A tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding across rural India. Pushed into
poverty and indebtedness due to increased cost of cultivation and falling market prices,
farmers are being driven to commit suicide.
More than 1.5 lakh farmers have committed
suicide across the country in the last 15 years.
Candle light Vigils are being organized all across the country from 16 November 2006, in
support of the demand that the Prime Minister of India and Indian Government, seriously
address the issue of farm debt and the real reasons behind the prevailing situation of
farmer suicides, and end its indifference to farmer suicides.
These candle light vigils are being organized by NGO's and farmer organizations across
multiple cities, towns and villages of India to wake up the sleeping Kumbhakarna -
Congress government at the Center.
Mohan Dharia - Farm Debt Campaign
Farmer organizations of India need a two pronged strategy, to make the campaign on farm debt
successful. At one level, they have to seriously consider the strategy of leaving their fields
fallow for one year, growing only food grain crops for their family
consumption, rather than the domestic or export market.
This will assist the politicians like Shri Sharad Pawar and economists like ManMohan Singh and
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, in importing foodgrains, from global markets, to their heart's content.
This would also help in India, making a rapid entry into the good books of USA and Europe, and
in lieu, getting their support on the nuclear and Security Council issues.
Secondly, farmer organizations must convince farmers that agricultural land is by no means a
boon in modern India, rather, it is a liability for themselves and for their next generation.
The sooner they discard their precious land and move en masse to cities, the better off they
will be.
If at all the Indian politicians, want them to remain chained to agriculture, the
Government should take over ownership of all their agricultural lands, reorganize it into
large profitable holdings, retrain farmers on how to adopt modern agricultural practices, and
employ farmers, on a fixed salary, that is enshrined in the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.
This will be the correct way, of ushering in the Second Green Revolution in India, rather than just
exhorting ignorant and bewildered farmers to stop taking their lives, and linking up with private
sector and contract farming.
Modern and industrialized modes of agricultural production on forcibly acquired land from backward
farmers, reorganized into massive land holdings, riding on the back of reorganized
agricultural land, American agricultural practices, B-school management and marketing talents,
snipping the farm dependant population of India to 10% of India's population, is the only way
forward. This will be the best that Indian politicians with their current mindset, can do for
Indian farmers.