P. Sainath, founder-editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, has charged the media with failing to document the extent of the agrarian crisis in the country.
He was speaking at a seminar organised by the Universiy of Madras’ Department of Journalism and Communication on the university’s Chepauk campus.
“The average national daily’s five-year average when it comes to stories relating to rural India is 0.67%. That goes up during the elections. The population in rural India is 69%, as per the 2011 census,” said Mr. Sainath.
Urging journalists to be in touch with farmers instead of covering governmental departments relating to agriculture, Mr. Sainath said, “So when something happens in agrarian India, the people sent out to cover it don’t know a damn thing. They haven’t covered it,” he said. He added that between the 1991 and the 2001 censuses, the farmer population had declined by 7.2 million; between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, there was a 7.7 million drop.
“You lost 15 million farmers in 20 years,” he said.
Reduced to labourers
Farmers had become agricultural labourers as a result of this crisis.
“You will find highly skilled farmers of Hassan and Mandya working in the Infosys canteen, Bengaluru,” he said.
Mr. Sainath said the credit crisis was one of the main reasons for farmer suicides. “Between 2001 and 2007, loans of ₹50,000 and less have collapsed. But loans of ₹10 crore and ₹25 crores have doubled. It’s not just the credit structure that has collapsed; the farmers’ universe has collapsed,” he said.