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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anger grows as drought, broken promises blight farmers’ hopes by Liz Mathew

Anger grows as drought, broken promises blight farmers’ hopes by Liz Mathew

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published Published on Oct 22, 2009   modified Modified on Oct 22, 2009


A prolonged dry spell has left the epicentre of farmer suicides in crisis again

Yavatmal: Recent rains have given Vidarbha a fresh look, but they have done little to ease the misery of thousands of farmers in these districts at the eastern edge of Maharashtra as they live with the reality of parched fields and mounting debt.

As election fever grips the state, farmers in Yavatmal and nearby districts swear politicians have turned their backs to them, just as nature has.

The delayed and deficient rains—the region received only 60-70% of the average rainfall this year too—have demolished any lingering hope. The standing crop of cotton, soya bean and jowar has already wilted. Although it started raining in June-end, giving farmers a slender thread of hope to cling to, the subsequent prolonged dry spell has left Yavatmal district, the epicentre of farmer suicides, in crisis yet again. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there have been at least 182,936 farmer suicides between 1997 and 2007.

Meanwhile, anger against politicians is boiling over.

“How thick-skinned these politicians are to visit us seeking our votes. They come only at election time, forget us for the next four years and come again to renew the promises,” says Kashinath Rathore, a farmer in Bothbodan village, 15km from the district centre in Yavatmal. Apart from the major political combinations—the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, and the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), or the Third Front, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)—eight independents are also contesting from the Yavatmal assembly constituency for the 13 October state elections.

“We are like animals. The politicians do not care for people like me in the villages. They do take care of those who live in cities. No one wants us because we are powerless,” says Suresh Nanakchand Chaitani, a labourer who has not been getting any work for the last three weeks, struggling to bring a smile to his wrinkled face.

Unlike Kalavati, the distressed farmer widow whose story was brought to the world’s attention by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Chaitani’s destiny has not changed even after the Congress’ star campaigner visited his home. “Last year on 18 July, Rahul Gandhi came to my house, sat there for almost an hour, promised that my life would be different. But nothing happened,” Chaitani says, showing the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme card, (obtained under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, government’s most popular flagship programme) with no entries on it. “I have not got a single bit of work, nor have I received a single paisa as wage under this scheme since I got this card in 2006,” Chaitani says.

 


Livemint, 11 October, 2009, http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/11205530/Anger-grows-as-drought-broken.html
 

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