India's Agrarian Martyrs: Are You Listening? By Jessica Long 13 August, 2

[Guest guest]

India's Agrarian Martyrs:

Are You Listening?

 

By Jessica Long

 

13 August, 2007

ICH

 

Many of us remember the crucial failure of the WTO's Fifth

Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. It was on this day

that Lee Kyung Hae, leader of the Korean Federation of Advanced

Farmers, discovered that his loudest voice was in death.

 

Wearing a sandwich board that read, " The WTO kills farmers! " - Lee

took a knife and stabbed himself in the chest. His death was ignored

by the WTO and the mainstream media. Given the lack of attention,

many argue that his violent end was in vain. Sadly, his dishonored

death is one of thousands being ignored by corporate mainstream

media.

 

In 2003, 17,107 farmers committed suicide. In the last few years, the

number of documented suicides in India's rural areas has skyrocketed.

These suicides have become so commonplace that they are mystifying a

nation and polarizing the debate over biotechnology.

 

On the surface, the massive numbers of farmer suicides lack the

social unity and revolutionary opposition other revolutions employ.

In fact, the local Indian government refuses to address the

correlation between agrarian suicides and economic exploitation,

making it difficult for the international public to apply real social

forces to these farmers' actions.

 

However, research shows the massive numbers of farmer suicides are

linked not only with economic disparity, but with corporate

exploitation by multinational agribusinesses.

 

Whether addressed as " agrarian martyrs " or merely desperate

peasantry, exploited Indian farmers, like Lee Kyung Hae, have found

that their loudest voice is in death.

 

In a religiously and ethnically segmented nation, their actions have

founded a cultural unity that confronts the evils of globalization.

Thus, the insanely high volume of farmer suicides serves as a

shockingly unique medium of proletarian outcry.

 

The Republic of India is one of the top twelve nations in the world

in terms of biodiversity. Featuring nearly 8% of all recorded species

on Earth, this subcontinent is home to 47,000 plant species and

81,000 animal species. Simultaneously, India is home to the largest

network of indigenous farmers in the world. Yet biotechnology has led

to extreme environmental degradation in the region, threatening to

replace its diverse ecology with corporate hybrid monoculture. The

original Green Revolution was supposed to save 58 million Indian

hectares. Today, 120 million of the 142 million cultivable hectares

is degraded- over twice the magnitude that the Green Revolution

attempted to save! In the Indian state of Punjab, 84 of the 138

developmental blocks are recorded as having 98% ground water

exploitation. The critical limit is 80%. The result has had

devastating impacts on the agricultural community, leaving exploited

farmers with little choice of action. In the past six years, more

than three thousand farmers have committed suicide in Andrha Pradesh,

that is six to ten farmers everyday! When did this start? Why is this

occurring?

 

And why have such little media attention been given to this crisis?

 

There are three potential causes for the onset of these self-

inflicted massacres:

 

1) exploitation by multinational agribusinesses

 

2) severe economic disparity and

 

3) a means of resistance by exposing the abuse of the agrarian

sphere.

 

In 1998, around the inception of mass farmer suicides, the World Bank

imposed regulations that opened up India's seed market to corporate

multinationals like Monsanto. Non-renewable GM crops now replaced a

self-sustainable farming system that had been perfected over

thousands of years.

 

While corporate agribusinesses impose their hybrid monoculture on

peasant farmers, they refuse to consider the biodiversity that is

desired to maintain traditional practices.

 

For example, 75% of cultivable Indian land exists in dry zones. Non

GM rice utilizes 3,000 liters of water in order to produce one kilo,

while non-renewable hybrid rice requires 5,000 liters per kilo!

Cotton, largely considered the " pesticide treadmill, " makes India the

third largest cotton grower in the world, accounting for 1/3 of its

export earnings.

 

Continuous GM cotton crop failures resulted in the state of Andrha

Pradesh, the seed capital of India, prohibiting the sales of Bt

cotton varieties by Monsanto. This perpetual poverty is sustained by

the bourgeois pursuit of maximizing production at the lowest possible

expense!!!!!

 

Last year the Indian government forced Monsanto to cut the royalties

they receive from the patented seeds in India- but Monsanto has

appealed to the Indian Supreme Court. The economic disparity of

Indian farmers only increases as they try to keep up with the lowest

import prices. It is estimated that they are losing $26 billion

annually.

 

In fact, non Indian farmers receive six times the amount of GDP that

Indian farmers get, requiring an exorbitant amount of loans to be

taken out. While 90% of farm loans come from money lenders, they are

charged anywhere from 36-50% interest, placing them in a cyclical

mode of poverty. Surely poverty alone cannot be responsible for such

massive amounts of bloodshed! After all, poverty has always existed,

so what is it about current conditions that have led to all this

bloodshed? The fact is that mass suicides have transformed these

farmers into agrarian martyrs for peasants everywhere. Their deaths

are inspiring significant social forces both by the government and

among its citizens. In response to the crisis, the government has

implemented compensation laws in which the victim's family receives

free electricity and $3,500. In response to economic disparity, the

Indian government imposed a one year suspension for all agriculture

loans while waiving interest.

 

However, monetary compensation laws only provide more economic

incentive for suicide, thus the citizens of India are forced to

devise alternative solutions to the problem. Arguably, the mass

suicides can be seen as a revolutionary tactic... Dr. R. Raghuarami,

an Indian psychologist, argues that many of the farmers are

takingtheir lives with direct intent of addressing attention to the

agrarian struggle. He argues that " suicide by one farmer is inviting

others to do the same. " The All Indian

 

Kisan Sabha (AIKS), or peasants front of the Communist Party in India

view this agrarian crisis as a direct result of proletarian

exploitation. S. Ramachandran Pillai, AIKS president, " called for a

united movement of the peasantry to fight the neo-liberal imperialist

offensive looming large all over the country. " AIKS has formed allies

with other social groups like the Agricultural Workers Union, Adivasi

Kshema Samithi, Center for Indian Trade Unions and the Democratic

Youth Federation of India to combat neoliberalism and to voice

demands for proletariat justice.

 

The nation is calling upon cultural unification to combat the

imperialist offensive and the corrupt bourgeois government. The

debate on the true reasons for the uproar of suicides and the effects

of GM crops remains heated... but, unfortunately, it is very likely

that the rest of the world would not have been aware of this current

crisis if it were not for these intense disputes. With each passing

day, an estimated seven more farmers die.... the question remains,

are you listening?

 

Jessica Long graduated Western Washington University with a degree in

Political Science. When she's not travelling the world, she makes her

home in Washington State.