Videshi Munnabhai and Jaadu ki Jhappi

Lucknow protest brings Gandhi back!!

The way movies affect us Indians is phenomenal and that can be gauged by incidents like these:

Lucknow citizens go Gandhian on liquor merchant

Not only did the group of about three dozen young men donned Gandhi caps and marched silently through the city streets, but also offered flowers to the liquor shop-owner whom they have been urging to shift his business to some other place.

This is much better than the last movies' (Munnabhai MBBS) impact on the students:

After docs, engineers do a Munnabhai

There were other films too like 'Rang De Basanti' which impacted the masses in a big way. While RDB suggested a violent way, none of us could really implement that in our daily lives. In this sense, 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' has emerged a perfect winner, where its 'flower protest' has found real meaning and is being actually implemented here.

The way officials reacted to these people's flower protest:

Liquor shop owner Gurnam Singh tried to cover up his embarrassment by saying, "Let them send flowers, we will send them a bouquet." His son Daljit Singh claimed, "We keep funding the temple; and if the temple priest has no objection, why should anyone else? We will not get browbeaten like this." He told reporters, "We are already contesting the case in court and will abide by whatever the court orders."

When contacted, even additional district magistrate J P Singh looked sheepish on the count. "This is the first time I have come across this kind of protest and a unique memorandum like this; it has really surprised me." He however denied having seen the film.

Interestingly, even some of the policemen who arrested the protestors felt awkward. "The protest was unusual and has made us wonder what to do", confessed one of them.

The results are exactly what Gandhi would have aimed for. He advised this form of protest just to expose the evil conscience of the wrong-doer and to embarrass him. Gandhi knew when people get embarrassed they realise their mistake and their defence naturally gets weaker.

But what next?

Hope! I have a belief in the power of this concept. Its power lies not in the effect it has on the aggressor, but in the impact it has on the observers standing on the sidelines and just watching the show. This concept gives them a chance to express their support to the just cause. This support is what helped Gandhi. He knew not every man in the country is powerful enough to take to violence. But each and every man, woman and child has a 'natural' courage to express their support to what they believe in. He knew they are even willing to die fighting, but not willing to kill anyone. Very much like he himself used to say:

"I am willing to die, but there is no cause for which I am willing to kill."

I have heard this many times, that we need another Gandhi. What we fail to understand is that there is a Gandhi in each and every one of us. And the Lucknow protest can be said to be a gentle reminder to us to look within and not without.

Indian Farmers: Cornered to Death!

In a recent article on IndiaTogether, P. Sainath tells us how farmers in India are facing the perils of a globalized economy. This probably is no longer a news, as its been going on for years now, starting as long back as in 1995. And as is usually the case with most of the crisis in India, the public has got pretty used to this.

At first, the suicides were a trickle, and most of the analysts refused to recognize the underlying issues, rejecting these deaths as ‘normal’. Atleast that’s what Sharad Pawar implied in his interview with Karan Thapar:

Karan Thapar: And you are saying that agricultural suicides are 15 per cent of general suicides. Therefore your ministries believe that this is not excessive.
Sharad Pawar: No, No. It is not that. In a country of a billion people about 1 lakh commit suicide every year. It is a normal thing that we have been seeing for a number of years.

How did it start?

A brief background:

India's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 6.8 percent since 1994, reducing poverty by 10 percent. However, 40 percent of the world's poor live in India, and 28 percent of the country's population lives below the poverty line. More than one third live on less than a dollar a day, and 80 percent live on less than two dollars a day.
India's recent economic growth has been attributed to the service industry, but 60 percent of the workforce remains in agriculture.
The Indian government was forced to reform its agricultural policy in the late 1960s when an imbalance in food imports was exacerbated by two years of drought in 1965 and 1966. World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development chipped in assistance to develop high-yield rice and wheat "miracle seeds." These seeds, combined with the Indian government's assistance with modern farm machinery, price incentives and a more efficient food distribution system, resulted in what came to be known as the Green Revolution.
The new seeds and fertilizers worked for many: India's food production rose from 72 million tons in 1965-66 to 152 million tons in 1983-84, eliminating the country's dependence on food grain imports. In addition to their planting the new seeds, farmers' use of chemical fertilizers jumped from 1.1 million tons to more than 12.5 million tons in the first decade of the Green Revolution, and irrigated land grew from 74 million acres in 1965-66 to 111 million acres in 1988-89.
In the late 1980s, however, the Green Revolution began to fall apart as the chemical fertilizers rendered soil infertile. Farmers who had once diversified risk by growing as many as 30 different crops in their fields were dependent upon just one. As the quality of the soil deteriorated, they faced zero yields and an inability to pay their debts. Three years of drought beginning in 2001 further fueled the crisis.
Twenty-five thousand farmers have committed suicide under these circumstances since 1997. In the state of Andhra Pradesh alone, 4,500 farmers have committed suicide in the past seven years. This does not include the number of family members of farmers who have also killed themselves.
Sources: "Harvesting Death," by Sarita Tukaram; CIA Factbook; Lonely Planet Guide: India; PBS; BBC.

The Corporate Greed Vs The Government’s Ignorance?

When Monsanto first introduced Bt Cotton in India in 2002, the farmers lost Rs. 1 billion due to crop failure. Instead of 1,500 Kg / acre as promised by the company, the harvest was as low as 200 kg. Instead of increased incomes of Rs. 10,000 / acre, farmers ran into losses of Rs. 6400 / acre. And the seeds didn’t come cheap either. At a cost of Rs 1600/kg, Monsanto extracted a margin of Rs 1250/kg from the farmers who had to pay all this through loans.

These loans set off a vicious cycle of exploitation for the farmers. The interest rates were as high as 13-15%, and that too were available mostly to farmers with significant land holdings. For the small farmer, it's always been the local money lenders to turn to, who then take their turn to exploit these farmers to the maximum extent possible, even if they have recovered their amount from them. The interest, somehow, is ‘always’ there.

The Government plays its role too. The empty promises and misdirected ‘packages’ just keep coming, but no one is ready to put the blame where it lies. Vandana Shiva has a ‘Letter to the Finance Minister’ with her complete analysis on what needs to be done. But the government is busy celebrating the 8% growth and 311 billionaires it has produced last year.