|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << September10, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net]Letter to the President on vaccines and others |
September14, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net] Diabetes,Jatin Das,Silchar moms,Malegaon,NRIs etc >> |
|
[1] From: rkurian@bgl.vsnl.net.in Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 Subject: The World of the Peasant in India.. Date:08/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/08/stories/2006090806591000.htm Opinion - Leader Page Articles What the heart does not feel, the eye cannot see P. Sainath After 15 years of a battering from hostile policies and governments, the world of the peasant has turned highly fragile. But the onus of changing is on the farmer. Not on those driving a cruel process and system. THE SPRAYING season is just about to begin in Vidharbha. Which means the region sits on a volcano. This is when a farmer actually holds that can of pesticide in his hand. When a moment's frustration can snuff out a life forever. Even the run-up to the season has been a disaster. More than 200 farmers have committed suicide in two months. August alone saw 111 indebted farmers kill themselves. That brings the total since June last year to 828. Of these, 72 have occurred since Independence Day this year. We'd be lucky if the Government prepares itself for this season. And if we're even more lucky, the suicides might taper off a bit after the spraying. They have always had seasonal highs and lows. It's vital though never to forget that these deaths are only a symptom of the larger crisis. Not its cause. Failing to see this link means ignoring the main issues. It then becomes "if they're not killing themselves, things are okay." A bad illusion. That said, the numbers are indeed appalling. Something very fundamental is happening. The central, driving factors behind the suicides remain the same. Rising debt, soaring input costs, plummeting output prices, a credit crunch and so on. But the outcome now adds up to more than just the sum total of these factors. After 15 years of a battering from hostile policies and governments, the world of the peasant has turned highly fragile. Problems that would not have driven many to suicide a decade ago do so now. It takes less to push farmers over the edge because their resistance is down. So fragile is their economy and equilibrium. The studies and surveys seldom account for one vital factor ??? the worldview of peasants. How that is changing as their links to the land erode. How their hopes of what's possible are constantly dashed. How, losing their anchor, they drift to a frightening future. How it feels to watch your child drop out of school or college because education has become too expensive. Even as your daughter's marriage is off, because you cannot afford it. You fail to get your ailing mother to a hospital because health is the most costly thing in your world. All this while agriculture itself is tanking. And there's less food on the table. For too many, pessimism soaks the worldview this shapes. And despair gains ground as the coming deity. But why are farmers committing suicide only in Vidharbha? This question based on falsehood or ignorance or both, is being posed just now. Farm suicides have been on in many parts of the country. In sheer numbers, Andhra Pradesh has had more than any other State. During the Chandrababu Naidu years, they accounted for the bulk of all such deaths in the country. A better question would be why their intensity has been less since then. Or why they could easily go up again in the same State. Farm suicides have also been on for several years in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere. To imply they are only happening in Vidharbha is false. The agrarian problem is nationwide. So are many of the policies driving it. But all regions are not the same. Some crops are more subject to price shocks. Some communities more vulnerable than others. Some cultivation practices more destructive than others. And some governments are far worse at handling distress than others. No State is exempt from the crisis. But more exposed regions will feel its effects before many others do. Those covering the Andhra Pradesh suicides in the early years of this decade were often asked this question: why only Andhra? Something is wrong with people there. Among those asking were many from Maharashtra. They were quite sure this could never happen in their State. Farm suicides have been on for a while in the cotton-growing West African nations, too. As they have in many other parts of the world with farmers into other crops as well. (They occurred in the United States, too, during the Great Depression. And again, as corporate farming snuffed out small holder agriculture in the last quarter of the 20th century.) But this way of posing it ??? why Vidharbha? ??? allows us to spring the next argument. The problem is not distress or debt. The problem is with the `psyche' of the Vidharbha farmer. Note that this `psyche' has nothing to do with the lived experience of the peasant. It's about the wiring inside his brain. Having thus derived an `answer' verging on the racist, we can leave the status quo as it is. Counsel the poor things. They need shrinks. Also, it becomes clear ??? to those of this view ??? that the factors are `social' rather than economic. If we can cut down the `social evils' like drinking alcohol, things would be okay. This might even be funny if it weren't so tragically obtuse. For one thing, if liquor is the main cause of farm suicides, there would be little left of the Indian peasantry. Indeed, Vidharbha would have more survivors. The Warkari sect ??? firm abstainers ??? have a large following here. Yet this group too has been hit by suicides. Further, why then are there more such deaths in Vidharbha than in Tamil Nadu? Liquor is better entrenched in the rural regions of the latter. It also raises the question why alcohol leads rich kids in Mumbai to rape and murder, but leads poor farmers in Vidharbha to suicide. Sure alcohol can be a factor in some of the deaths. There have been instances of farmers who got drunk, fought with their wives, and took their lives. These have mostly come after financial collapse, crushing levels of debt, and humiliation at the hands of creditors. Interestingly, an investigation by the newspaper Sakaal suggests that the number of suicide victims who had an alcohol problem is quite minor. Normally, the drunkenness argument comes up in the second or third year of a crisis, when denial is still an option. That's how it happened in Andhra. That it should come up so late in Vidharbha's crisis speaks of at least two things. A bankrupt elite scraping the barrel for excuses. And their inept yes-men in the media, ignorant of a larger canvas or history to the issue. Contempt for ordinary folk "They did it for the handouts." That's another jibe that reeks of contempt for ordinary folk. It tells us more about the people asserting this than about those taking their lives. The notion is that people destroy their families forever in order to get a `compensation' of Rs. 1 lakh. This reduces the victim to some kind of crazed beast. Yawn. It's all been said before. In 1998, using precisely this claim, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu scrapped compensation for suicide-hit families. Fact: the suicides shot up and were at their highest in the years 1998-2004 when there was no compensation at all. Then there are the ideologically insane. The members of the sect have no interest in either farmers or agriculture. Only in upholding their Gospel. For them, farmers are dying because they have not been reached by free market reforms. If more of them keep dying after they are reached, it's because the "reforms have not gone far enough." It hangs a halo of righteousness around wanton ignorance. The same `commitment' also leads to a spirited defence of large corporations wreaking havoc in agriculture. The stout defence of technologies about which the defender knows nothing. Some of this is, of course, ideological. Some of it is also self-serving. Corporations involved in agriculture have organised foreign freebies for their ideological advocates. At this moment, major efforts are under way to co-opt journalists in affected regions. Yet, we can be proud that the vast majority have rejected such blandishments. So many of Vidharbha's journalists ??? and activists ??? remain a scourge of the establishment. Meanwhile, every other study ends up calling for `counselling' of the Vidharbha farmers. Calls upon them to change their system of cultivation. Sure there's some reality in this. (The agriculture extension system ??? which should indeed `counsel' farmers ??? has collapsed nationwide.) But why not counsel governments on their policies? Or call for a change in the socio-economic system that drives people to such lengths? The onus of changing is on the farmer. Not on those driving a cruel process and system. Attempts to `counsel' them in those terms have been on for years. Andhra Pradesh tried it in 2003. Teams of psychologists, revenue officials and doctors went out to Vidharbha's villages from as early as 2004. To counsel the poor, disturbed souls. In one village, an old farmer greatly embarrassed such a team: "You've given us fine advice on so many things. On coping with stress, curbing our drinking, not fighting with our wives and so on. And you've asked us so many good questions, too. Now ask us one more. Ask us why farmers, who produce the nation's food, are starving. Ask us why the children of those who grow your food, are starving." The team remained silent. Some of the learned ??? and well-meaning ??? team members had been to great medical colleges. And one of the first principles they learned there is sound. "What the mind does not know, the eye cannot observe." Very true. But the old farmer was posing a larger point before society as a whole, not just to the doctors. What the heart does not feel, the eye can never see. Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu ------------------ [2] From: Jagannath Chatterjee <jagchat01@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 Subject: In India MNCs make money, farmers court death. GM WATCH daily http://www.gmwatch.org http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiadebates ------------------------ [3] From: "dn.rath" <dn.rath@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 Subject: Fw: CONDOLENCE MESSAGE FROM ALL INDIA ANTI-IMPERIALIST FORUM, KOLKATA Original Message ----- From: "dn.rath" <dn.rath@gmail.com Original Message ----- From: A I A I F To: D. N. Ratha Cc: dn. rath Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 Condolence letter 77/2/1 Lenin Sarani, Kolkata 700 013 India Phone : + 91 (033) 2246 2550 Fax : + 91 (033) 2246 7754 E-mail : aiaif@cal2.vsnl.net.in ALL INDIA ANTI-IMPERIALIST FORUM President : Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer Former Judge, Supreme Court of India General Secretary : Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Calcutta & University of Kalyani CONDOLENCE MESSAGE FROM ALL INDIA ANTI-IMPERIALIST FORUM, KOLKATA The All India Anti-imperialist Forum expresses its profound grief at the sudden demise of Shri Devbrat Pathak, President of the Gujarat Chapter of AIAIF and conveys its sincerest condolence to the members of the bereaved family. Shri Pathak was an eminent educationist and as a socially conscious individual was actively engaged in democratic movements to safeguard education and to make it accessible to the people. He played an important and active role in the different programmes organized by the All India Anti-imperialist Forum at the national and state levels. His demise is a great loss to the anti-imperialist movements in our country. His absence will be keenly felt by all progressive democratically minded people. We share the grief of the members of the family. May they have the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee General Secretary All India Anti-imperialist Forum Kolkata, 11 September 2006 To The bereaved family of Late Devbrat N. Pathak Abhinandan Bunglow Opp. Dus Bunglows( Govt. Qtrs) Gulbai Tekra, Polytechnic, Ahmedabad-380015 ---------- [4] From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in> Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 Subject: Amazonian tribal people speak out (fwd) Amazonian tribal people speak out Kamalurre Mehinaku & Kawari Enawene Nawe Brazil's Mehinaku are threatened by pollution and hydroelectric dams. The Enawene Nawe are fighting ranchers and soya growers devastating land in Mato Grosso. We left our land in the Xingu to come to Europe to speak out about the many, problems we are facing. All the headwaters of the great Xingu river are very polluted. This is because the white people who are agriculturalists throw in toxic pesticides. They chuck everything in there - rubbish, empty cans and bottles of rum. They also kill the wild animals and they leave the dead bodies rotting by the river banks. We Mehinaku use the water to bathe in, to drink from and to fish. We are fisher people?- we don't eat red meat. In the Xingu there is a lot of fish, every type of fish. Fish are so important to us and now the fish are dying. We are very, very worried because now a hydroelectric dam is being built on the Culuene river. Building has already started. I went to Brasilia to protest. All the indigenous peoples of the Xingu went to demonstrate there, and they told us they can't stop the dam. They keep on building. We went to the dam site to protest and they stopped work, but as soon as we left they started again. They don't care about us. When we go to see what is happening they don't want to know. So we need help. We have to fight for a better life. We don't want that dam. We want to preserve our land. We have to show people not to pollute the water, not to kill animals and not to throw poison in the rivers. The governor of Mato Grosso state, where we live, grows soya. That's all he does. He just orders people to plant soya so he can earn lots of money. He wants to grab half of our reserve, only to plant soya. I am beginning to understand things about the whites. What I see is that we, the Indians, respect them but they don't respect us. If you go to my land, all you will see is forest. It's unbroken. Now we have set up vigilance posts to protect it and the rivers. People come down the rivers in boats throwing out the rubbish and taking the fish. But I don't take things that belong to the whites. Funai (Foundation for the Protection of Indians) is responsible for our land. But we Mehinaku want to own our land. We want to register it in our name. We need our land and rivers for our life and traditions. This is very important to us. We sing, we dance, we fish, we hunt, we plant. We are never still because that's our way, it's how we are. My message to people in Europe is, please stand by us. We, the indigenous peoples of the Xingu, really need your help to stop these dams. This is very important - for all of us, for humanity. Kawari Enawene Nawe: A long time ago, this was our land. Now everything is finished. All the trees are gone. There are no bees' nests full of honey and no eagles. There are no tapirs, no monkeys - they have all died or fled. There are no animals here at all. The Preto river is totally spoiled. There are no fish and the river is all polluted. The ranchers are finishing everything and this land has become ugly. All this land belongs to the yakairiti - our ancestral spirits - who are the owners of the natural resources. They own the rivers, the fish and the trees. If you finish these off, the yakairiti will take vengeance and will kill all the Enawene Nawe. We've been on this land for a long time. There were no inuti (non-Indian people) here when I was young. We were here long before them. We never knew that so many ranchers would arrive in our land. We didn't know that tractors existed and we didn't know about chain saws that cut down trees. Nor did we know about cattle. Then we saw that as the city people came on to our land, they brought diseases, they polluted the rivers and finished off the birds and animals. Five years ago, there was nobody here. Now many, many people keep arriving. It's one ranch after another. We are not interested in cows because we don't eat meat. So these cattle ranches are of no use to us and we want nothing to do with them. These inuti are very different to us. They cut down the forest, pollute the rivers and mine deep into the earth. Then they throw away what they don't want. We do not want to sell or exchange our trees. We have written so many documents to Funai and nothing is ever resolved. So our heads are tired. They hurt because we are thinking and worrying so much. If the authorities don't protect our land we will take strong measures. The young Enawene Nawe say, "We will burn the bridges and set fire to the ranchers' buildings." This will cause a lot of damage. Then the ranchers will get angry and want vengeance. Blairo Maggi is the governor of Mato Grosso state and he plants soya. This is very bad for us. First the soya people cut everything down in the forest and savanna and kill all the animals. Then they send in a plane that sprays poison. This governor is very bad because he doesn't care about the animals and plants and trees. He's only worried about money. What are all the government bodies doing about this? Nothing! They are deaf and blind. We, the Enawene Nawe, will never destroy the forest. We want the animals alive and are longing for the earth to look beautiful forever. The inuti will take everything out so there will be no fish, no feasts and no ancestors, and we will die. We are very, very sad and very frightened. We want our words and pictures to be carried far away to other countries, so they can see and hear us. We need help from them. ?© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 --------- [5] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 Subject: On Chernobyl Death Toll Greenpeace rejects Chernobyl toll Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4917526.stm --------------------- SEPT 11 http://www.loosechange911.com/ http://www.geocities.com/killtown/ |
|
| << September10, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net]Letter to the President on vaccines and others |
September14, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net] Diabetes,Jatin Das,Silchar moms,Malegaon,NRIs etc >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |