MY JOURNEY SO FAR – CONCLUDING PART (1st Feb 2011)

I am here not by choice to be very frank but destiny brought me here... in my life I have suffered a lot and had never imagined that one day I would leave everything and move to a place to serve humanity in such a way. I must also confess that so far, I haven’t been able to do anything worthy or concrete except forming my base strong... an endeavour like this cannot be done at a break-neck speed, overnight or like the fast food... but the expectation of the world is in too much of hurry. I have to tread my path slowly and steadily and yes, firmly with results being achieved in nearby future.

The long wait for the registration of the trust is on...

There are many people from various parts of India and abroad, who are keen to help the movement in their own ways and I request them all kindly to wait for the trust to form. Their encouragement and solidarity are indeed praise worthy. Why a farmer commits suicide is still so complex to understand that no one can really give or provide the main reasons for such a phenomenon... debt, consumption of illicit liquor, family feud, depression, love affairs, nature’s fury, non-availability of employment opportunities, no proper irrigation infrastructure, middlemen lobby, political influence, media hype, MNCs exploitation, micro finance effect, money lending sharks, farmers’ will to excel in life, cash crops, high cost of investment in cultivation, labour problems & high wages, government policies... well, the list goes on and on and on... However, I strongly believe the day a farmer decides to grow food for his family like any other selfish urbanite (who is worried only about his family’s need & requirements), the problem of suicide will subside... it is the selfless attitude and nature of the farmers that has allowed the whole world to exploit them and kill them in a systematic way... one can surely say... the ploy of the government is to kill them all by various schemes... by providing them poisonous chemical fertilizers and pesticides, high cost GM seeds, low MSP – Minimum Support Price, controlling market price before and after crops are ready, WTO policies... snatching away their fertile lands in the name of development and what not...

... be it financing the community with all the comforts of life like motorcycles, dish connection etc etc..., enticing them with various loan waiving schemes year after year under political influence, providing ample of money as loan through micro finance... however, no one is teaching them how to save and generate money through saving... because all the loans taken by farmers are either invested in buying motorcycles, spent in daughters’ marriage or building cement houses, buying seeds & fertilizers but rarely the loan amount is being invested in money generating units or buying cattle. In the earlier days, in a village almost 95 per cent of the villagers used to have cattle... today, hardly 10 per cent possess good cattle for their field work, milk and manure... one can say, the globalization effect has surely made the farmers’ community to suffer the most. The rich are becoming richer because of farmers... the vicious cycle of loan has made everybody in today’s modern era to slog all through the life to pay the principal amount, so the rich can eat them sitting in their ivory towers.

There are many-many miles to be covered and walk... the journey of my life in real sense has just started...