Dr Mohinder Kumar
Did the peasantry ever witness a period in history that could be termed as its stable golden era? The world history is replete with horrible accounts of their tribulations and travesties. Farming communities and their fields were on the forefront to face the fury of first attacks of invaders and marauders. We wonder if this peasant ‘class in itself’, which is for and against itself at the same time, has really been able to survive to this day and stood intact as one collective piece in face of difficulties through centuries. Moneylender, master, feudal lord, autocratic state, middleman, commission agent, trader, village record keeper -everyone has had chance to pounce on them and to extract a ‘pound of flesh’ from their produce. Life of peasant class was never destined to be comfortable under any system or power in any country of the world. Still these ‘sons of soil’ and small producers were termed as ‘sack of potatoes’ by an American sociologist Theodor Shanin. No wonder if Encarta English Dictionary (North America) gives a pejorative meaning of the term peasant in an offensive way which means “somebody considered to be ill-mannered or uneducated”. Truly, in a neo-colonial liberal set up, human culture appears with changed meaning; so does agri-culture. At least it is true for the North Americans. So when small independent peasant of North America is reeling under pressure from the corporate and market forces how can a peasant in the third world be safe?
But is it necessary that the specter of past unpleasant history should keep weighing heavily on the minds of the coming generations of peasants? A Freudian psycho-analyst may be able to convincingly tell whether farmers’ suicides in parts of India have something to do with their mutilated past. Definitely tragic deaths must have some relationship with sudden economic changes that have occurred especially during the past 20 years, which caught them unaware. The changes were sudden and dealt a heavy blow to the existence of peasantry. Now the change has got rooted, persisted and kept up its momentum.
But two decades is not a small period. Farmers still cling to their land and occupation despite odds not being in their favor. So, what lies ahead in their destiny is quite uncertain. Shall they perish? Or shall they survive? In fact these questions are not new to them. What is tragic is the uncertain outcome; the result which could be anything. Not risk but uncertainty and the sheer fear of the unknown world of tomorrow ahead is killing them. They are not committing suicides; rather it is the world competitive system which is killing them. For farmers life is important; for the system it is life’s outcome which matters most. For the system life’s productivity, its profitability, its efficiency, its economic dimension, its business, its trade and commodification, are important. Farmers’ philosophy is different and positive. Why farmers prefer life over life’s result is that they know life is certain anyway, but its outcome is not. They know hard work and labor, not its fruits. This is the sum total of their philosophy.
A number of studies have been conducted on farmers’ suicides but none of them comes closer to giving even a semblance of convincing reason. Ironically the endavour in studies which were supposed to come out with results/findings are silent on this aspect but the phenomenon of life (or suicidal death) that was the subject of their study is perceived as something which must give results! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18 thC German poet, philosopher and politician had perhaps anticipated what he was saying at that time shall become a clue to the understanding of the tragedy of peasants’ suicides at the dawn of the 21stC. He said, “What is important in life is life, and not the result of life”. Our system is unfortunately running after results; we are result oriented. With Green Revolution, agriculture was turned into a massive region-wide natural laboratory of an efficient result-oriented farming; all the farmers -big or small were expected to show results. They did; but now they can’t. Why? Because targeting results is against their life, their principles of natural existence and their harmonious relations with nature. They came to know early that the Green Revolution technologies and its perceived aims are fundamentally against all natural life forms, including humans, soil, water, vegetation, everything. That is the reason why Green Revolution could not go beyond the few forerunner States and which were ultimately left alone, only to be joined later by few laggards and not to be joined at all by others, particularly in the Eastern States. Now that we are bent upon creating second wave of Green Revolution, it may spell further doom for the secure environs of the east.
Nonetheless future of farming appears safe; but future of farmers is not. We’ll have green fields, crops, and supplies of farm produce like milk, mutton, chicken and eggs. But small farmers could possibly a thing of the past. This is called ‘depeasantisation’. He may become labourer, tenant or may vanish altogether from the scene. Farming replaces agriculture; agri-business becomes a buzzword. Farm companies, farm houses, farm enterprises and corporate farms are vying for replacing traditional small farmers. Farmer knows this. That is why contract farming -rudimentary form of advanced capitalist farming- was shown the door even in Punjab and no one today dares to touch this subject. The situation is volatile. So, is the life of small farmer. At stake is his life, not profit or price. Payment of enhanced price and plea for optimized production are just apparent excuses devised to keep him in the system until a pure, full-fledged form of capitalism has developed. Enticing a small farmer to leave the pejorative concept of peasant “agriculture” and take up “agri-business” is a strategic and systemic move to clear the way for entry of corporate capitalism in agriculture. J&K horticulturist could possibly tread this path. The daily held out promises of better infrastructure, missions, schemes, etc. may not keep him for long in agri/horti-culture.
After all for how long a farmer can run after production, productivity and price. His life was never like this in the peasant history after antiquity. Ask Malcolm L Darling, the noted ICS officer of the British Indian period in Punjab who wrote the classic “Punjab Peasantry in Prosperity and Debt” in 1930s. He had observed minutely and he will tell how careless or care free the peasant used to be in his ways of agriculture; it was a free culture. If rain gods bring good rains that is fine, and if it is drought that is also all right. It is only after the British created a system of monetization, private ownership rights, output markets, land/lease markets, etc. that a semblance of commercialization was created, which continued up to the Green Revolution and Minimum Support Price era. Now that is on wane. Farmers definitely deal with money, cash, price and all those indicators of mercantile capital but their heart is somewhere else. They want to come out of the rut of running after remunerative price. Daily demonstrations by milk producers and other small producers are basically a reflection of the growing disenchantment with the ruthless competitive system, now getting expanded and globalized day-after-day and which does not care a little to spare their precious life. They often ask themselves, or any wiser word may vouch for their philosophy of life: Where do they get time to delve deep into higher forms of thought and explore higher spiritual, though unattainable, goal of life and thus frolic with joyful experience? Should they be after targets and achievements of production, price, profit and margin, or should they primarily be able to devote a little time for spiritualism as well? If they are unable themselves then who shall enable them? But our system is keeping them enmeshed with economic dimensions. Where is the scope for them for reaching out to the higher dimensions of life and its ultimate purpose? Spiritualism will not give them bread but the point is why should a farmer be conceived to make such ceaseless effort to earn a penny? Day-after-day his struggle for existence is increasing; that is the reason he is giving up his life.
Time has come to give proper thought to the question of emancipation of farmer from the daily shackles of credit, inputs, price, petty profit margin, marginal productivity increases and endless other incremental supports -all of which appear to the farmer as distant mirage and he becomes a ‘fool of paradise’ or remains as such because the paradise of facilities and amenities never exists in reality. Farmer does not need economic protection. He needs life support systems which can keep his mental frame in balance. We are at critical juncture. While we teach him profit, accounts and individualism, we should also try to guide him towards the purpose of a united, organized and cooperative life, which he has forgotten under the yoke of capital and market. Individualism, uncertainty and anxiety will kill farmer individually till a point where whole class is vanished and decayed as a stale ‘sack of potatoes’, with total depeasantisation. It’s happening.
(The author is AGM (NABARD) Jammu)
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