farmers' crisis not reflected in the media

‘Farmers’ crisis not reflected in media’
Staff Reporter
‘There is growing disconnect between mass media and mass reality’
Bangalore: Regretting that the crisis of farmers is not reflected in the mass media, Magsaysay winner P. Sainath, on Thursday, said that there is growing disconnect between the mass media and mass reality.
Participating in a function organised to launch the website of “Janashakthi”, the Kannada weekly in Bangalore, Mr. Sainath pointed out that the voice of 70 per cent of the population, including farmers “do not make news” as the mass media is giving importance only for the “elite” section of the society.
He wondered how the television channels and newspapers, except one channel and one newspaper, did not think that it was news when Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar admitted in Parliament that about 1.6 lakh farmers committed suicide in the country between 1997 and 2007.
Mr. Sainath said that the Budget announcement of waiving of farm loans of over Rs. 50,000 crore has been described as “unprecedented” in the mass media, when such concessions were being given to the corporate sector every year.Missed reportage
The mass media even failed to report the outcome of a house-to-house survey of farmers, conducted by the Maharashtra government, which revealed that 2 million farming families were in a highly distressed state, he said.
Mr. Sainath also ridiculed the media by pointing out that as many as 512 media representatives cover a week-long fashion show held every year in Mumbai, while six representatives of the national media do not wish to stay in villages to study and report the causes of farmers’ suicide in the Vidharabha region.
Litterateur Baraguru Ramchandrappa felt that the existence of “common man” becomes relevant for politicians only during elections. At all other times they sail with the needs of the corporate sector. He also alleged that the rulers of late have allowed multi-national companies to violate the provisions of the Constitution. He urged the mass media to highlight these issues

page 3, the hindu, 28 march, 2008

oh! what a lovely waiver

Oh! What a lovely waiver

P. Sainath

The UPA government’s waiver is no solution to even the immediate crisis let alone long-term agrarian problems. Nothing in this budget will raise farm incomes.

It was around the distress in regions like Vidharbha and Anantapur that the present ‘farm loan waiver’ was conceived. Growing knowledge of that distress, breaking through even the filters of a media unmoved by the crisis in the countryside, made the waiver both thinkable and acceptable. Odd then, that in its present form, it excludes the very regions whose pain brought it into existence.
Millions do indeed get relief from what is a positive step. (Though not quite as ‘unprecedented’ as some believe). Even the colonial raj went in for loan waivers or ‘karza maafi’ more than once. And those waivers addressed private moneylender debt. (There were no nationalised banks in those days.) That’s something the present waiver does not touch — even though usury accounts for the overwhelming share of farm loans. In Vidharbha, money owed to private lenders would account for between two-thirds and three-fourths of all debt. In short, we haven’t begun to resolve the debt crisis of these and millions of other farmers. Unproductive holdings
The failure to touch moneylender debt is just the first problem. In Vidharbha, the average landholding size is 7.5 acres or 3.03 hectares. Way above the two-hectare cut-off mark for the bank loan waiver. Up to 50 per cent of Vidharbha’s farmers are above this limit. Not because they are big landlords. They tend to have larger holdings as their land is unproductive and unirrigated. Poor adivasis in Yavatmal, for instance, often own over ten acres but get very little from their land. In Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, too, many farmers will be left out by size or other norms. By contrast the farmers of Western Maharashtra, the Union Agriculture Minister’s stronghold, will benefit greatly. Their holdings are smaller, well-irrigated and more productive.
For those with over two hectares, there is the old deal of “one-time settlement” of their bank loans. In this case, if they repay 75 per cent of the loan, they will be given a rebate of 25 per cent. Only very large farmers will gain from this. If the rest, drowning in debt, could pay 75 per cent of their dues, they wouldn’t be committing suicide. They would pay hundred per cent.
Then, of those farmers falling within the two-hectare limit, only a small group have access to bank credit. So the gainers in this crisis-hit region will be a small percentage of the total number of farmers. It doesn’t end there, though. The few who do qualify, gain much less than farmers in, say, Western Maharashtra. The average crop loan in sugarcane territory is Rs. 13,000 per acre. Apart from which farmers there get up to Rs. 18,000 per acre for drip irrigation. In Vidharbha’s cotton regions, they get loans of just Rs. 4,400 per acre. So the scale of the write-off will be far greater for the relatively better off farmers. In political terms, this benefits Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s base. At the same time, it undermines the farm base of the Congress in Vidharbha. Indeed, the average loan for the grape growers (outside of Vidharbha) is Rs. 80,000 per acre.
The cut-off date of March 31, 2007 works against even the small group of Vidharbha farmers who do benefit. Loans in the cotton regions are taken between April and June. In the cane growing regions, they are taken between January and March. This means the Vidharbha farmer has one less year of loans waived than the others.
Since no distinction has been made between dryland farmers and others, anomalies abound. West Bengal and even the non-crisis regions of Kerala have large numbers of farmers below the two-hectare limit. With agriculture in bad shape, don’t grudge them the windfall the waiver brings. But it is odd the same does not happen for farmers in dryland regions who need it most. What’s more, the farmers of Bengal and Kerala have far more access to bank credit than those in Vidharbha do.
The State government itself reckons that Rs. 9,310 crore of the waiver comes to Maharashtra. That is, almost a sixth of the total. Of this, a fraction goes to Vidharbha, the rest being collared by better off farmers. And what of other dryland farmers across the nation? Those in, say, Rayalaseema or Bundelkhand? What do they get?
Is the waiver ‘unprecedented’? Each year, nationalised banks write off thousands of crores of rupees as bad debt. Mostly money owed by small numbers of rich businessmen. And theirs is not a ‘one-time waiver.’ It is a write-off that recurs every year
Between 2000-04, banks wrote off over Rs. 44,000 crores. Mostly, this favoured a tiny number of wealthy people. One ‘beneficiary’ was a Ketan Parekh group company that saw Rs. 60 crore knocked off. (The Indian Express, May 12, 2005). However, those ‘waivers’ are done quietly. In 2004, last year of the NDA, such write-offs went up by 16 per cent. Such ‘waivers’ have not slowed down since 2004.Staggering giveaway
And all this is apart from the annual Rs. 40,000 crore ‘giveaway’ to the rich, mainly corporate India. That has been the average in the budget every single year for over a decade. Then there are the straight handouts. No one knows how many thousands of crores are lost by handing out spectrum the way it’s being done. But we know it’s a staggering amount. Tot up the ‘tax holidays,’ exemptions and the rest of it and you’re looking at sums that make the ‘unprecedented’ one-time farm loan waiver look like loose change.
But let us look, for instance, at the millions of farmers owning less than one hectare — the largest group. Some 7.2 million of them have accounts in scheduled commercial banks. And the total outstandings against these accounts is Rs. 20,499 crores. (Reserve Bank of India: Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy 2006-07.) As Devidas Tuljapurkar of the All-India Bank Employees Association points out, that’s about the same amount the nationalised banking sector writes off each year as bad debt. Mainly for industry. Those farmers with between one and two hectares hold 5.9 million accounts and owe Rs. 20,758 crores. That is: these 13 million account holders owe less than the Rs. 44,000 crore written off by the banks during just the NDA period for a tiny number of rich people.
The waiver does bring great relief to large numbers of farmers. But it is no solution to even the immediate crisis let alone long-term agrarian problems. Nothing in this budget will raise farm incomes. Which means farmers will be back in debt within two years. Their incomes have long been much lower on average than those in other sectors. And they fall further behind each year. Worse, fresh credit will not come cheap. Pleas for ‘low-interest or no-interest loans’ have been ignored. There is no mention of a price stabilisation fund to shield farmers from the volatility of corporate-rigged global prices. Besides, the idea of a five-year repayment cycle has not been touched. And the highly unjust crop insurance rules that dog regions like Anantapur remain unchanged.
However, there is still a long way to go in the budget session. So these problems can be set right if the government is sincere about helping those worst-hit by the crisis. It could work all these measures into the final document and also adjust the terms for dryland regions.
One funny outcome of the budget is that the media are now talking about farmers. Of course, the ‘analysis’ of what is ‘pro-farmer’ comes from the elite. From CEOs, stockbrokers, business editors, corporate lobbyists and touts in three-piece suits. On budget eve one anchor posed a question to his panel in words to this effect: “Will it be a pro-poor, aam aadmi budget or will Mr. Chidambaram use the opportunity to do something good [for the country] in terms of reforms.”
When the budget rolled out, one anchor said: “And now for the budget bad news. India Inc.’s plea for a cut in corporate tax rates went unheeded.” Isn’t that cute? If a budget is pro-poor, it cannot be good for the country. If it does not give the corporate world more goodies, it is bad. And of course, the elite panellists mostly rued this “gigantic giveaway.”
While gasping at the size of the “write-off” it’s worth asking why the loan waiver comes up now. Why not in 2005, when the demand was already being made? Or in 2006 when the Prime Minister visited Vidharbha and was shaken by the widespread distress. Mr. Pawar has outsmarted his rivals. Had the step been taken then, the credit would have gone entirely to the Congress. No prizes for guessing who opposed it then (when it would have cost much less).
For three years, while the misery and suicides mounted in Vidharbha, there was not even the admission that a loan waiver was possible. Indeed, it was shot down by those now taking out full page ads claiming credit for it. As they complain in Vidharbha, this is not about karza maafi. It is about seeking voter maafi (voters’ forgiveness) in election year.

page 11, the hindu, march 10, 2008

jokes apart...

an inconvenient truth. a documentary about global warming. a lot of people believe that the use of the frog and ice cream was necessary to break "the seriousness of the movie, not the issue". they said it was necessary so that people would not be overloaded with too much factual information and statistical details, and that it helps to bring home the message of the fil.

the point of such a documentary i believe, is to show that all the people of the earth are ultimately responsible for global warming, simply by because they exist. some, of course, are more responsible than others, while it is also true, that some times, you cant pinpoint and say who's to blame. but that requires a whole seperate debate altogther.

the focus of the debate should have been more on why and how people contribute to global warming, and the possible remedies to tackle it. the very fact that the debate focused more on how effective the frog and ice cream were as a medium of communication shows how we missed the point. of course, the effectiveness of the presentation of the content is relevant, but one needs to decide which of the two is more important: the form or the content.

however important any debate on form vs content might be as students of environment and development communication, as human beings who inhabit planet earth, what we do with the experience of watching the documentary should bother us at least a little bit. at least more than frogs and ice creams.

if the frog and the ice cream is all we can debate about in spite of all the arguments, statistics, details, facts, presented in the documentary, then i believe that our extinction willl be just sooner rather than later.

anand patwardhan's interview

Just-so stories

Fiery documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan tells S. VISHNU an alternative model of development is the need of the hour

CONCRETE REALITIES Anand Patwardhan: ‘Our priorities are determined by amoral seekers of profit who occupy high office in both government and corporations’

Anand Patwardhan, one of the most eminent documentary filmmakers in India, and film-activist, was in town as a guest for the Anand Patwardhan Film Festival organized by Manipal Institute of Communication. The maker of one of the most controversial tr ilogies on communalism in India, spoke to MetroPlus.

What made you turn filmmaker?
I was 21 years old studying in America on a scholarship. The anti-Vietnam War movement consumed my fellow students and me. The ethos of the 60’s have, in a sense, impacted my thinking forever.

‘Ram ke Naam’ on majority communalism made in 1991 gave a strong warning of horrors to follow. What more do you think was necessary to change the horrific circumstances that we have witnessed in the last 20 years?
The film was made before the demolition of Babri Masjid. If it had been shown on Doordarshan to a mass audience it may have had some effect on the popular thinking of people. Communalisation back in those days hadn’t reached the peak it has today. Even the Kar-sevaks themselves may have realised that those propagating the ideology of hate are primarily power-hungry and corrupt and have nothing much to do with religion.

Your anti nuclear film ‘War and Peace’ extensively documents vulgar forms of nationalism. Must an anti-nuclear stand necessarily oppose the ideals of nationalism or patriotism?
In a way yes, at least one must oppose the jingoism that normally passes for nationalism and patriotism because it’s bad for the planet. The world has enough arms to destroy this planet 50 times over. The world has no idea what to do with the enormous nuclear waste it’s producing. You cannot destroy your home like that. And you cannot spend millions on this destruction. In fact, anybody who loves his or her nation should, especially in the sub-continent, be sane enough to use these same funds for the poorest of the poor.
For example the cost of one nuclear missile production facility can provide drinking water for more than 37,000 villages; one nuclear submarine costs 30 times the annual national budget for primary education!
Ordinary people are capable of seeing through this immorality. They take an anti-nuclear stand when the truth of what an atom bomb can do is explained to them.
It’s the elite who rant about “national security”. They are the real anti-nationals for their idea of security is to sacrifice the future of a vast majority of this nation.

“Father, Son and Holy War”, the last of your trilogy on communalism draws a connection between masculinity and violence. It has a horrifying scene of a burnt corpse lying in the middle of the road and people moving on with their normal life. Why such coldness?
It symbolizes what is happening to our country. Mass murder takes place in front of our eyes and we look the other way as if nothing has happened.
That is what we did in Delhi in 1984, in Bombay in 1993 and in Gujarat in 2002. There’s a clear distinction in people’s minds of ‘them’ and ‘us’. What you get in the end is an indifference to suffering.

You have made documentaries like ‘Hamaara Sheher’ and ‘A Narmada Diary’ which point towards a collaboration between the nation state and corporations.
Our free market economists argue that even non-essential, wasteful industrial growth generates employment and brings about prosperity.
But what is a true indicator of development and prosperity? Somebody sneezes in New York; the market tumbles globally.
Does the market reflect whether the crops or the monsoons were good this year?
Does it represent in the slightest the concrete realities of our people? Our priorities are determined by amoral seekers of profit who occupy high office in both government and corporations. And we have an urban youth unwilling to come out of the cosy niche of blogs and malls they have created for themselves. An alternative model of development is the need of the hour, before social unrest of an unprecedented kind erupts in this country. The signs are already here.

the hindu, metro plus mangalore, march 8, 2008

shri prakash's interview in the hindu

Truth be told
Film maker Shriprakash Prakash says as a film activist, one has to maintain a distance from the subjects one is working with

Reality bites Shriprakash Prakash: ‘The day you find that nobody is truly innocent, you’ll be disillusioned for a second’

Shriprakash Prakash, is a film-activist and independent documentary filmmaker. Shriprakash has directed and produced many documentary films during the last 15 years, the most powerful ones being ‘Kiski raksha’, ‘The Fire Within’ and ‘Buddha weeps in Jadugoda’. He is also the chief co-ordinator of Kritika, a group working in the Jharkhand region since 1990 in the areas of culture and communication. His maiden feature, “Baaha” is about an Adivasi boy, who aspires to be a singer. In town for a seminar and interaction with the students at the Manipal Institute of Communication, Shriprakash shared his thoughts of filmmaking and activism. Excerpts.

Tell us something about the beginning.
I haven’t studied in any film school. I started off with a VHS camera, bought on a loan. My friends and I used to shoot marriage videos to make some money which we then thought was enough capital to make documentaries.It didn’t work out for long though.

How challenging is it to convince the opinion makers of the ground realities of your subjects?
Every society has its sensibilities. You can create awareness in a society which is unaware, but you can’t do anything when the society chooses to ignore an issue. Our sensibilities today are a little too accustomed to consumerism. People have to realise that they enjoy development at the cost of displacement of millions of people. And yet, I have a medium in hand, a technology which is pro-people. I can afford it and create my own space. The technology isn’t just for the ruling class anymore. So yes, even the challenges of convincing are a bit less complicated given the reach of the medium that I have adopted.

Your documentary ‘Buddha weeps in Jadugoda’ on uranium mining is considered one of the most powerful in it’s genre. How is Jadugoda today?
One of my Australian friends, who was doing a project in Jadugoda complains on how nothing has changed, since I made the documentary eight years ago. I keep denying that. Things have changed. Even though nothing on the grass-root level, at least people have been educated. People’s concern and opposition to uranium mining has increased. There’s a foundation even in Japan against uranium mining called ‘Buddha weeps foundation’.

How has the transition from documentary to feature been?
Both documentary and feature film making are different mediums. The grammars are miles apart. Feature film-making has proved to be immensely challenging. It may be because I’m new to the grammar. While I was shooting documentaries I never had to direct my subjects.
Directing my actors is entirely new and communication becomes a little challenging. Many times I feel I didn’t get financial support and that I couldn’t quite enjoy the economic independence that is crucial sometimes. But yes, I wanted to reach out to the masses. Plus, I didn’t quite have the required equipment.
I shot the film entirely with a PD-170 camera, which is not of expected standards. The cassette industry is a major sector which shapes dreams of the youth.
And in this world ruled by the market, the market fundamentals have even ventured into a town like Ranchi. Since I’ve always been experimental, thought I’d try this out.

How have you been dealt with the death threats and opposition? What keeps you going?
I grew up in Jharkhand. I don’t have to go anybody else’s neighbourhood to tell the truth. I talk about my people. I have always felt the need to tell the truth and pursue justice. Yes, middle-class people do have choices — to take the path which brings us more comfort. I can’t help but go with my convictions. It is not for anybody else we are fighting. We are fighting for ourselves, our own community. And as for hurdles, they are always there.
As a film-activist you have to maintain a distance from the subjects you are working with. You cannot afford to get too close. You will be victim of a lot of things and there will be incomprehensible culture shocks awaiting you. All your constructs will be tattered and delusions will dwindle by the day. You’ll realise that there are innumerable number of realities and perspectives on various levels. The day you find that nobody is truly innocent, you’ll be disillusioned for a second, just to realise that it’s just a tip of an iceberg.
Cynicism does settle in at times. But yes, after working so much with these people, especially for three years in Jadugoda, I’ve seen unimaginable miseries and have been shocked enough that all my middle-class aspirations and needs seem meaningless. People keep me going. One understands humanity a bit more.
G. VISHNU

the hindu, metro plus mangalore, february 28, 2008

invisible women

Invisible women

We usually wake up to their existence when they don't turn up for work. And the first response is annoyance, because of the inconvenience caused to us. Films like Lakshmi and Me open our eyes to the plight of people who hold up our homes, writes Kalpana Sharma.

20 January 2008 - They flit in and out of our homes like ghosts in the night. They sweep and swab, wash and cook, look after our children, care for the elderly. Yet we know little about them. Most of us just about know their first names. We don't know where they're from, where they live, whether they are married, how many children they have, how many other homes they work in, what they earn — how they survive. They are virtually invisible.

We usually wake up to their existence when they don't turn up for work. And the first response is annoyance, because of the inconvenience caused to us. Many professional women don the title of being superwomen because they manage jobs and homes — work life balance. But in fact the real superwomen are these silent workers, without whom few professional women in India would be able to function. Yet, while those in formal employment get sick leave, casual leave, privileged leave and weekends, our domestic help is not entitled to any of this. If she rests too long, she’s lazy. If she doesn't turn up for work, she's a shirker. It would appear that these women don't have the right to relax, to fall sick, to have some fun. And of course, no one acknowledges that when they're done with our homes, they still have their own homes where they have to do the very same jobs, sweep and swab, wash clothes, cook and take care of children and elderly.

Nishtha Jain, a Mumbai-based documentary filmmaker has done what all of us need to do. She has not just acknowledged that this silent worker in her home has a name, but she's followed her life so that we see the person behind the name — a person just like any of us. And instead of viewing the woman from a distance, the filmmaker has bravely placed herself in the frame, honestly dissecting her own relationship as an employer. Lakshmi and Me is a remarkably honest documentary about 21-year-old Lakshmi and the filmmaker, Nishtha.
Demanding day
Lakshmi is typical of the domestics in Mumbai who work in several houses. They arrive at fixed time, rapidly complete the assigned tasks and move on to the next house. The only conversation with the employer is about the work — rarely anything personal.
But Lakshmi found that one of her employers was actually interested in her as a person, wanted to know her views, her dreams and ambitions. She wanted to understand why Lakshmi felt it was a curse to be born a woman. She wanted to know about romance in her life, about her family, her home, the traditions she followed. And to her credit, Lakshmi allowed the filmmaker into her life.

The film follows Lakshmi's life, her daily routine of working in different homes, takes us to her own home, introduces us to her family and her perennially drunk father. We watch her fall in love and ultimately marry a young man from a lower caste. Her family disowns her. We feel Lakshmi's sorrow when this happens as well as her happiness with the man she loves. And then illness strikes. We see her getting weaker and thinner. And yet she continues working. We witness the first months of her pregnancy. And yet she works. And we watch her struggle with illness and pregnancy in hospital.

What is most interesting about this film is the relationship between the two women, Lakshmi and Nishtha. The latter tries hard to overcome the class divide and the employer-employee relationship. She invites Lakshmi to join the crew for lunch and sit at the table. Lakshmi is embarrassed and amused. Later she tells Nishtha that she laughed because she thought it so funny that a 'black' woman like her should be sitting with 'white' people! And we claim colour is not an issue.

So, can gestures like asking our domestic help to sit at the table with us really bridge the chasm that exists between classes? Such gestures can have meaning only if they are backed with a genuine interest and concern in the person and recognition that they are human and have the same rights and needs as we do. And even then, we cannot be sure that decency and magnanimity on our part as employers will necessarily result in a comfort level where our domestic help feels at ease sitting at the same table as us. For, the divisions in our society, the place that each presumes they have in it, are so deep that it will take much more than such gestures to change things. But they could be a beginning and they could set a trend where we recognise and acknowledge those who provide us with such vital support.

Vicious circle

Another important aspect of domestic work that the film brings out is the crisis that befalls these women when they fall ill. Most of them continue to work until it is virtually impossible for them to do so. By then, their sickness has advanced to a point where they need urgent care. Yet the reason they don't take even a day off to deal with health problems is because they fear that someone else will take their place. The reason they don't demand a higher wage, or some additional amount for medical contingencies, is the same. Ask for more money, and you are guaranteed to lose your job. And there are plenty of others waiting to take your place.
Films like Lakshmi and Me ought to be shown on prime time television, in housing societies in a city like Mumbai, in schools and colleges (www.lakshmiandme.com / www.raintreeefilms.net). As a society, we are becoming increasingly blind and indifferent to the existence of people who hold up our homes, our lives, our cities. Such films should help open our eyes and our minds. ⊕

Kalpana Sharma 20 Jan 2008

Kalpana Sharma has been Chief of the Mumbai Bureau and Deputy Editor with The Hindu. Her opinions, which appear in a regular column with The Hindu, are concurrently published on India Together with permission. 'Lakshmi and Me' is written and directed by Nistha Jain, and produced by Raintree Films.