Revolt of our Annadatas
By Dr. Laxmi Parasuram, Retired Professor of English
KOLKATA, INDIA — A highly eulogized name given to farmers in India Is “ANNADATA” meaning the giver of rice. Since rice is the main item of food eaten by Indians in general it only means one who provides food.
I cannot remember a time when this term was ever used in newspapers, speeches or the TV to refer to farmers. But now in the past few weeks this term is repeatedly gaining space because of the farmers’ strike. This strike undertaken by more 20000 farmers mostly from Punjab and Haryana has blocked most of the roads to the capital and thousands of policemen are employed to stop them from entering Delhi. The strike is supposedly against the 3 farm laws already passed in the parliament and ready to be implemented almost immediately. This surprising revolt of the farmers (called Annadatas) has almost thrown our whole system out of gear and our newspapers and television channels are seething with the news, different interpretations of the three new laws, arguments and debates for and against the farmers. It threatens to destabilize our government, and the opposition parties are revelling in the use they can make of it and discredit the government.
In some very advanced urban centers, children may not have even heard of farmers and their role in making our food available. They mostly think that food comes from shops and refrigerators! However, children in India today would know that the farmers on strike are blocking their way to school and creating a panic in family circles about the supply of essential items of food. The first gut reaction of almost everyone is one of sympathy for the farmers who are sitting on the streets in the very cold North Indian winter, some of them accompanied by their family. The others have left their family back home to do farm work in their absence. It is reported that about 26 of these striking farmers are already dead under the dire circumstances, while large cauldrons of cooking goes on to feed the rest as they shout their slogans against the new laws and shout for the return of the old system.
You may now ask what the old system was. That system certainly did not bring much profit to many of them. They had to agree to sell their produce to vested interest shops called Mandis run by middlemen who arranged to sell to the markets outside at a higher profit for themselves. The government also had arrangements to fix a minimum support price for the farmers, but the farmers were always demanding an increase in this support price. The government was also asked to give discounts and subsidies for many items used by the farmers for agriculture such as electricity, fertilizers cold storage facilities and so on. Under dire natural conditions such as floods, draught, locusts, heat, and rain, the farmers had no way to make up their loss and pay back the debts they had invariably taken to pay for labor, seeds, fertilizers etc.. There have been many suicides among farmers who were trapped in debts. Often the land that the farmers cultivated were not owned by them, they were only tenants who had to give up a portion of their produce to the landlords.
The three new laws scripted by Modi government had the intention to bring about some changes in this old system and improve the condition of the farmers. What was required according to the government was to free the farmers from the grip of the Mandi middlemen and give them direct access to the market and higher prices. This meant that the farmers had to develop the initiative and skill to approach and bargain with the outside market. Since many of them were not digitally literate, they had to learn to compare prices, bargain for themselves and arrange for transportation of goods. Since some of their products like vegetables and fruits needed preservation and quicker sale channels, the farmers were often not confident of undertaking such a task demanded from them. They were unwilling for the change pressed on them by the new laws and fell easy victims to adverse political arguments advanced by interested Mandi owners. There were also some opposition parties who were against the social changes sought by the Modi government and they were ready to encourage and push the farmers against the new laws.
Now about the stand taken by some foreign news channels, citizens and governments in support of the farmers. Some of them were prompted only by their sympathy for the poor Indian farmers who were being harassed by an authoritarian government to pursue its own agenda. One such agenda often emphasized by the opponents of the laws was the increased role the corporates friendly with the government would now be able to exert on the agricultural scene. These corporates, according to these opponents of the new bills, would take over from the old system to insert their own tentacles into the farms, buy land from the farmers and buy their produce on a mass scale at cheap prices. Such entry of corporate into the farming scene could make the condition of the farmers even worse. The so called Modi baiters joined this argument and sent a shiver of fear into the farmers about their future in the hands of big money. Other opposition group came from rich Indians settled abroad who had no contact with farmers but were interested in the profits gained by the middlemen who were often their own kin. Some of these NRIs were influential in the countries they had settled and could even encourage their governments to support the farmer strike. Dissenters like the Khalistanis and Maoists also dug their heels to trample on a rising brew against the authority they had always hated.
It was always difficult to talk in terms of reason to a poor hardworking class of people. There was a mixture of poor and rich in this class, the rich always trying for one-upmanship and the poor falling behind in shrewdness and afraid of making changes. They wanted only a one point agenda of repealing laws and refused to examine the laws clause by clause. The government tries its best to break the stalemate and in the meantime the country waits with bated breath.
