Farmer Distress and Modi Govt.

Copy Edited By Adam Rizvi: This is the news on the first page of Indian Express today – Kiran Shantappa Ghorwade from Shirol, Kolhapur joined the farmers march in Delhi along with the one lac farmers who had gathered there to force the government machinery to act against their distress. He was in debt of Rs.6 Lacs.

Ghorwade died jumping from the 3rd floor of Ambedkar Bhavan in Delhi. His body was brought back to his village where his brother and son narrated horrible stories of how agriculture drove him to death.

On the 12th page of the same newspaper was an article titled Coin Coin Main Ram. It talks about Karsevakpuram in Ayodhya, an association that has been collecting donations since 1992 for the construction of Ram Mandir. For 26 years, every day, close to 1500 devotees come and donate anywhere between Rs.51 to Rs.1000. The Karsevakpuram makes an average of Rs.8000 a day from these donations. These days, they make even Rs.50,000 in a single day. Crores of such funds are lying in their bank.

Swadesh Kumar, one of the trustee, says that the donors always ask them when the Ram Temple will be built. And he tells them – “Jab Ram Ki Iccha Hogi. Abhi to mamla Court main hai. Magar Mandir Banega Zaroor, yeh tey hai.” (It will happen when Lord Ram wishes. Right now the matter is in the Courts, but the Mandir will be built, that is a foregone conclusion.)

How much ever I want to believe that the tallest statue in the world worth Rs.2800,00,00,000, or the fastest Bullet Train worth Rs.1,50,000,00,00,000 is important for elevating the status of India to the world, I am unable to wrap around the idea of doing it at the cost of dying agriculture and farming economy in this country. Neither Sardar Patel nor Japan would have allowed this to be done at the cost of human lives.

Why can’t we take a 150,000 crore loan from Japan to restructure agriculture in this country using Japanese agricultural technology? Japan has built a technology called Film Farming that allows farmers to grow fruits and vegetables on virtually any land, including barren land, desert and even concrete!

Here is the link:
https://www.japan.go.jp/…/autumn_…/new_technology_makes.html

But such logic will not work. Even the most educated will pounce on me and justify why statues, trains, and mandirs are important to India than dying farmers. This is what our privileges have done to our brains. They have made us heartless. We have an educated population in this country that believes that this government can do no wrong and every criticism against the government is a conspiracy to downgrade their electoral fortunes for 2019. This is all that matters to some of us. It is shameful.

If you ask me, farmers should be at the center of all development in this country. I have said this countless times earlier. As P Sainath says, “Let the victims of the agrarian crisis, the widows of Vidarbha, orphans of Anantpur, for the first time in a historic move, let them stand on the central floor of the Parliament and address Parliament and the nation on what the agrarian crisis is and what it did to them.”

But all this is wishful thinking in a country where JAI stands for Japan, America, and India. What happened to Jai Kisan? All that can wait.

Sometimes I feel I should tell the farmers to waive saffron flags and trishuls when they march for their protests henceforth. If they shout Jai Shri Ram and associate their problems to some vile threat to Hinduism, all political antennas will stand up. They will suddenly become vote banks. Because in this country, anything in the name of Ram gets a priority. Rahul Gandhi and Baba Ramdev have successfully proven this fact in recent times.

They say –

“Mujhme Ram, Tujhme Ram, Har Kan Kan Main Hai Ram” (There is Ram inside you and inside me. Not just us, every particle moving on this earth has Ram in it.)

If that is so, then the farmer is an avatar of Ram. More so, because he feeds us. He subsidizes our food by making his business unviable. When he is unable to repay his debts, he kills himself rather than make food unaffordable for us. This is the reality of India today.

I wish Swadesh Kumar donates all that money he has received from Ram bhakts to save farmer lives in UP. And while he does so, I wish he proudly announces –

“Ek Bhi Kisan Nahi Marega Iss Desh Main. Yeh Tey Hai.”