Maharashtra must wake up: Kill bans and save farmers
The Maharashtra government is busy these days, it must be a Herculean task to come up with innovative bans to reign in, its citizens.
It must take a lot of strategy, research and high-level thinking to humour the religious sentiments of every potential vote bank.
I wonder what would make them to sit up and give the dying farmers of Maharashtra a thought, even if it is just in the passing.
Data with the agriculture department shows that in 2015, two-thirds of the 1.37crore farmers in the state of Maharashtra have been affected by the drought mainly in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions. That is nearly 90 lakh farmers in Maharashtra alone.
According to the state's revenue department figures, the farmer suicide count in the six-month span from January to June this year stood at 1,300 cases.
The data suggests that the toll for 2015 is likely to cross the number of cases recorded in 2014. Critics say the revenue department figures are usually an underestimation. Data on farmer suicides in the state from the national crime records bureau (NCRB) has always been much higher. The bureau has also consistently reported that Maharashtra has the highest number of farmer suicides in the country, year after year, eventually earning it the suicide capital of the country. This is the fourth consecutive year of drought in the state and still nothing has been done to safeguard the livelihoods and lives of the farmers.
In the last few months, we have seen many outrages against the government both online and offline, opposing their acts of infringing our fundamental rights, from watching AIB video to eating meat; And yet, we don't see any social media revolution or candlelight marches or young Indians out on the street fighting for the rights of these people who ensure our daily bread. Is it because the gory details of these gut-wrenching stories don't make for sordid media headlines?
The media talks about these deaths in the passing, but why don't we see persistent social campaigns to create awareness about issues that are pertinent to our very survival, each of ours? Campaigns that question the government's inaction and laxity towards agriculture in this country, where 60 per cent of the population depends on it as their livelihood. We have managed to travel to Mars and yet nearly 65 per cent of India's agricultural land lacks irrigation facility. Comforting?
If someone dares to talk about these issues, they are immediately branded as politically driven, working against the ruling government.
Unfortunately, in this country, we taint every issue in the colour of politics or religion.
I ask, do you check if the rice or wheat you bought from the market was grown by a Hindu or Muslim or inquire if the farmer was a Congress supporter or BJP? Then why dilute issues in their names or along political and religious lines.
We think climate change, droughts, farmer suicides, less rainfall, water shortage are all issues that don't really affect us. We have our jobs to rush to, family and friends to meet, good food on our table, good schools to send our children, beautiful vacations. We think we are the lucky ones, leading the good life; And, who can deny it, certainly it is a good life, safe and secure from the harsh realities of lives around us.
Who can blame us, if we continue to believe that all is good with our world!
Fact is, nothing is, the people who work hard to ensure we get food on our plates are killing themselves. More than 2,000 farmers give up farming everyday and migrate to cities for petty jobs. We have abused our environment to the extent that the air our children breathe in our cities is several times more toxic than the permissible limits.
The more I read, the more I feel, maybe it is a mistake to bring innocent lives into this world and leave them to suffer the impact of our selfishness.
This is not a farmer's problem alone, it is our problem, yours and mine. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb, unless we think of ways to diffuse it, we are all going to perish and how?
As Buddha once said,"The trouble is, you think, you have time."
That, I think is the biggest myth of our generation!