Madhav is a tribal child whose father committed suicide due to the impossibility of repaying his debts. Now, Madhav spends his days tilling his small plot of land or working on the farm of the person who lent money to his family. At an age when most children play and go to school, Madhav is a small adult who works tirelessly. Will he meet the same fate as his father?
Twelve years old and nervous, Madhav is a shadow of himself, a silent victim of hardships that have attained disastrous proportions in the entire Vidarbha region in the state of Maharashtra, India. Madhav is just one of thousands of children who, like him, have lost their parents to the agrarian crisis that ravages the country. Almost without exception, the children in the area seem desperately hungry. In many homes, suicides have worsened poverty. Discrimination based on caste and class aggravates the situation.
Having left school, a peasant child has no skills apart from the trade that has become a terrible nightmare for over 60% of India's population, especially for those who practice subsistence agriculture that depends on rainfall. Most children from homes devastated by suicide are forced to be farmers and embrace the same system that has swallowed up their parents.
So what does the future hold for rural India? A very bleak one, if the experiences of thousands of farmer adults and children are not ignored. Although farmers put food on other people’s plates, most can barely feed their own children. Girls are the most vulnerable; many also live with the guilt that when they marry, their parents will have to pay a dowry. In rural Amravati, a 18-year-old’s neatly written suicide note said that if she did not die, it was almost certain that her father would.
While various political and social initiatives come to naught, farmers in Vidarbha are going from bad to worse in terms of income, agricultural techniques, diversity, food security, health and social status. In recent years there have been about 5,000 farmer suicides in Vidarbha alone. Those who keep on trying have little hope of surviving.
Despite some government interventions, structural abnormalities have not been properly addressed, nor have the human dimensions of the agrarian crisis been fully understood. Data from the National Crimes Records Bureau show that there were over 40,000 farmer suicides in the state of Maharashtra between 1995 and 2007. The number of families and children affected by these suicides is staggering.
Viewed in the context of children's rights, the tragedy of children in the countryside raises the question of how to defend children's rights to survival, protection, development and participation if the problem has not yet been acknowledged.
When Rahul Gandhi toured the area, he asked a boy what his dream was. A farmer who was standing nearby said, “Don’t ask them to dream, ask them to face reality. They have no right to dream”. A surprised Gandhi politely suggested that he not be so pessimistic. The farmer insisted that it was better to face reality than to dream, because former would help them understand and overcome the problems.
Source: infochangeindia
