DON'T BITE, BUT HISS Dr C.V ANANDA BOSE

 

6. DON’T BITE, BUT HISS

As a young boy, I used to watch in fascination large groups of women going to the paddy fields for harvest. Hundreds of them leaving in the morning by open boats and returning in the evenings, after harvesting and crushing, with handful of money, laughing and talking animatedly. It inded was a pleasant sight. Nowadays during my infrequent visits to the village such a comely sight is not seen at all. There is no harvesting in the paddy fields. No crushing. Paddy fields have long since been filled up for construction of buildings.

It is difficult to visualise an Indian village without paddy or wheat farming, farm songs, seeds and sowing, harvest and farm markets. In the treatise ‘Krishi Geetha. ’ Parasuraman is said to have given detailed instructions on farming techniques, as to how to sow the seeds and when. Of the many riddles I had heard in my childhood, those that still remain in memory are those related to farming. The ox may lie down, but the tether will run along (pumpkin), the round leaf without a joint (pappad), a multitude of chillies that bloomed in the hill that jumbos or men cannot scale (stars in the sky). The festivals and rituals that still remained in the mind were also farm related. The greatness of farming was evident in all facets of rural culture. There is a myth popular in Vietnam. In the olden days paddy was not so small as of now. It was large, rounded, like coconut. And paddy came into being on its own, not due to cultivation by anyone. It sprouted by itself, got ripened and would reach the farmer’s house by itself. All that the farmer has to do is to clean up and decorate the house to give paddy a befitting welcome. Once a lazy farmer failed to decorate the house. He closed the door and went to sleep. When paddy came it was in a rage that it was befitted. It got smaller and smaller and became the paddy as of now. After that paddy would grow only after the farmers put in great effort by way of cultivation.

Though a cliché now, the farmer can still be considered as the backbone of the nation. Our misfortune started the moment we lost this realisation. Those days are gone when we used to spread plantain leaves on the ground, sit on mats and enjoy a feast of white rice and curries of our choice. In Malayali homes now it is ‘hot dog’ for father, ‘spaghetti’ for mother and ‘pizza’ for the kids. When we started to think that the foreign lady is more beautiful than our mother we dropped out culture and farm based culture became dimmer, gradually getting extinguished. The worship of western life style totally upset the local culture. Perspectives changed. In keeping with the fast track life, fast track farming methods also came into being. Pesticides, chemical fertilisers, high-yielding instant seeds all together despatched agriculture westernward. Chemicals were freely used in the processing of agricultural produce also. Going one step further, gamma radiation was intoduced to prolong the shelf-life of agricultural produces. Needless to say all this meant that our agriculture got alienated from such hoary concepts and practices and rituals associated with farming. What is more unfortunate is that the alienation from agriculture has turned our society and economy upside down. The new economic reforms snuffed out our agriculture and the ordinary farmer got lost in the bylanes of the reforms created jointly by globalisation, liberalisation and the world trade organisation. The farmer who was used to win incessant battles with the soil, with rain and shine,with insects and parasites, now stood transfixed in front of unknown and unfamiliar new dangers, wondering where to go from now. The backbone of the farmer, who was a symbol of fortitude and resourcefulness, was broken. The dark fiends of globalisation and liberalisation had a field day,driving the farmers to debt traps and mass suicides.

The decline of the farm sector is now a subject of serious debate. And there is divided opinion on mass suicides of farmer families. Andha Pradesh openly admitted that there have been mass suicides of farmers. When multi-national giants were having a merry dance to celebrate the victory of information technology, farmers were faltering and falling down in the fields. In the ecstasy of the I T festival, no one heard the wails and groans from the farmlands. Many took this matter seriously only when the farmers registered their protest through the ballot box.

M I Darling, a former British official, once said that the Indian farmer was born in debt, lived in debt and died passing on the debt to the next generation. There is no change in this situation. Otherwise the suicide fever would not have gripped the farmers of Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka,Maharashtra,Punjab and Kerala like an epidemic. The issue of farmer suicides was subjected to a psychological analysis by Ashish Nandi, an expert. According to him there are millions of poor farmers all over the world, but none of them choose the path of suicides. The Indian farmer has always been, then and now, in penury. Now it is not extreme poverty alone that bothers him but disillusionment. He had earlier the feeling that his life was in his control. But now there is a change in that feeling. Market forces he is not familiar with, have subdued him. He does not have control over his life. Someone is controlling it, but he does not know who it is. This pitiable state of affairs has taken away his self-confidence. According to this analysis it is this feeling of disillusionment that is driving the farmers to suicide.

True, the confidence in himself and the ability to control his circumstances constitute the life breath that sustains the farmer in his march forward. He has the bent of mind to stand firm in harmony with the soil and nature. And he has the pardonable pride that this feeling gives.

Once a man was passing through a farmland full of fruit bearing trees and plants. Impressed by what he saw, he congratulated the farmer saying ‘ Thank God for helping you convert an arid land like this into such a fertile area. ’ The farmer who was aware of the extremely hard work put in by himself and his family laughed and said ‘You should have seen this place when God alone was taking care of it. ’ This reflects the pride of the farmer and his confidence in himself. It looks as if one has to agree with the analysis of the psychologist that the farmer is driven to suicide when this confidence is shattered.

Did the confidence of the farmer crumble or was it crushed? Who is the  villain of the piece? Market forces? Government policies? Banking institutions? Advocates of globalisation? These are the co-accused who abscond when it becomes certain that they would be caught. All of them are responsible for the fall of the agricultural sector.

There is an invaluable character in the epics of the country that has the ability to grant all our wishes—Kamadhenu. For the average villager, agriculture was indeed like Kamadhenu. The pursuit of agricutlure was more than an employment for him; it was a way of life. This was not something that fluctuated with the ups and downs of the economy. To ignore the agricultural sector and to welcome new economic practices was like throwing away real gold to run after the glitter of tinselry. The farmer is one who will rejoice even if his eye is pricked by a grain of paddy. He knows how to bridge a rainbow from the earth to the sky. But yet he slipped, unexpectedly.

What went wrong? Once there was a poisonous snake. The very sight of him made people run for their lives. Everyone hated him. Once a yogi came that way and the snake made a complaint about this. The yogi advised him to give up the practice of biting people. If he mends his ways, the people would no longer hate him. The snake agreed. After some months the yogi came that way again and found the snake lying on the wayside, badly beaten and bruised. It opened up its plaints to the yogi. ‘I heeded your advice and see its result. Whoever saw me started to beat me up or throw stones at me. See my condition now. ’ The yogi said: ‘I asked you stop biting, but not to stop hissing. You have to hiss whenever needed. Otherwise people will throw stones at you and beat you. ’ The Indian farmer has to start hissing, through the ballot box. If he does so, self-destruction may yield place to self-confidence.