What urban India owes back to rural producers?
Create one more body with specific goals to uplift and safeguard farmers!
As we write there is news about one more farmer committing suicide in Yavatmal district in Maharashtra. Yes, this is one more routine news?
No, it is not. It is one more reminder of the callousness of the Indian polity and society. As a media venture, though small and modest and not making too much noise or giving in screaming headlines, as the cousins in the electronic media does, we at the same time wants to sensitise the seemingly greedy power seekers who are entrenched in power and authority.
After Mr.Took over power in Delhi, of course the new government had brought out the many skeletons in the cupboard!
We saw how the m any activities, from collecting party funds, election funds to NGOs collecting huge sums, something like Rs.50, 000 crores at the last count and the money received in contravention of laws, why even in violation of the foreign contribution of funds to the NGOs and when the last few days we hear of the huge unaccounted funds at the disposal of the political parties, there is a hue and cry of sorts. The big parties avoid appearing in the courts of law!
Yes, black money in elections is no more news. So, we win elections, form governments and go about our business with total impunity.
So, we have all the inequity, in equality and injustice as our current realtiies. And yet, what we try to do to bring some sanity to what we pretend to represent by way of leadership?
We leave it to the best judgement of our readers and they can draw their own conclusions.
Now, as for agriculture and rural India, we haven’t even murmured our views, right?
The big corporates, once they were derided when Socialism was high in the political firmament as “running dogs” and much worse. Now, of course times have changed and the corporates, big and not so big are all welcome.
But in the new enthusiasm for growth and development and still more for governance, new words signify new hopes and aspirations.
Fine, then what have you done or what have we done for the marginal sections?
Agriculture and rural India are now changing of course .All the new changes, the coming of the Internet, smart phones and the spread of Internet in rural areas are all creating a new vision for rural India.
But then nothing happens on its own and that too when it come to revolving and redressing the many new inequities, inequalities and injustices, right?
The new measures like crop insurance are welcome. But then this is a great task. To create a more open, conducive atmosphere in the rural areas, you need a series of measures. The government machinery alone can’t do many things in these ares, everybody has seen it and though we don’t openly, we all know there is so much inequity when it comes to even accessing the many government schemes.
So, we need NGOs, more than anywhere, in the rural development fields.
The new corporates, the ones flush with big funds, the IT giants and the other top ten or twenty billionaire led names, they should all been engaged with their funds and expertise to take, say, the crop insurance to work successfully.
Do we hear any such big visions or big commitment from them? No, not at all! They talk sometimes bombastically and that it all.
Why not ask some private banks to undertake the distribution of farm credit in select segments?
The CSR (corporate social responsibility) scheme is a flop as far as we are concerned.
For instance we asked one head of a corporate (the name was on the Sonia Gandhi led National Advisory Council). The response to our contact was rather impolite!
The corporates seek to influence the government. That is plain. We have come across so many instances in the recent past, how the big and mighty all fell at the many corruption scandals!
So, we like to ask for a new scheme that would give corporate responsibility specifically in the agri sector.
How to prevent and ct in advance over the farmers’ suicide prone circumstances?
Let some great minds, those who had accumulated big profits come out with some corporate responsibility for preventing farmer’s suicides?
Is this a big task? An impossible task?
Now, we read that the MNC PepsiCo is introducing Stevia sugar added 7UP drink! Fine. Why not take up additional social responsibility for organising Stevia cultivation on a systematic manner?
We have spent almost a lifetime in such questions! So, we don’t elaborate further. We only ask our urban-based powerful segment to look at the rural India with a much more sensitive spirit ask yourself you have enjoyed your green foods, organic vegetables and fruits and lead a healthy life style, then ask from where all the goodies of a happy life at your urban dwelling come?
What have you given back to communities who silently toil and supply these for you?