Gujarat riots still haunt the national psyche even after 5 years. It got all the media attention it deserved and continued to get it year after year. The culprits were booked and the law is taking it’s own course as Supreme court of India has been directly monitoring the progress of the case. However, there is one more tragedy happening, on a much bigger scale and repeating itself every year unfortunately though. It does not attract any media attention as there are no spicy politics involved and nobody is bothered because the culprits involved are elected governments.
Yes, I am talking about farmer’s suicides. When people commit suicides elsewhere in other countries in large numbers, it used to be strange news for most of us. Now this is happening in our own backyard. Sixty years of Independence has not yet improved the condition of these farmers. Agriculture farmers are committing suicides in India especially in South, not in hundreds but in thousands every single year. The situation is very gloomy, especially in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. It all started with failing cottom farming in Andhra Pradesh. It slowly spread to other farming communities and to the adjoining Maharashtra. Farmers anguish was reflected in 2004 elections when incumbent governments were routed. However it hardly changed the ground situation and the suicide saga continued unabated. Andhra Pradesh’s CM was busy demanding dismissal of Gujarat CM for later’s failure to stop the riots, where as he was a bigger failure as he could not arrest the catastrophe that was happening at home, which was taking away more lives every year than once in a decade Gujarat riots. Of course, people had shown him the door and got much worse government as a replacement. Since then, the plight of farmers worsened further. I do not hold only these two responsible. It is a culmination of wrong policies adopted for the last sixty years.
The reasons for these suicides are plenty. The first and the foremost reason is that the small extent of lands these farmers own can no longer sustain them. One can hardly find any farmer with an acre of land or more. What ever may be the government policies or support, these small lands can never support an entire family. Second is high input costs and defective seeds. And large parts of the country still does not have irrigation water supply and mainly depends upon the rains and ground water for irrigation needs. Finally, the marketing of the farm products became a burden and in many instances farmers allow their corps to die or throw away the products as this turned out to be a cheaper option than selling it.
Recently we heard many reports advising the farmers to shift themselves away from farming. However, there are no other alternate opportunities readily available for them. For many decades, successive governments let loose license raj and throttled the economy. Many east Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore..etc who got independence along with India and were like India in 1950’s, economically progressed well and nearly eradicated poverty from their lands. In India, our idiotic and selfish leaders with their shortsighted policies, failed to give a right direct to the country, pushed it into utter poverty. Every year hundreds of hunger deaths are reported from many backward states. I hold these leaders responsible for each and every suicide and huger death.
Many farmers are now-a-days selling their lands in midst of real estate boom. I am worried what will they turn to once all the money is evaporated. Overall economic growth and other rural employment schemes must be implemented to save them. Large-scale retailing that started off recently by Reliance and other groups might help bring in good price for the farm products. It is also important for philanthropic organizations to step in to saves these farmers.