Struggle of Farmers in India

By Sharanya Shrivastava 12C 30 6711 DPSG

1.) Back bone of India

India is the land of farming and farmers are the soul of it.
Agriculture has been given utmost importance in
Vedas because it was one of the main sources of food and
livelihood for the people. India has been an agricultural
country since the time unknown. The great rishis of our
country enlightened the people with the wisdom of farming.
In fact, Bhagavad-Gita, Rig Veda and Athrva Veda contains
very specific details on agriculture like crop, cultivation,
manuring, classification of herbs and different varieties of
plants. Bhagavad-Gita, the timeless Vedic wisdom revered
throughout India, delineates the concepts of Vedic
agriculture.
But the question is were their condition always like that of the
present scenario? To find out the answer lets read through the
context .
2.) Condition during British Rule
British came to India with single motive to exploit India in
whichever way possible. They looted our national treasury
and farmers, and abused them both physically and mentally.

The British regime in India did supply the irrigation works but rarely on
the scale required. Community effort and private investment soared as
market for irrigation developed. Agricultural prices of some
commodities rose to about three times between 1870 and 1920
The British Government imposed such exploitive and partial
laws that made farmers miserable. Its their systematic way of
making India weak and poor.
Their first step was the exploitive zamindary system. The
zamindars collected so much tax from farmers leaving them
with merely something to survive. They didn’t even share
profit proportionately with farmers leaving them miserably
and lifetime indebtedness
Second and final step that destroyed the farmers were the
plantation of indigo. Indigo once planted make the land
infertile and deserted because after they are grown nothing
can be grown on those land
The colonial government or individual plantation owners
could force farmers to grow a particular crop but today
farmers in India can choose what to grow.
3.) Post-Independence
When Britishers left India, they left our country in utmost
turmoil. The farmers were hit the worst. Poverty seeping
into the farmer, the landless farmers who had nothing left.
75% of the population was engaged in farming yet they
were the poorest and worst hit of all times. No
development in agriculture sector led to no development
and growth for farmers. Even after seven decades of
Independence there is not much done to alleviate their
condition.
Our country has highest numbers of farmer, and yet are the
most underprivileged ones. Over the years the government
have done to improve agriculture, increase produce and
everything done in agriculture sector. But what have they
done for farmers to alleviate their condition?
The answer is nothing. the government believes that
improving the agriculture sector will improve the condition
of farmers and it did till some extent of equipping them
enough to survive the world. But what about their health
care, education, sanitation, proper shelter and many more.
Even Today many of the farmers are illiterate and because
of this condition they are exploited by the rich.
4.) Green Revolution
The Green Revolution was a period when agriculture in India was
converted into an industrial system due to the adoption of modern
methods and technology, such as the use of high yielding variety
(HYV) seeds, tractors, irrigation facilities, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Mainly led by agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan in India, this
period was part of the larger Green revolution endeavor initiated
by Dr. Norman E Borlaug, which leveraged agricultural research and
technology to increase agricultural productivity in the developing
world.

Though green revolution changed the face of farming but

its effect was limited to few regions. These regions were
Punjab, Haryana and parts of western Uttar Pradesh. And
even in these regions only the rich and wealthy farmers
were able to take the benefits of these. Reason being only
rich farmers could afford the expensive these HYV seeds
irrigation facilities etc.
Over the years the gap between the rich and the poor have
widened. Thus we can say green revolution have
revolutionised the agriculture sector but failed to improve
the life of farmers.
5.) Farmers bills
What is Framers Bills? Many of us believed that this bill
wasn’t really in favour of the farmers and many without
understanding the bill they went on with Bharat Bandh in
protest of this bill and to show their support for our
farmers which sounded very cool to do for many. But in
fact many didn’t realise that how foolish it was .
All the protest that we see is all politics to get power in
state, playing with emotions and sentiments of the farmers
to get vote and power in government . then who
remembers to work towards improving the condition of our
farmers .
Even after more than seven decades of independence of
our country and agriculture being the backbone of India yet
so little has been done towards the farmers. This fact
saddens many of us. When someone tries to do right by
them they are interrupted by such kinds of political stunts .
Haven’t you all wondered why this protest is mostly done
in areas surrounding Delhi and not rest of India ?? Well the
answer is it was all the greed for power to grab .
Before explaining further let us see what is in farmers bills.
The farmer’s bill gave the freedom to farmers to sell their
produce directly to the manufacturing companies and final
consumers for whatever price they wished for . This was
going break the monopoly of the intermediaries who
exploited the farmers by buying their produce at very lower
price and selling them at higher price in the market .
In fear of losing their share in market these people created
chaos in the whole India .If you notice carefully the only
people protesting against are the farmer the rich and
wealthy farmers. No farmers from Bihar Maharashtra
assam or any other state is protesting. The reason is false
information spread by these people to feed their own
political agenda .
After more than 70 years finally something big towards
farmers is being done and here many political parties are
afraid that their career will end as they might not have any
agenda to campaign in next election for power.
Bibliography
https://www.quora.com/
https://www.topperlearning.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/