"Stubble is an issue of eight days in a year" : P. Sainath

Senior Journalist P. Sainath during an interview.
(Source: Video screen grab )  

P. Sainath is an Indian journalist and Founder Editor of the People's Archive of Rural India, who focuses on social & economic inequality, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermath of globalization in India. He is the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award (and often referred to as the ‘Asian Nobel’). He is also the former Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu. In an interview to a group of students from IIMC on the sidelines of Kisan Mukti March Day 1 at Ramlila Maidan, Sainath, who is often credited for mass farmer mobilization in March during Nashik to Mumbai Kisan Padyatra, he talked about the women representation in agriculture, stubble burning and response by Delhiites in the Kisan Mukti March. Excerpts:

Tapasya (T): What do you think where the women stand in this agrarian crisis?

Sainath (S): You have no chance of resolving the agrarian crisis when you don’t engage with the section of society that does maximum work in agriculture (agri), more than 60% of work. But less than 10% of women have own land. We don’t give them property rights, though it is provided under law, but custom and convention keep them down. The amount of work that women do has gone more and more as many of the men have migrated out of the village. So, just looking after livestock, dairy, poultry which was a huge amount of work, now they are looking after crop agriculture as well. Therefore, load on the women has gone up tremendously but the ridiculed way in which we organize data tells us that the women workforce in agri is declining. Its declining because you only count paid workers and most of the work they do is unpaid and that is how the women’s contribution to the GDP is minimized in the same way. So I don’t think that you could solve the crisis without taking on board their needs and rights.

Farmers watching a Nukkad Natak at Ramlila Maidan 

            

T: What do you think about representation of women in Kisan Bodies?

S: There are different Kisan bodies around 150 or so where they are not represented properly. But there are some bodies like Mahila Kisan Wing just for Mahila Kisaans. But I think that under representation of women is like their under representation in every other area.

Sanjay: Do you think women have enough knowledge and solution about the issues pertaining to agri?

S: Women have the knowledge of agri more than you and me. They are the keepers of your seeds; they know how to preserve seeds but we are buying hybrid seeds each season without any idea of preserving our original species, which are fast disappearing. Those preserved variety are largely preserved by these women only.   

      

Bhavey: What’s your opinion on whole this concept of Stubble Burning when these two states, Haryana and Punjab are blamed for pollution in Delhi?

S: I think this is an issue of eight days in a year. Your (government’s) pollution under the so called new economic reforms from 1991-92, you cut down the number of buses; you shut down public transport corporations, you privatized public transport corporations and you encourage this cult of private automobile with subsides and loans to middle classes to buy cars and now you can’t breathe in the city. Are you telling me that this is because of stubble only? Stubble is bad but it’s for eight days. But why are farmers burning the stubble? You are doing too much over intensive cultivation that between one crop and the next, the farmer has eight or ten days, so they burn the stubble. State can do the service of giving them n thousand of rupees per hectare to dispose off the stubble by other means. You can do that but you are not willing to do that. You will go and give that money to corporations that have the machinery which will do it. Whereas, you do it in a correct way it would create work for agriculture labour. I don’t enjoy the smoke of stubble either, I was in Punjab three-four weeks ago, please understand they also suffer from stubble burning. And as if every piece of stubble burned comes out to Delhi.

Farmers from different states resting at the Ramlila Maidan
(Source: Abhay Chawla)

Arindam: How do you understand the present ecological crisis in relation to the agri sector?

S: This is one of the big disasters in this country that you are going for corporate led chemical driven agri more and more. The people who founded the “Green Revolution” are today warning you against this. Punjab Agriculture University was the heart of “Green Revolution”, last year they opened a school of organic agriculture. There is some realization that things have gone out of control. I think you need to make a choice between corporate led chemical driven agriculture and community owned agro ecological agriculture.

Abhishek: Farmers are here from different places after marching from five camps. Comparing to Mumbai march, how do you think is the response of Delhi citizens?

S: It is excellent. Tomorrow (on 30th) you’ll see a bigger mobilization. Today it was the farmers march, most middle class will not march 20 kilometers (kms) or even five kms. But what is astonishing is how many hundreds of students from five universities of Delhi are here as volunteers when they are having exams: JNU, Ambedkar University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi University and from IP University. Today on the route here people were everywhere on the road. They were distributing packets of bread, sweet buns, water at Rajghat, Earlier many were distributing peanuts. This is phenomenal.