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सावित्री पुत्र वीर झुग्गीवाला द्वारा रचित-
Virendra Dev Gaur Chief Editor (NWN)
Gods of politics first of all save farmers
Distressingly painful agrarian scenario prevails in the country. Sometimes, it seems that we are still in the colonial-era where frequently deepening agrarian crisis leading to farmers’ suicides are periodic events invoking no serious thoughts. Neither on behalf of the people and nor from the govenment side. Loan waivers to distressed farmers can not be the radical solution to multiple chronic problems being faced by farmers-community. Fresh complex-problem of onion-growers emanating from Maharashtra regarding price-crunch adds to the persisting woes of the farmers of the province. Bumper onion crops have put the cultivators in a critical situation where they find themselves completely ruined with no government redressal to their problem as of now. As we know to our bad luck Maharashtra tops the list of farmers’ suicide over the period of last twenty years. These twenty years have seen the governments of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dr Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi at the centre. Million dollars question is this whether our governments have devised some sustainable apparatus to “avoid and divert” the Tsunamies of farmers’ suicide. Why do our governments wait and watch them to happen, Why do our governments fail systematically to dismantle such heart-breaking incidents.
Perhaps, very little or no co-ordination exists between the central government and the provincial governments when it comes to an “effective mechanism” to deal with the agrarian problems in toto. Its a matter of great worry that a country like ours where around 70 percent masses depend on agriculture for livelihood directly and indirectly even today; But the agrarian sector fails to occupy top priority or near top priority. For instance the fresh trouble arising from onion-belt of Maharashtra for bumper-production of onions needs quick solution from the government’s side but lack of will power and innate-vision supplemented by absence of “emergency-mechanism” the farmers are bound to suffer and probably they might long -for some extreme-steps like suicide. Casual attitude of the governments and non-friendly banks loaning to farmers multiply the complex problems of the farmers compelling them to seek loans from individuals and private-parties. These Mahajans of colonial-era exploit the farmers to their extreme and saturate the trouble for farmers and they kill themselves to get rid of the dark passage around.
Series of agrarian crisis to this critical pitch started surfacing up their ugly head in 1990’s. Governments failed to estimate and visualise the concentration of misfortunes arising from a range of problems like minimum support price, monsoon failures, floods, droughts , crop-failures and many more including loans for high yielding variety seeds and fertilizers. Major political parties like Congress and BJP bitterly failed when they came to power at the centre to resolve the agrarian issues. As a result from 1995 to 2004 about 1,56,562 farmers ended their lives whereas from 2005 to 2014 around 1,52,864 committed suicides across India. In 2015 alone 12,602 farmers got rid of their gross problems and left their families bereaved of them. These are the records from the office of National Crimes Report Bureau (NCRB) under the Home Ministry of the centre. Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttar pradesh, Gujrat, Tamilnadu , Asaam, Haryana, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand are the leading provinces which witnessed shocking trail of suicides of farmers in large number and the danger still survives in near future as our governments are yet to come up with durable and sensible “device” to weed-out the menace from the agrarian scene.
Please dear governments prove your worth now and protect the agrarian community, this is the country where lofty slogans like “Jai Jawaan and Jai kisaan” and “Jai Jawan jai Kissan and Jai Vigyaan” are usually chanted. Prosperity of the country will be measured with the yardstick of the prosperity of average farmers in our country. All political parties must put their heads together and chalk-out a national feasible policy alongwith provincial policies for next fifteen years viewing the grass-root situation of farmers, their farms and their produce so that justice must be done to them irrespective of any party at the helm of the country and provinces. Our agrarian-class must match the standards of global-agrarian competitors, so the challenge is formidable and it needs an integrated and highly scientific resolve.
-जय भारत
