We don’t need more Mandsaurs
Owing to political apathy towards farmers, the fires of dissatisfaction are raging in the country
What happened in Mandsaur last week is highly regrettable, but the flames of agrarian distress are singeing many parts of the country. The reason? For a large part of our population that resides in villages and small towns, a powerful Indian nation-state remains a dream. Shouldn’t we be ashamed that a country that calls itself an agricultural nation doesn’t even have a proper national agricultural policy?
From 1947 to now, every government has just treated farmers as a vote bank. That’s why villages are being deserted and cities groaning under the weight of unwelcome migrants. Politicians from big metro cities keep blaming migrants for the breakdown of their infrastructure. They forget that these outsiders haven’t arrived in cities out of choice but they are victims of circumstance.
Recently when farmers from Tamil Nadu were protesting at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, they went to painful lengths to draw the media’s attention. Some people called their agitation politically motivated. Shouldn’t they be asked why farmers had to drink urine, eat mice or wear a chain of human skulls to draw people’s attention towards their cause?
Were the farmers from Punjab who littered the national highway with thousands of tonnes of tomatoes also trying to create needless drama? Were the UP farmers whose potatoes rotted lying on the road politically motivated? Those who protested by pouring milk on Maharashtra’s roads were beleaguered farmers, not callous politicians. How long will we keep ridiculing the truth?
After news emerged of five sons of the soil being shot dead in Mandsaur, I spoke to farmers in my village, in Mainpuri district. The bowl of dal has vanished from the tables of people. They make ends meet by having lunch and dinner that includes potatoes and locally grown green vegetables. There’s a water scarcity as the wells had dried up many years ago. Today you have to dig very deep to even operate a hand-pump. The water is so saline it is impossible to drink. Women and children are malnourished. There was a time they broke into a dance at the sight of clouds in the sky. Today they get anxious thinking that even if the Almighty made every season conducive for agriculture, they may not manage to sell their crop.
For them loan waivers are not a long-term cure for a festering wound: just first-aid. Though Madhya Pradesh, where farmers are agitating, has displayed the highest growth rate in agriculture in the last five years. In 2014 the growth reached 25% when it was around 4% in the rest of India. Despite such incredible agricultural growth, the farmers neither got the prices they deserved, nor the buyers.
If after every harvest the loan appears to increase rather than decrease, the farmers’ anger appears justified. Statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau say 3,18,528 farmers committed suicide in India between 1995 and 2015. Similarly, between 2001 and 2011, nine million farmers left their ancestral homes and migrated to cities. A study suggests more than 2,000 farmers head to cities every day to make a living. Why are human rights bodies and those who shed tears about terrorism blind to their plight?
Let us analyse the farmers’ fury now. The outbreak of violence in Mandsaur was coming. The agitation began in Maharashtra on June 1 and the very next day spread to Madhya Pradesh. The problem with governments is that instead of finding a long-term solution they treat farmers’ agitation as a law and order issue while taking decisions. If this wasn’t the case and people in responsible positions not reacted childishly, those killed in Mandsaur would not have become victims of police firing. Until when will they keep the truth concealed?
There was a time when Ram Manohar Lohia brought down his own government after farmers were shot at. Since then the manner in which the attitudes of politicians have changed is evident from the reactions in the aftermath of the Jantar Mantar and Mandsaur agitations.
No single politician or party but the entire power-hungry political establishment should be held accountable for this. That is why fires of dissatisfaction are raging in different parts of the country.
The time has come for New Delhi and state leaderships to think seriously about this isssue. The police or paramilitary forces of independent India don’t look good firing on their own people. We don’t need more Mandsaurs.