P SAINATH
speaks to SHALINI SINGH about the agrarian
crisis plaguing rural India.
|
P.
Sainath |
|
When you had India
Fashion Week, over 500 accredited journalists covered it. Less than six
journalists from outside Vidarbha were there that same week |
You've been
working in rural India since the last 13 years. Was the PM's visit to
Vidarbha in June this year, the Indian government's first visit to any
of the crisis-hit regions?
The UPA government
came to power on farmer anger against the existing governments, particularly
that of Mr Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. The June visit was the
first time it was happening in Vidarbha. Neither the agriculture minister,
nor the Chief Minister had visited a single household, to sit with the
villagers to find out what was happening.
What was
the previous government's response to this issue?
Denial. When we
talk about the government's response, it's also important to see what
has been the media's response to the issue. It's appalling. On Independence
Day, PM Manmohan Singh mentioned Vidarbha in his speech from Red Fort.
After Jammu and Kashmir, that was the region singled out. Has it shown
in the editorial priority of the newspapers? It hasn't. When you had
India Fashion Week in Bombay over 500 accredited journalists covered
the Fashion Week. Less than 6 journalists from outside Vidarbha were
in Vidarbha in that same week. There is a connection by the way with
the Fashion Week and Vidarbha. The fashion models on the ramp were displaying
cotton garments. One hour's flight away the guys growing the cotton
were committing suicide. Surely that makes news? But it didn't.
The government
announced an almost Rs 4000 crores relief package. Why are the suicides
continuing despite this?
Simply because,
in one sense, it's a reflection of how completely irrelevant the package
is to the lives of the people. What does it address? Most of the Rs
3750 crore package is for existing irrigation projects. The relief package
is a bureaucratic sham. Most of these are are for already existing projects.
Number two, it still doesn't even talk of 85% rain-fed farmers whose
land is un-irrigated. It doesn't even marginally impinge on their lives.
The suicides are only a manifestation of a much larger crisis. What
are the causes of that? None of those causes are addressed in the package.
What is
the answer then, definitely its not relief packages…but first,
what are the problems?
My point is, why
are we seeing suicides in Vidarbha and elsewhere? This country is in
the middle of its greatest agrarian crisis since the Green Revolution.
Food production is stagnating. Very dangerously. For the first time
in a very long period of your history, for the first time in decades,
the rate of growth of food output is running well below the rate of
population.
Where does
this talk of India Shining emanate from then!
It comes from those
for whom India is shining.
You've said
that the farmer suicides are only a symptom of the agrarian crisis.
How would you define the agrarian crisis?
The agrarian crisis
is about a much wider rural distress. It's a crisis driven not by drought
or natural calamity as Mr Sharad Pawar has said in the Parliament. And
he didn't use the word crisis. It's a crisis driven by policy; global,
national, local. Ok, why did this happen? It happened because through
the reform years, we've been diverting resources, we've been robbing
the poor to pay the rich. Now I cover guys who commit suicide because
they're not able to get less than 10% interest on Rs 8000 crop loan.
I go back to my urban middle-class home in Mumbai where I get an invitation
from my bank 'buy a Mercedes Benz, no collateral at 4% interest'. So
if you're buying a Mercedes Benz – unproductive expenditure –
you pay virtually no interest. If you are the food producers, you're
paying two to three times that interest. That's the sheer injustice
of it.
What about
the presence of multinationals in agricultural inputs?
A handful of them
control the trade across the world. One of the big headaches in Vidarbha
is the state propagandised and favoured the promotion of Bt Cotton.
Firstly, Bt Cotton technologies are themselves suspect in a number of
ways. However, promoting them in a dry and un-irrigated area like Vidarbha
was murderous. It was stupid, it was killing. The Bt Cotton packet was
costing Rs 1800 to 1850 for a packet of 450 grams. On each packet of
Rs 1850, Monsanto was making a royalty of Rs 1250. Coming back the MNC's,
their role in the crisis has been devastating. One, they have been able
to corrupt and lobby government policy very significantly changing it
in their favour and against the farmers.
The Supreme
Court issued notices to the central and state governments. According
to the governments are under constitutional obligation to ensure the
survival of the farmers.
Legal redress is
one option. But I have no idea what the SC will finally say. The SC
has already pulled up the government repeatedly on hunger deaths. The
Bombay High Court has slammed them on the farmers' suicides. The Government
of Maharashtra refused compensation to a farmer – his father had
committed suicide. They said your father committed suicide because of
depression over your mother's death. Well, the wife had died 16 years
back. The court pulled up the government, and compensation was given.
So there are various things that may or not happen in the court.
What is
the psychology of the suffering families – those who've lost a
breadwinner and those who've not? Is there a difference between the
two?
The suicides are
only a part of the problem; they are not its cause. Millions of households
exist which haven't seen suicides but are in no better economic condition.
The financial condition of the two isn't vastly different. The big difference
is that usually one has lost a chief breadwinner. Otherwise, their conditions
are similar. Million households have not faced suicides but have faced
the same crisis. That's why it's important to know that the agrarian
crisis is much larger than the suicides. What's also disturbing is the
possibility of a second suicide in the same household. The pressure
on the widow is too much. There have been young widows who killed themselves
with their baby daughters because they don't want to leave them behind
to go into the flesh trade
Is it true
that the suicides went up in July this year as opposed to last year
despite the PM’s visit to Vidarbha?
There are two sets
of figures, one is the official set, which is very recent, shaky and
not reliable, then there are the Vidarbha’s Jan Andolan Samiti’s
figures, which are more reliable. Both confirm this.
Have there
been any positives at all in the government’s actions?
There was a political
benefit to the PM’s visit; nothing in terms of the economy. There
was also a complete exposure of the Union Agriculture Minister who’d
stood in Parliament to say that nothing much was the problem, that the
suicides were ‘normal’. The great thing about Maharashtra
is that it has a governor who’s only interested in the neighbouring
state – Mr Krishna flies 6 times a month to Bangalore. Its got
a Chief Minister who’s only interested in real estate and Union
Minister obsessed with cricket. Neither the CM nor the Union Agriculture
Minister had visited any of the distressed families and spoken to them.
To find the positives in the government’s actions, you would need
a microscope.
