Tuesday 5 December 2006

Khosla Ka Ghosla - Children of Farmers

Buying cheap farm lands, off distressed and debt laden Indian farmers, is the defining characteristic of many a Indian politician, all across party lines.
Many of these politicians, can teach a lesson or two on land management and property price appreciation predictions, as guest lecturers, to the smart graduates of Indian School of Business ISB.
The logistics of farm land distress sales, futures trading in farmland appreciation, loan recovery operations from suicidal Indian farmers, stitching Emperor's new clothes, can be some new topics of specialty studies at ISB in Hyderabad.
The smarter of the children of farmers, are realizing that the high flying, late night jobs, of the Gurgaon and Noida Call Centers are now beginning to stagnate, and they do not offer the same possibilities of personal advancement as to those who have through out studied in English medium Indian public schools.
The children of farmers, are therfore in a double bind. They are absolutely certain, that the politician, who is exhorting them, to diversify into horticulture, growing exotic vegetables, avocados, kiwis, tulips, BT cotton etc, are a bunch of swindlers, preparing the sloping ground only for the seeds, pesticides and fertilizer industries.
A job in a Call Center, seemed to offer that wonderful escape into a modern, non farmer like life style and ambience - where Sushma became Susan, and Ramesh became Roger - that these farmer children yearn for.
A generation of farmers is therfore already totally disenchanted, with Indian politicians who exhort them to somehow be the guinea pigs for the experiments like Second Green Revolution, contract farming, retail revolution of food from farm to fork of Indian middle class.
But what is the political potential and future, of this lost generation of farmer children ? They certainly cannot go back to farming, like their out dated parents, nor can they find an easy paradise, in urban global Indian Call Centers, because the Indian middle class youth, already, has its eyes, set on the remaining few jobs, in the sector where, as it is, Arjun Singh and his ilk, are bent on introducing reservations policy in private sector ?
Will they live like the flotsam of the middle class Indian urban paradise ?
I personally think, this generation of farmer children, the vanguards of the deceptively disguised, undeclared, Indian farm exit policy, will one day lead to major political changes, the moment they too, refuse to fall into the trap of irregular jobs of guarding and forcibly vacating, the illegal farm house kothis of the Khuranas, the Basus, the Reddys, the Gowdas and the Bawejas.
This generation of youth, will surely bring the Indian politician to account, for neglecting the basic issue of social security, even as it compels farmers deliberately into suicides, while at the same time, entertaining fond hopes of UN Security Council status for India.

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