Pic courtesy: DW Blogs
WHEN The Tribune reported on March 1 that nearly 47% of the country was in the grip of a severe drought, with at least 16 % falling in the category of ‘extreme’ or ‘exceptional’, and knowing that drought could further worsen farm distress, lead to increased migration from rural to urban areas, I thought the misery being encountered by roughly 500 million people or 40% of the population would shift the focus, even in an election year, to provide immediate relief measures.
My belief that the dominant narrative would change, with each party trying to outdo what the other promised, and perhaps move its cadre to the rural hinterland, providing a helping hand to the drought-affected, too, remained wishful thinking. To make it still worse, Skymet Weather Services, a private agency, has forecast a deficient monsoon ahead, and the Indian Meteorological Department has shown that the country has received 36% less rainfall between March 1 and March 28 compared with the long-term average. Another report by IndiaSpend points to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, parts of Northeast, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan being the worst hit. ‘In 31 reservoirs in the southern states, water availability stands at 25% of total capacity, which has gone down by 36 percentage points over five months from 61% of the capacity in November 2018.’ There is more trouble ahead.
In another well documented report, IndiaSpendconveys the agony and plight of the drought hit Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, comprising four districts of Anantapur, Kurnool, Chitoor and YSR Kadapa. Accordingly, the region has faced 15 droughts in the 18 year period between 2000 and 2018. Quoting the district administration, the report says the region continues to face nine consecutive years of drought. This year again, the drought continues. An estimated 700,000 people have moved out in 2018 looking for menial labour to survive. Villages after villages are empty with only the elders and small children left behind by some couples who migrated. This year, there is hardly a crop field which doesn’t look barren and abandoned.
Even in the drought-affected areas in Maharashtra, where the continuing agrarian crisis is expected to cast its impression in the ensuing elections, news reports point to how the ruling party is trying to instead build up an election campaign based on muscular nationalism but very quietly bypassing the central issue of farm distress gripping the seven districts of the region. Opposition parties are however focusing on the neglect of the farm sector over the years and how agrarian distress has worsened. So much so, seeing that the real issues gripping the region are being swept under the carpet, a farm widow Vaishali Yede has decided to take the battle to the ballot. She is contesting from Yavatmal-Washim constituency in eastern Maharashtra, a farm suicide prone region. Her simple message is: “mahyavar laksh asudya ji” (keep me in your prayers and thoughts), ostensibly telling people to remember the plight of farmers when they go out to vote.
In Telangana too, there are 170 farmers contesting against K Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is standing from Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency. Reports also say that 111 Tamil Nadu farmers, who had earlier campaigned at New Delhi, will be contesting against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. While the intent in both the cases seems to be rather symbolic in nature, but it does however signify the anger and frustration sweeping the countryside.
At a time when farm incomes have plummeted to its lowest in the past 15 years, and the real rural wage growth has seen a steep fall – from 11.8 per cent growth in 2013-15 to 0.45 per cent in 2016-18, the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) estimates 3.2-crore casual rural workers losing their job between 2011-12 and 2017-18. Of these, 3-crore labourers were working on the farm. But yet, after the news has been reported in the newspapers, and after a few news analyses published, the dominant narrative again shifts back. Agricultural crisis that took so long to emerge at the centrestage of the political debate has once again been relegated to the background. “The effort to bring emotions (nationalism) in the elections will lead to all other issues going under the carpet. The farmers will continue to die,” says farmer leader Vijay Jawandhia from Maharashtra, visibly displeased.
One reason why people in the cities do not feel concerned, and that is why the prominent discourse remains impervious of the pain and suffering being felt in the rural areas is because of a development inequality woven through the process of economic growth. To illustrate, why only water shortage, the problems that crippling drought would normally bring are rarely felt in the cities. Simply because all efforts have been to build the cities, turning them drought proof over the years. All efforts have gone to ensure that the urban population do not have to suffer the consequences of a drought. The rivers flowing in rural areas can go dry, the soil becoming parched, crops withering but the development design ensures regular tap water supply in the cities or for at least a few hours during the day. While cities have 24 hours power supply, ask a farmer for how many hours does he get electricity? I have seen farmers waking up early, going to the fields to water the standing crops.
A few hours away from Mumbai, life comes to a standstill. Go to Bangalore, and it is rare that you can even get a distant feeling of a severe drought that prevails just a few kilometres outside the metropolis. It is this kind of insinuation that keeps the urban population largely disconnected with its rural hinterland. Why only blame the urban centric media, which hardly has any roots in the mofussil towns what to talk of villages, even the academia and bureaucracy remains oblivious. When the urban elite as well as middleclass is least interested, it is futile to expect the politicians alone to fill in the gap. Unless each one of us, irrespective of our political ideology, thinks of a farmer when talking of elections or when you go to vote I don’t think farming will ever swing political decision making. But as the Prime Minister said the other day in a newspaper interview thinking of a farmer too is nationalism. #
Toiling to be heard. The Tribune.April 13, 2019.
0 comments:
Post a Comment