There were reports of a turmeric farmer’s death in Telangana, the reason ostensibly being that the price for the produce had crashed to Rs 3600 for 300 kg. Similarly there were reports of pomegranate prices falling to Rs 15 per kg. Toor dal is in surplus after a bumper harvest and prices have reached rock bottom without the government doing enough and news reports indicate that farmers having no other alternative have dumped the dal at the gates of Mantralaya in Mumbai. And just 6-8 months ago we were talking of a scarcity in dal and regulating its prices. Earlier it was the same situation with onions, then tomato and again maybe with potato which has also seen a bumper harvest.
These up and down situations with farmers always being at the receiving end in whichever situation is a cause for distress which needs to be properly addressed by our government. What has happened to government agencies that used to buy produce like NAFED, STC, etc. etc. Why cannot the scope of these agencies be expanded to buy everything from the farmers at normal times as well as during bountiful harvests at fixed rates which they can then distribute around the country or export.
The farmer’s lot(a) is filled with tears be it during failed monsoon or drought and even after a good monsoon. Where should he go? Which doors can he knock to make ends meet for him and his family? No wonder farmer’s children are not too keen to continue in farming because of first, the back breaking labour and second, seeing the pot of misery that their parents have to carry year after year. At this rate within another three decades we will have a famine in India with no food for the burgeoning population. Even commitments made at election times by the Prime Minister himself are not being honoured.
During the run-up to the 2014 elections Narendra Modi had said that farmer’s will not have any need to worry if the BJP comes to power since apart from the cost of inputs, the government will set up MSP (Minimum Support Prices) for every commodity after taking into account a 50% margin. With the 3 year’s anniversary of Modi’s government around the corner, the Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh claims that no such assurance was given. With people who put food on our table this BJP government continues to play games with their livelihoods.
The incidence of farmers committing suicide continues unabated. The single and most important reason for this is the farmer’s inability to firstly secure and then pay back loans that they take normally from the village moneylender’s. Inspite of shedding crocodile tears on the problem the BJP government has not applied themselves to resolving the administrative issue of enabling the farmer’s loans to take their loans from the banking system. The farmer’s in the majority of cases do not have proper ownership of land and/or are tenant farmers for which reason banks turn their back on them for sanction of loans. This compels the farmers to go back to the village moneylender which has been the source of funding for them for generations and which has squeezed them dry.
At the same time this government takes action for writing off NPA’s at banks by issuing a special Ordinance passed by the President but for writing off farmer’s loans forming a microscopic value of the NPA’s everyone has an objection ranging from Chairperson, SBI, the Niti Aayog bigwigs and even M S Swaminathan! And while this government is obsessed with ‘No-Fly List’, Demonetisation, Cashless Society etc. etc., we have the deaths of farmers being deliberately ignored and brushed aside. Why can the Rs 300 crores set aside for incentivising Debit Card usage not be stopped immediately and alternately used to set up a fund to assist the families of farmers who have either committed suicide or died under unnatural circumstances in the last one year. At the same time the Prime Minister continues on his shallow play of words by saying the other day at a public function that India had a Green Revolution once but we can look forward to an ‘Evergreen’ Revolution. These are all empty words with little action on the ground to change the lot of the farmers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his lackeys continue to talk about their orientation towards the poor but there is little or no concrete action on the ground. There seems to be a discordance in the government’s approaches to issues needed by the common citizen like in the Railways where the government is not able to offer safe and secure travel to its citizens given the number of accidents and dacoities/thefts on trains these days and provide wholesome food on the journeys, they are introducing luxury trains like the Tejas Express between Mumbai and Goa which had its first run a few days ago with plush interiors, wi-fi and 5-star food apart from other facilities.
Sometimes one wonders where this government is leading us and where this country is ultimately headed. With this government’s obsession on India Shining issues, there is a neglect of the poor and downtrodden irrespective of what the official line that is being put out of a concern and support for them since this is a class of people who have no voice to protest or clarify the correct situation and even if they manage to speak out, it is easy to either ignore or suppress these voices.
