There is an intense battle going on between the ruling party (BJP and its allies called NDA) and the opposition party (mainly Congress and its allies called UPA) in India. The main reason for this current political battle is the issue of the recent land acquisition bill and the farmer suicide issue. The opposition is trying to get maximum benefit from this issue, and the ruling party is trying to dodge the issue of farmer suicide by painting the rosy picture as if everything is under control and suddenly everything will change by the new land acquisition bill that they want to implement. Actually, both the issues, the land acquisition bill and debt-ridden farmers committing suicide are not new. These issues are being exploited for political gains in every election. The land acquisition bill has become a more controversial subject in the last few months mainly because of the bullying attitude of the current government which brought an ordinance to implement the bill rather than choosing the path of discussion and bipartisan collaboration as happened in 2013 to pass a similar bill. Now they have to get it passed through parliament and this is where opposition parties are sensing an opportunity to put the government in a difficult spot as they don't have the majority in the upper house (Rajya Sabha). But the more serious issue here is of situation of many farmers who are forced to commit suicide because of reasons like crop failure, poor weather, and lack of proper value to their crops which results in huge and unmanageable debt on them. There are so many reasons why many Indian farmers get into deep financial trouble where they feel no hope of revival of their situation and are forced to end their lives. Most farm lands are owned by men so they are the ones who are dying, no doubt that their families also go through tremendous trauma and hardships but normally farmer who commits suicide is the male head of the household.
BJP used the issue of farmer's suicide in previous general elections along with many other issues against the ruling UPA government, now Congress is returning the favor by attacking the NDA government on the same issue by linking it with the land acquisition bill. I studied this issue briefly and found that there are many reasons why some farmers choose to take the extreme step of suicide, but the main reason is that they lose hope in a system that is supposed to help them in distress. This system looks reasonably good on paper but its implementation on ground level is so pathetic that it is almost useless for these farmers. The farm sector in India is very ignored and unreformed sector, all other industrial sectors get some reforms and assistance to increase their income but the farm sector and farmers are always treated as a liability. It seems they are continuously asking for help and subsidies to rescue them from endless debt. The attitude of all political parties towards farmers is not very kind, they all exploit them as vote banks or use them as instruments to trouble the government but rarely do they take any substantial steps to help this distressed class when they come into power. This crisis reached its worst point when a farmer committed suicide right in front of the media, police, and thousands of people including the chief minister of Delhi during an AAP rally in the national capital. Since this death, India has witnessed a pathetic display of political opportunism where political parties are busy playing a political blame game over the dead body of a farmer. This blame game which started immediately after this tragic incident doesn't seem to end which displays the pathetic face of all political parties who want to politicize this issue to their advantage. The death of farmers is a result of a failure of the political, economic, and social systems at every level. It is a problem of years of neglect by successive governments to implement their schemes efficiently on the ground level. They declare so many schemes but rarely do they bother to check if those schemes are producing the desired effect or if the benefit of these schemes is reaching the people who really need it.
As per available statistics, more than 60% of people in India are dependent on the farm sector, so it is the largest private sector of the Indian economy. But the truth is that it hardly gets attention proportional to its size from Indian political and economic experts. Farmers and farm laborers are worst affected by this neglect. Every government announces so many schemes for them. Based on political slogans and government announcements one may think that this class is the biggest beneficiary of subsidies and relief packages from all governments, but then the question is, why they are still in distress? If such a large section of the population is dependent on farming and related things why union budget of India do not reflect that percentage in resource allocation for them? Why it is so difficult for farmers to get a loan even from nationalized banks whereas any salaried person whose job is equally uncertain can get a loan easily? Why do relief packages declared by all state and national governments from all political parties fail to reach their most deserving beneficiaries? Why a dead farmer is more valuable than a living one? "Jai jawan, jai kisan" is a very popular slogan, so, why does jawan's (soldier) death trigger completely different emotions among political and social classes compared to kisan's (farmer) death? Instead of discussing this issue seriously, and trying to come up with practical and viable solutions, why our political class is busy playing endless blame games for years? There are many questions like this, but there is no one who is even willing to listen to them, and this is a very scary scenario for those farmers who entirely depend on this broken system for help. This problem is political, economic, and social. But political and economic angles are most important as both can change the situation. Respective governments in state and center need to work towards making farming a profitable enterprise. Today it is not considered a profitable business for most farmers, among the social classes that benefited from the economic boom in India for the last two decades farmers are not one of them. Governments need to design policies that help in increasing farmer's income so that they are not dependent on rescue packages. I request my readers who understand Hindi to watch this brilliant report by Ravish to understand what difficulties farmers face on the ground level even after the declaration of so many schemes by the government to help them.
If we look beyond this political farce and endless TV debates where only the blame game is played we can see the sad face of an Indian farmer who is confused and wondering why his fortunes are not changing even after all the hard work. Why his family is excluded from the picture of shining India? They are already practicing the mantra of "make in India" so why they are not getting the attention and care that they need and deserve? Why their death is required to initiate all this discussion which every time ends in nothing but a blame game? I am sure there are many WHYs in the minds of many farmers and their families but unfortunately, I don't have any answers to their questions. I hope people who can answer them bother to look beyond their party politics and think at least for once about farmers and not about their own political fortunes, until then, there will be one more prime-time show, one more blog, one more headline, one more debate, one more chaotic parliament session but among all this, somewhere, in some village, a farmer will be preparing to end his life and we all will be guilty of allowing that suicide to happen.
BJP used the issue of farmer's suicide in previous general elections along with many other issues against the ruling UPA government, now Congress is returning the favor by attacking the NDA government on the same issue by linking it with the land acquisition bill. I studied this issue briefly and found that there are many reasons why some farmers choose to take the extreme step of suicide, but the main reason is that they lose hope in a system that is supposed to help them in distress. This system looks reasonably good on paper but its implementation on ground level is so pathetic that it is almost useless for these farmers. The farm sector in India is very ignored and unreformed sector, all other industrial sectors get some reforms and assistance to increase their income but the farm sector and farmers are always treated as a liability. It seems they are continuously asking for help and subsidies to rescue them from endless debt. The attitude of all political parties towards farmers is not very kind, they all exploit them as vote banks or use them as instruments to trouble the government but rarely do they take any substantial steps to help this distressed class when they come into power. This crisis reached its worst point when a farmer committed suicide right in front of the media, police, and thousands of people including the chief minister of Delhi during an AAP rally in the national capital. Since this death, India has witnessed a pathetic display of political opportunism where political parties are busy playing a political blame game over the dead body of a farmer. This blame game which started immediately after this tragic incident doesn't seem to end which displays the pathetic face of all political parties who want to politicize this issue to their advantage. The death of farmers is a result of a failure of the political, economic, and social systems at every level. It is a problem of years of neglect by successive governments to implement their schemes efficiently on the ground level. They declare so many schemes but rarely do they bother to check if those schemes are producing the desired effect or if the benefit of these schemes is reaching the people who really need it.
As per available statistics, more than 60% of people in India are dependent on the farm sector, so it is the largest private sector of the Indian economy. But the truth is that it hardly gets attention proportional to its size from Indian political and economic experts. Farmers and farm laborers are worst affected by this neglect. Every government announces so many schemes for them. Based on political slogans and government announcements one may think that this class is the biggest beneficiary of subsidies and relief packages from all governments, but then the question is, why they are still in distress? If such a large section of the population is dependent on farming and related things why union budget of India do not reflect that percentage in resource allocation for them? Why it is so difficult for farmers to get a loan even from nationalized banks whereas any salaried person whose job is equally uncertain can get a loan easily? Why do relief packages declared by all state and national governments from all political parties fail to reach their most deserving beneficiaries? Why a dead farmer is more valuable than a living one? "Jai jawan, jai kisan" is a very popular slogan, so, why does jawan's (soldier) death trigger completely different emotions among political and social classes compared to kisan's (farmer) death? Instead of discussing this issue seriously, and trying to come up with practical and viable solutions, why our political class is busy playing endless blame games for years? There are many questions like this, but there is no one who is even willing to listen to them, and this is a very scary scenario for those farmers who entirely depend on this broken system for help. This problem is political, economic, and social. But political and economic angles are most important as both can change the situation. Respective governments in state and center need to work towards making farming a profitable enterprise. Today it is not considered a profitable business for most farmers, among the social classes that benefited from the economic boom in India for the last two decades farmers are not one of them. Governments need to design policies that help in increasing farmer's income so that they are not dependent on rescue packages. I request my readers who understand Hindi to watch this brilliant report by Ravish to understand what difficulties farmers face on the ground level even after the declaration of so many schemes by the government to help them.
If we look beyond this political farce and endless TV debates where only the blame game is played we can see the sad face of an Indian farmer who is confused and wondering why his fortunes are not changing even after all the hard work. Why his family is excluded from the picture of shining India? They are already practicing the mantra of "make in India" so why they are not getting the attention and care that they need and deserve? Why their death is required to initiate all this discussion which every time ends in nothing but a blame game? I am sure there are many WHYs in the minds of many farmers and their families but unfortunately, I don't have any answers to their questions. I hope people who can answer them bother to look beyond their party politics and think at least for once about farmers and not about their own political fortunes, until then, there will be one more prime-time show, one more blog, one more headline, one more debate, one more chaotic parliament session but among all this, somewhere, in some village, a farmer will be preparing to end his life and we all will be guilty of allowing that suicide to happen.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]
Links:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_acquisition_in_India
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India
3. क्यों कर्जे से नहीं लड़ पाता किसान?
Links:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_acquisition_in_India
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India
3. क्यों कर्जे से नहीं लड़ पाता किसान?
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