the edge, these farmers have done only what is normal in those circumstances: committed suicide. These chaps had no new-or-old-fangled notions of fasting at the Jantar Mantar…they simply did what came naturally to humans at such times of distress.

In these times of poverty, farmers put themselves in hellishly weird situations. There have been umpteen cases of marriages and funerals being clubbed together (Marry one, Bury one Free??) to save money. A marriage to remember, eh little girl? Picture yourself performing your wedding rites, (knowing that the house you are about to enter is no better off that you are) while your father’s last rites (who just committed suicide, by the way) are being performed a discreet distance away? Want some more? Add your father’s elder brother to the funeral pyre, a brother’s wedding to yours, and remember to remove all signs of happiness or normalcy from your surroundings, and you have a perfect wedding, don’t you?

Villages have come together to help families having weddings and funerals by pitching in, and contributing, in cash or kind, in whatever meager way they can. Remember, the good Samaritans were no better off themselves, but I think this is what would be called the Saving Grace of Humanity.

Coming back to your “I-have-so-many-troubles-on-my-Allen Solly-clad-shoulders” life…a contradiction you never realized…the fabric on those models in your goddamn Lakme India Fashion Week is the result of the very same people you’re trying desparately to ignore. An observation of one Mr. P. Sainath, through whose writings in The Hindu, I have gone from being just a passive reader of the newspaper, to a passionate critic of the happenings around me.
P. Sainath, Regional Affairs Editor, The Hindu, has traveled extensively in the Vidarbha, and his writings on the subject are well researched, and are a must read. Read P. Sainath's writings in The Hindu here, here, and here.