Simply put, radical change is the only way out

Nirmal Sandhu     

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 1     

Farmer suicides reflect a deepening socio-economic crisis in Punjab. The state grows at a below national average rate. If agriculture grows at 2 per cent or so, how can anyone in this sector think of beating price rise? Small wonder the very survival has become a challenge. Rising aspirations and growing inequalities have bred discontent. There are demands of an acquisitive culture. Restive Haryana Jats seek solutions through reservations. Farmers elsewhere may adjust to poverty, but not in Punjab. Some choose death over a life of desperation.  

Change is required if Punjab’s economic, social and moral decline is to be reversed. Farmers have to learn to cope with the Green Revolution’s side-effects. It is time to realise that greed is not good. There is a limit to the soil’s capacity to produce. Water resources are not unlimited. Chemical overuse has damaged soil and polluted water. The impact on human and animal health is self-evident. Private hospitals see business opportunities in cancer treatment.   

The folly of (1) taking a loan to buy a tractor and selling it to fund a wedding, (2) wasting the state’s precious resource, water, to grow rice for consumers outside the state, (3) installing expensive submersible pumps to extract sinking groundwater, (4) abandoning less water-consuming crops and (5) pursuing unhealthy food habits and a laid-back lifestyle needs to be realised. One needs to be extraordinarily dumb to do such self-damage. Here are a few suggestions for a way out of this miserable existence.

Quit agriculture altogether

Few now make money from agriculture except by selling land, that too if located near a town, a city or along a road. The pragmatic ones do side businesses, jobs or even physical labour, or quit farming to work in cities or abroad. Farming can be a joy if one limits one’s needs, appreciates being close to nature or has enough land. For others chasing comforts, it can be frustrating. The more people quit farming, the better. A transition to alternative work needs to be managed properly. The excessive reliance on migrant labour and farm machinery has made farmers shy of hard physical work. 

Education, skills and health

An educated person can fight poverty, disease, exploitation, denial of rights, cheating and overcharging better than an illiterate person. Urban children go to good schools and grab top jobs. Rural children lag behind due to substandard education. Ill-health makes one earn less and spend more. Savings are lost in saving a life. Yet, villagers seldom agitate for better schools and hospitals. 

Addressing addiction

With no jobs due to second-rate education, and little interest in, or facilities for, sports, youth do not know what to do with themselves. Frustrated, they turn to drugs and crime. An AIIMS study has established that Punjabis spend Rs 6,500 crore annually on heroin alone. Drugs kill or disable youth, wrecking their family life and making them a financial burden on society.  

Given the foreign craze, fleecing by unscrupulous travel agents and financial drain on parents’ limited resources, any responsive government would have thought of covering up its own failure to create jobs by monitoring work opportunities abroad and training youth for that and ensuring their safe, legal migration. What a waste of youth. People pay heavily for choosing leaders without vision. 

Cutting business costs

Agriculture is a business and should be treated as such. It means cutting costs. A tractor is a liability if the landholding is less than 15 acres. A panchayat or a few like-minded farmers can pool in money to buy farm machinery and a tractor, and share the costs. Cooperative farming and marketing of produce can be tried, but Punjabis are not good at it. Petty rivalries and politics of hate divide them. Fights, police cases and litigation financially ruin them. 

Joint families have disintegrated. Each family now buys its own tractor, motorcycle, if not a car, submersible pump, while landholdings shrink due to divisions. Gujaratis travel together, bargaining for cheaper bus/flight tickets and hotel rooms. They carry or cook their own food. 

Panchayats can play a role in reviving agriculture and a healthy village life. Collective farming can lead to a village-level buildup of safe storage space to cut waste, reduce transportation cost and market produce when and where prices are attractive. Agro-based small businesses can be the next step. Farmers should produce for the market — products that fetch a good price. In Brazil, farmers with small landholdings turned in a big way to vegetable and fruit cultivation, which is labour-intensive. This not only made them self-sufficient but also created work for local labour, checking migration to cities. Earlier each Punjab farmer grew things needed to run a household — vegetables, grains, pulses, etc. 

He did not have to go to a shop to buy dairy and poultry products. Now he sticks to three crops: cotton, rice and wheat. In the pre-Green Revolution days, farmers grew more than 200 crops.

Simplifying life and needs

Punjabis all over tend to show off during marriage, birth and death ceremonies, which is financially suicidal. They even take loans for this. Loans which do not generate an income higher than the interest outgo can be ruinous. The craze to acquire comforts or things one does not need is a larger societal problem. Films and TV channels spread a consumerist culture and celebrate big, fat Punjabi weddings. It takes some courage to say no to ceremonies everyone frets about privately. Marriage palaces are thriving since they save parents the hassles of performing a marriage. What we have lost in the process is not fully realised. Relationships and warm neighbourhood practices have taken a hit in the pursuit of comforts and convenience.  

The Tribune field reports highlighting household tragedies have stirred the collective conscience and prompted readers to offer financial help. Punjabis abroad too want to do something. For that, we need to build credible channels and institutions. Monetary assistance can work like a band aid to treat an injury. Individual anguish can be managed by experts through helplines, NGOs and panchayats. Long-term healing, however, requires a social support system, revival of joint families and restoration of a vibrant community life. Believers in minimalism say there is greater joy in owning less than in pursuing more.