Wrote this in a fit of rage.... impotent rage...
An instant reaction to the remarks by Union Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela and Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh that the despondency among the Vidharbha farmers leading them to commit suicide is because they are lazy and greedy will be to recall Mary Antoniette’s infamous observation that if the people did not have bread, they must eat cake.
And it is possible then to also proceed with a comment that the Congress(I) is certain to meet the same fate as the French rulers. Well. We now live in a ``mature’’ democracy and hence Vaghela and Deshmukh will just end up losing power in the next elections unlike the French aristocracy whose heads were placed on the guillotine. We do not live in that age where the struggle to establish democracy witnessed such systematic execution of those who belonged to the old order.
It is, however, possible to look at the issue a little dispassionately and even agree with the two Congress(I) luminaries on a limited point: That the farmers led themselves to this situation because they were keen on earning more than what they were earning and hence adopted capital intensive farming methods. This began in the mid-Sixties with the stress on fertilizer and such other ``advanced’’ farm practices.
While the explicit purpose behind that shift in policies – to promote use of fertilizers and other ``advanced’’ farming methods – was essentially a reaction to the famine and food-shortage that hit most parts of the country due to the monsoons failing for two years (1963-64). That was also the time when use of technology was seen as a means to liberation of the human race in all walks of life. And that was also the time when the developed nations were desperate to make money out of selling such technology to the developing countries.
``Science helps build a new India’’ screamed a Union carbide advertisement in National Geographic, in April 1962. That particular advertisement also had this sub-text: ``Oxen working in the fields… the eternal river Ganges… jeweled elephants on parade. Today these symbols of ancient India exist side by side with a new sight – modern industry. India has developed bold new plans to build its economy and bring the promise of a bright future to its more than 400,000,000 people. But India needs the technical knowledge of the western world…’’. The Bhopal plant of this MNC giant was a product of this celebration of technology masquerading as science.
And on December 3, 1984, this fertilizer plant was the cause for the death of several hundred people, the incapacitation of a few thousands and the killing of many in the mothers womb for a long time after the ``accident’’. This new culture of celebrating technology also brought such men as Ottavio Quattrocchi into India. Quattrocchi, we know, was the India representative of Snam Progethi, an Italian MNC engaged in erecting fertilizer plants. And it was this culture that looked at chemical fertilizers and pesticides as the liberators of the Indian people that is ultimately responsible for the incidence of suicides in large numbers in Andhra Pradesh, Vidharbha, Wayanad and many other parts of India in the past decade.
This celebration of technology as the liberating force guided our own policy makers to push this idea among the farmers. All that ended up in the ``green’’ revolution. Farm production increased several times and this included a rise in the production and availability of food grains too. There were voices of dissent against this indiscriminate use of fertilizers even at that time. These, however, were drowned in the euphoria of India having achieved food-security and that the tragedy of the Sixties were, for once, a thing of the past.
The most active voice in favour of this technology-driven-farming came from Sharad Joshi. With his un-qualified celebration of this culture in the farm sector, Joshi was able to mobilize the farmers to agitate and demand access to the more recent ``technology’’ in the farm sector. Joshi teamed up with the MNC giants, now engaged in Genetically Modified (GM) seeds and other such ``advanced’’ technology and succeeded in convincing the farmer in the Vidharbha region to ``progress’’. The easy access to loans, as long as they were intended to promote the synthetic fertilizer industry and the GM seeds gave the impetus to the farmer to give up his conventional wisdom.
The effect of all this is now for everyone to see. Yes. The farmers in the region were driven by ``greed’’ and Vaghela and Deshmukh were right in that limited sense. But then, they were pushed into that state by the policy makers of the Sixties, the Seventies and the Eighties. And this happened not only because the policy makers believed in what they formulated but also because they benefited immensely by way of letting these MNCs into India. Like the carpet-baggers, the political leadership, a large section in the bureaucracy, academia and others who help mould public opinion got together to manufacture a consent for a shift in the farm practices.
They all gained, in all senses of the term, by promoting the business interests of the MNCs as well as the domestic industrial conglomerates. And they did this to satiate their greed to become rich and remain powerful. The farmer too was driven by greed to get rich faster. And has landed himself into a situation where he is forced to take his own life.
There is another dimension to this crisis. And that is the fate of the hundreds of agricultural workers, with small patches of land or without even that, who are being evicted from the villages every day in Vidharbha, Andhra Pradesh and Wayanad, driven to the cities and eke out a living constructing roads for the IT corridors and the National Quadrilateral or driven to prostitution. Their parents and their children are left behind in the villages to starve and die.
Vaghela’s and Deshmukhs are spared of this fate despite being greedy and lazy. And when they lose an election, they are replaced by men with similar attributes; greedy and lazy and equally cynical about the poor and the hapless.
An instant reaction to the remarks by Union Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela and Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh that the despondency among the Vidharbha farmers leading them to commit suicide is because they are lazy and greedy will be to recall Mary Antoniette’s infamous observation that if the people did not have bread, they must eat cake.
And it is possible then to also proceed with a comment that the Congress(I) is certain to meet the same fate as the French rulers. Well. We now live in a ``mature’’ democracy and hence Vaghela and Deshmukh will just end up losing power in the next elections unlike the French aristocracy whose heads were placed on the guillotine. We do not live in that age where the struggle to establish democracy witnessed such systematic execution of those who belonged to the old order.
It is, however, possible to look at the issue a little dispassionately and even agree with the two Congress(I) luminaries on a limited point: That the farmers led themselves to this situation because they were keen on earning more than what they were earning and hence adopted capital intensive farming methods. This began in the mid-Sixties with the stress on fertilizer and such other ``advanced’’ farm practices.
While the explicit purpose behind that shift in policies – to promote use of fertilizers and other ``advanced’’ farming methods – was essentially a reaction to the famine and food-shortage that hit most parts of the country due to the monsoons failing for two years (1963-64). That was also the time when use of technology was seen as a means to liberation of the human race in all walks of life. And that was also the time when the developed nations were desperate to make money out of selling such technology to the developing countries.
``Science helps build a new India’’ screamed a Union carbide advertisement in National Geographic, in April 1962. That particular advertisement also had this sub-text: ``Oxen working in the fields… the eternal river Ganges… jeweled elephants on parade. Today these symbols of ancient India exist side by side with a new sight – modern industry. India has developed bold new plans to build its economy and bring the promise of a bright future to its more than 400,000,000 people. But India needs the technical knowledge of the western world…’’. The Bhopal plant of this MNC giant was a product of this celebration of technology masquerading as science.
And on December 3, 1984, this fertilizer plant was the cause for the death of several hundred people, the incapacitation of a few thousands and the killing of many in the mothers womb for a long time after the ``accident’’. This new culture of celebrating technology also brought such men as Ottavio Quattrocchi into India. Quattrocchi, we know, was the India representative of Snam Progethi, an Italian MNC engaged in erecting fertilizer plants. And it was this culture that looked at chemical fertilizers and pesticides as the liberators of the Indian people that is ultimately responsible for the incidence of suicides in large numbers in Andhra Pradesh, Vidharbha, Wayanad and many other parts of India in the past decade.
This celebration of technology as the liberating force guided our own policy makers to push this idea among the farmers. All that ended up in the ``green’’ revolution. Farm production increased several times and this included a rise in the production and availability of food grains too. There were voices of dissent against this indiscriminate use of fertilizers even at that time. These, however, were drowned in the euphoria of India having achieved food-security and that the tragedy of the Sixties were, for once, a thing of the past.
The most active voice in favour of this technology-driven-farming came from Sharad Joshi. With his un-qualified celebration of this culture in the farm sector, Joshi was able to mobilize the farmers to agitate and demand access to the more recent ``technology’’ in the farm sector. Joshi teamed up with the MNC giants, now engaged in Genetically Modified (GM) seeds and other such ``advanced’’ technology and succeeded in convincing the farmer in the Vidharbha region to ``progress’’. The easy access to loans, as long as they were intended to promote the synthetic fertilizer industry and the GM seeds gave the impetus to the farmer to give up his conventional wisdom.
The effect of all this is now for everyone to see. Yes. The farmers in the region were driven by ``greed’’ and Vaghela and Deshmukh were right in that limited sense. But then, they were pushed into that state by the policy makers of the Sixties, the Seventies and the Eighties. And this happened not only because the policy makers believed in what they formulated but also because they benefited immensely by way of letting these MNCs into India. Like the carpet-baggers, the political leadership, a large section in the bureaucracy, academia and others who help mould public opinion got together to manufacture a consent for a shift in the farm practices.
They all gained, in all senses of the term, by promoting the business interests of the MNCs as well as the domestic industrial conglomerates. And they did this to satiate their greed to become rich and remain powerful. The farmer too was driven by greed to get rich faster. And has landed himself into a situation where he is forced to take his own life.
There is another dimension to this crisis. And that is the fate of the hundreds of agricultural workers, with small patches of land or without even that, who are being evicted from the villages every day in Vidharbha, Andhra Pradesh and Wayanad, driven to the cities and eke out a living constructing roads for the IT corridors and the National Quadrilateral or driven to prostitution. Their parents and their children are left behind in the villages to starve and die.
Vaghela’s and Deshmukhs are spared of this fate despite being greedy and lazy. And when they lose an election, they are replaced by men with similar attributes; greedy and lazy and equally cynical about the poor and the hapless.
posted by Krishna Ananth at
10:57 PM
3 Comments:
thought provoking post sir, as usual. learnt one more name today: Sharad Joshi.
very very good post...
and moreso, because i learnt about sharad joshi's past.
by the way am writing a term paper on appropriate technology and relooking at the whole economic logic of the argument and will try to make a case for it in the indian context.
You are right when you say impotent rage, that is what the farmers have been feeling for a long while. Yet Deshmukh will be back in the next elections, becoz the opposition here is at sixes-and-sevens.
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