Every time anyone political person speaks of agriculture, be he the country’s Prime Minister or Rahul Gandhi, as they have been doing now we, the public, why even the hardened farmer enthusiast, tends to believe that the speaker is committed to farmers’ cause. Tragically, no more so. And that too in the aftermath of the 2019 election outcome that has conferred on the BJP party so much power and authority. So, there are some demands on the part of the general public as well as the actual farmers to appreciate how much the farmers are neglected today. Take any State, be it AP or Telangana we continue to read about the continuing news about the farmers suicides and how these tragedies no more command the public attention. Though each one leader from AP’s Jagan Mohan Reddy’s remarks and his promise of compensation and also others like Maharashtra and Punjab Chief Ministers’ own Chief Ministers!
Agriculture is in dire straits and almost all the States face drought or deficient rainfall and the future of Indian agriculture is itself in great many uncertainties. What is now nee3ded is open discussion and debate, mostly among the farmers themselves so that there is a new bonding emotionally as a distinct socio-economic group.
Agriculture is basically an activi8ty and life tradition in the villages and the champions are essentially urban based and more ironically, the big ones are living cosily in the aristocratic-looking Deli’s Lutyen’s bungalow zone. After the defeat of the Congress in the elections, after the resignation of Rahul Gandhi in particular we are exposed to the internal turmoil in the Congress and now, one by one, the realities of the internal disconnect in the party is brought out ,of course by disgruntled party leaders from the States.
The Goa dissenter exposed how whenever he tried to get an appointment he was rebuffed by the second rank Congress men at the AICC. In fact, we like to bring our own experience here.
I am a Congressman, I became one much before Dr.Manmohan Singh! Why, even I was surprised to read that Dr.Karan Singh joined the party much later than myself. I had worked under veterans like Kamaraj and Atulya Ghosh and Sadiq Ali in the early 1960s!
Yet. after Sonia Gandhi’s advent not me personally, but even the once mighty Congress machine, so to say, the redoubtable TNCC, was almost killed and Sonia in her wisdom destroyed the TNCC and took the unit under the grip of stark opponent, namely, M.Karunanidhi and the end results are there for all to see. The Tamil Nadu unit is almost non-functional today; all the old and tested loyalists of the Kamaraj legacy are now left out in the cold.
The 2019 elections saw the victory of the MPs in Tamil Nadu but under what price. The DMK emerged as the power broker. You can’t work for the Congress almost without the express permission of the DMK heavyweights. And at what cost?
I once tried to meet Mr.Gandhi. I reached his residence at the Tuglak Lane. He was very much inside the house and yet he refused to see us. His lady secretary was blurting out for our persistent queries.
The security men surrounding us, me and my wife, urged us to somehow try to see Mr. Gandhi and give our suggestions. Yet, Mr.Gandhi was forthcoming.
What sort of an office you run for the party in Delhi. I can further narrate my experience with Sonia Gandhi. In Delhi and at the AICC, the Congress and its hierarchy, I met A.K.Antony and Motilal Vohra and others. The mindset at the AICC, why even at the CWC is that once your position is fixed you survive somehow. That is how; there are members of CWC for 20, even, 30 years.
They won’t vacate the party posts for simp0ly that ensures a staying place in comfortable environment. Dr.Singh lives in a sprawling 3-acre bungalow with a retinue of servants!
Please don’t misunderstand. The Congress has no easy choice. It has to sacrifice its undeserving privileges and perks once it lost power.
This no one seems to speak out. They know it is their unbecoming!
You, readers might see our frustrations easily. Yes, we are frustrated. We know how agriculture is treated.
Only when the drought conditions and rainfall conditions force us, only when there is a food shortage, there will be a sense of emergency on the agriculture front.
The Business Standard newspaper writes there is nothing much in agriculture!
Why even the mainstream media stopped writing in depth on agriculture. New gathering on agriculture and rural realities is very costly and unpaying. We ourselves as a small media company faced with issues. Then, what about the TV news channels. We read a recent book on the Indian’s TV news channels. They top brand company is in deep debt! Why, it has been bought over by the richest capitalist in the country. Discerning readers must know there are fear and much pain in the country. Media companies are fearing about the way the government is controlled media.
How do you expect free media, media freedom? TV news channels are only trying to be illusorily truthful. Truth in the media today is hidden under so many rhetorical word plays!
Only small outfits might survive. The DD is completely gone. We have restrained from reporting simply what the government has put as schemes for farmers. Because the rural realities don’t square with the ground level realities. For the sake of some consolation we like tom pout out our own website: www.agricultureinformation.com. Farmers might send all their queries to our information to some other helps too.
Thank you.