The issue of livelihoods and the life and death of Indian farmers is too important and complex for it to be a mere platform for political grandstanding. All the rhetoric that flowed following the suicide of one farmer at an AAP meeting venue in New Delhi recently served to highlight just what is wrong with a system that keeps looking at the symptoms rather than tackling the disease. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has gone on about farmers’ issues, but he is not the only one mistaking style for substance in this debate as several politicians have waded into it without understanding a subject that has taken several twists and turns over hundreds of years.
The country’s greatest good fortune is that over the last few decades, notwithstanding the problems and the growing number of mouths to feed, India has been self-sufficient in food. For all the yeoman work they do feeding the nation, as many as three lakh farmers have taken their lives in the last 20 years, which means on an average 15,000 farmers commit suicide every year. To blame the latest Land Bill or the Narendra Modi government, in power for just one year, betrays again a lack of understanding of the issues involved.
The way out, even as a blame game rages, is a special session of Parliament convened specifically to address the subject and tackle the whole gamut of issues. Our legislators have to break their heads to arrive at a consensus that melds all positive party policies on agriculture. Farmer suicides cannot remain some kind of macabre hobby horse for politicians to shoot barbs at each other. This is a national issue that needs national solutions based on policies that must be determined based on the productivity, output and prices of agricultural produce.
Farmer suicides have been analysed in depth by scholars and academicians. Studies suggest that debt, stress and family responsibilities have been seen to be bigger triggers than crop failures. Also, 83 per cent of India’s farmers are classified as small or marginal and 70 per cent of all farmers are still dependent on the monsoon. Whatever the reason for the severe climatic changes seen in the last few years, the fact is rainfall patterns are erratic and excessive or scanty depending on the area. The beef ban in some states is unlikely to help either as farmers accustomed to selling their old bullocks to reinvest in younger animals to pull the yoke are finding that “shandies (cattle markets)” are losing their appeal.
Unless the safety net is comprehensive, farmers will never escape the trap of seasonal crop failures and debt. It is up to our legislators to clear up matters in a special session for the enacting of laws that will give our food producers the best chance at life.
