by Venkat Iyer
Sometimes, I felt it was the invention of money itself that was responsible. If money did not exist we would not have this problem at all. Our villages are more than self-sufficient in their needs. What they do not have they can barter from other villages which have what they need. I saw that there still existed a semblance of the barter system in our village too, especially at the Mahalaxmi temple fair.
Almost every other day we read reports of farmers committing suicide all over the country. It is not surprising, considering that they pump in so much money to buy better seeds and more expensive chemicals to protect their crops. Besides, after the effort and toil they put in, the returns do not even cover the cost of production, let alone give them a decent profit. Since they do not have any savings or ready cash they borrow from unscrupulous sources who charge high interest rates and cheat them. The only solution I can think of is to reduce the input costs which can be done by turning to organic agriculture and of course by getting fair prices with some assistance from the government.
It is not that the government has no schemes or is not trying to help the farmers. There are numerous schemes under various heads that are applicable to all farmers. Unfortunately, these schemes never reach the average farmer and are used only by a select few who get to know of these. The information on these schemes is supposed to be given to the villagers by either the gram sevak or the sarpanch of the village. It never reaches the villagers and only those close to the sarpanch or those clever enough to find out for themselves benefit. Most of these schemes also need an initial small investment which only the rich or at least well-to-do farmers can afford. Besides most of them opt for the scheme to get the subsidy money and are not really interested in the output of the schemes.
In the quest for money from other sources, farmers send their children to far-off factories to work as unskilled labour. These factories exploit them and pay them far below the minimum wages prescribed by the government. Yet, there is no other option. Many are indebted and desperately need an income just to survive. It is one of the main reasons for the large-scale migration happening to the metro cities. This in turn means that the agriculture in the village is done mostly by older men and women while the younger generation is in far-off places to earn money.
The other problem due to this large-scale migration is the loss of traditional knowledge at the village level. Most of the agricultural know-how and intelligence is passed on from one generation to the other verbally. With the younger generation opting out of farming, this priceless traditional knowledge is getting lost. As I have mentioned earlier there are no manuals or notes in this occupation.
It is rather unfortunate that the government, in its zeal to bring about ‘development’ in the rural areas, is in fact actually ruining their way of life. For years the villagers have been using barks and leaves as soap to wash themselves and their clothes. In the name of modern lifestyle, they have been introduced to detergents and bar soaps. Unfortunately, this is not available naturally and has to be bought from the market, requiring the all-important cash. The common beedi is being pushed out by the filter cigarette while the bamboo basket is being edged out by plastic bags. The common sea salt has been edged out by the packaged iodized salt which is far too expensive than the former. What the villagers got locally is now being imported from far-flung factories and to buy these things they need money.
To add to this situation, the media and society portray people who use traditional and natural products as some sort of primitive cave people while the new modern products are promoted by stars and celebrities. This media onslaught has its impact and it is now not a surprise when a villager offers you soft drinks and packaged chips.
What’s in the Future?
I have been around at the farm for fourteen years now, much to the surprise of the villagers. They had expected me to return to the city in a year or two. Even sceptics like Moru Dada who had helped me get this land realized later that I was not abandoning my efforts and going back. The original plan we had on paper is still valid and on track. We have still not dug into our capital which grew after Meena’s stint with The Hindu and the farm is running from my savings and some money from the groundnut oil, chikoos, mangoes and other crops. There are a few things in the plan that have not yet been executed. I still have to start keeping a few cattle.
Farming is not demeaning nor is it unremunerative. It is just that it does not generate the huge incomes that most people feel is needed to live a satisfied life. It is possible for a family to survive just by farming and tilling their land. They can get what they need for their daily existence from the land and sell off the surplus, if any. Land degradation is a major issue as is landlessness. The barter system prevalent in many parts is a way out of dependence on money.
The zeal to generate more cash pushes the farmers into the vicious debt cycle. Loan availability to farmers is a joke and this, coupled with the globalization process where world prices dictate terms, spells ruin for the farmer. Indian farmers do not have the huge subsidies that European or US farmers enjoy. The lure of cash crops is strong and they tend to forget the traditional produce that would at least feed their families and keep them alive. True wealth is in being happy, healthy and content with what one has.
I cannot bring myself to think of what will happen to the agricultural land that the next generation will own. Most of the young generation are working in companies or studying in schools and have no intention of farming at all. They are already migrating to the city to find a job and settle there. They will be part of the GenNext of this country. If this is the situation in all villages I cannot imagine what will happen to our food security in a few years. We will probably have to start importing canned stuff from abroad as fresh food would have vanished from this country. Or will we let contract farming take over?
Is this where we are headed? A scary thought.
Allahrakha, the baby barn owl
A butterfly on our bougainvillea plant
Chief and the Hen Log
Field beans for the day’s meal
Harvesting pigeon peas
One of nature’s colourful beauties
Plucking betel leaves for a village ceremony
Prize catch––a blue dragonfly
Rare visitor––the blue oakleaf
The shining krait
With Baban after a good harvest
Turmeric plant
Women harvesting the bumper moong crop
Working on Moong over Microchips
1 Nisha Prabhakaran, ‘Keyboard Charm to Organic Farm’, Times of India, 3 January 2005, Education Plus.
2 Lekha Menon, ‘New and Improved’, Mumbai Mirror, 16 June 2010 and Kunaal Majgaonkar, ‘Farming Nirvana’, Times of India, 19 May 2007, West Side Plus, vol. 7, issue no. 12.
3 Naomi Canton, ‘Out of IBM, in the Fields and Gazing at the Stars’, Hindustan Times, 10 August 2007 and Hindustan Times Cafe, ‘Pure Magic’, 6 February 2009.
4 Livemint, ‘Open Sky Policy: Mumbai to Peth Village’, 8 September 2007.
5 Times Now, ‘Life’s Like That’, 5 July 2005.
6 Vijay Gaikwad, ‘IT Toon Sheti’, Agrowon, 2011, Diwali Issue.
Glossary
Ashram Shala A residential school for Adivasi children run by the government
Basti A cluster or settlement of houses
Bhakri Round, flat unleavened bread usually made of rice or millets
Chapra A small hut or sit-out
Gilli danda An amateur sport played using two sticks; the large one, danda, is used to hit the small one, gilli
Gram Village
Gram sevak A government employee appointed to advise and assist villagers in matters of community welfare and development
Janmashtami The annual Hindu festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna
Jatra A fair
Kunbis A caste of traditional non-elite tillers now included in Other Backward Classes
Mahamandal Corporation
Pav A soft bread roll
Sepoy Earlier meaning ‘infantry soldier’, now used to refer to a doorman or peon
Warlis Indigenous tribe living in the coastal areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat
Acknowledgements
I read somewhere that many events in our lives are shaped by close friends and relatives. There cannot be a more accurate way to describe the birth of this book.
What started as a series of emails to former colleagues in IBM soon transformed into the idea of writing a book to chronicle the events in my life—how I moved from the corporate world to the farming world and how I managed the transition from being a city dweller to a villager.
I got the jitters when my publisher asked me to write the acknowledgements for this book. How can I mention the long list of people who encouraged me to write my experiences and kept me going when so many publishers refused to bring out my book? What if I forget to mention someone and hurt their feelings? Yet, I shall try my best to remember all those who egged me on to finally finish it.
My friends from IBM—Sriram, Shrikant, Sanjeev, Radhesh, Nitish and Rajesh—who were supportive at each stage and kept my morale up during the difficult stages of writing. My friends from outside IBM like Hema, Ujwalla and Anjali who kept encouraging me by giving examples of various writers who had managed to publish their works eventually.
This book would not have been possible without the support of Rao and Kishal from the USA who were among the first to give me this idea. Rao shared all my emails within his organization (United Nations) and told me how his colleagues were looking forward to seeing the book in print.
I would also like to thank Preeti Mehra for encouraging me to write and publish some of the stories in the book in The Hindu Business Line.
My sincere thanks to Chiki Sarkar, who took the time to read the book and give her valuable comments, Siddhesh Inamdar, whose inputs were extremely useful, and the many publishers who read my manuscript and did not discourage my efforts.
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2018
Copyright © Venkateshwaran Iyer 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Ahlawat Gunjan
ISBN: 978-0-670-09090-7
This digital edition published in 2018.
e-ISBN:978-9-353-05006-1
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.