When farmers & mid-day meal providers are made to struggle financially, there’s something rotten in the State

The biggest form of cruelty anytime anywhere in the world is harming the helpless. And this is true from the mountains of Manipur where innocent Kuki tribals are getting lynched in greater numbers than their Meitei brethren, in an orgy of violence, to an innocent farmer in Goa who has not received his support price subsidy for two full years, making it impossible for him to go back to his farm and grow food for us.

Both are equally cruel to the person suffering-for one it involves the loss of lives of loved ones, to the Goan farmer it’s a loss of livelihood and a future. And these cruelties are inflicted not by doing, but by doing nothing. Goa’s farmers already battling against shrinking farms and debris in their fields, flooding due to no de-silting of bunds, are quickly giving up their traditional occupations, out of utter despair and frustration,. Those who toil on the field to grow our food, struggle to find food on their tables.

Is this the Goa we fought for, where sons of the soil have become sufferers?

5,000 paddy farmers in Goa are suffering on account of the non-release of support price subsidy for two consecutive years, farmers from Maina-Curtorim. They have been denied the subsidy for machinery purchased during the same period and on top of that our Chief Minister had clearly indicated that he wants to take agriculture on the private route. He said in Pernem recently, “If we turn to the government for every aspect of agriculture, things will not work and only privatisation can ensure that changes take place in agriculture.” 

Are we trying to get big fish to take over our farms privately and bury the remaining Goan farmers?

Our farmers need protection and care and support. Those continuing to farm need to be encouraged to make a good living out of it. Privatising agriculture is throwing out Goan farmers to the sharks. Can they compete against big private farming? Will they survive? Aren’t you bringing fear into the minds of local farmers?

A doctor is always sensitive to the people under his care

A medical practitioner across the board is by default sensitive to the people he is supposed to care for, Which is why health and well-being are twin companions. A medical practitioner, even in a political avatar is naturally expected to wear concern on his sleeves.

Now when women in self-help groups, whose only motto is securing food for schools in rural areas, are being viewed as protestors and hindrance creators for asking for their dues so that they can continue to buy provisions to prepare mid-day meals for children, you ask, where is that concern?

Does a sensitive administration arm twist women Self-Help Groups after not paying them?

Already faced with low enrolment which results in some schools having less than ten children (some have less than 5) the mid-day meals are perhaps the only reason in many cases why parents send their children to school. The Self-Help Groups are like guardian angels that cook and reach hot nutritious food to the schools, in remote interior areas. Now imagine if their overdue payments for six months, add up to almost Rs 25 lakh in some cases, how are these groups expected to run and continue to buy provisions and cook for them?

These kind-hearted women have pawned jewellery, and taken loans to keep going, not for themselves but due to their sense of duty and service, Which MLA, MP or politicians like ex and future hopeful MLAs dip into their pockets to do this? The government’s reaction to the pleas and then their desperate message that they will not supply food from July 1 if bills are not cleared evoked a confrontationist response. The education director said there is a clause, wherein they can replace the SHGs, if the latter stops or threatens to stop the supply of mid-day meals to students. Was this tone of response needed from a sensitive government?

Good governance is not about schemes, it’s about trust, it has to be won

Cut to the Mopa link road at Suke Kulan in Dhargalim. Here farmers have had their cashew trees destroyed and many have lost their homes. Now on the road that has come up in its place, they are facing speeding trucks carrying construction material to the Moa airport. They have suffered accidents, and now deaths. In mid-June, people took to the streets demanding compensation for the family in the truck accident post where they set cranes on fire. Notwithstanding that the law has to be followed, a little bit of empathy, assurances, and personal visits by the  highest in the government could have  repaired nerves and hearts.

When there is a shortage of trust, any move of the government is viewed with doubt and scepticism

When farmers don’t get compensation for floods on their fields or subsidies for their crops, they have a right to cast doubt on any scheme or move. Therefore, when the government introduced a bill to impose restrictions on the transfer (sale) of agricultural lands in Goa to non-agriculturalists it was seen as back door entry for non-farmers from buying farmland and constructing large farm house since the collector can make exceptions and permit the transfer of agricultural land to non-agriculturist in certain circumstances. Ramkrishna Jalmi, convener of Goa Kul Mundkar Association, said in a news report, “We fear that with the provisions in the Bill, agricultural land will lose the protections and will be converted for use by industrialists. We will petition the Governor against granting assent to the Bill.

Governance is not a sum total of targets achieved, investments brought and schemes rolled out. It’s simply about ensuring peace and happiness

In Manipur or in Goa there is no bravery in troubling the weak or making them live in the fear of uncertainty for absolutely no crime of theirs. If the hands that grow our food or cook for children have to be raised to fight for justice, or folded to beg for it, we as a State have failed.