Delhi Diary: Farmers Highlight Their Woes Through Bizarre Protests In India

By Shakir Husain NEW DELHI, April 25 (Bernama) -- More than 150 farmers from the state of Tamil Nadu arrived in New Delhi in March and started a series of protests that shocked the Indian capital. New Delhi is used to frequent protests over various causes and can be deaf to most. However, it took notice of the farmers' presence in the Jantar Mantar area, not far from the national parliament, ministries and government offices. The farmers from the drought-hit Cauvery delta of southern India have demanded debt relief and more river water for crops. They say their economic situation is dire due to drought and more people are being being pushed into poverty and debt bondage. The protesters displayed the skulls of people they said had committed suicide because of their miserable situation. This grabbed the media attention the farmers were looking for. However, there has been an element of media voyeurism rather than the publicity leading to a serious debate on the plight of Tamil Nadu farmers and similar problems in other states. There are reports of farmer suicides in other parts of the country as well but people from those places have not descended on Delhi with the skulls or employed shock tactics to publicise their woes. "We have been forced to do this. We do not want to sleep on the streets in Delhi in this heat. We don’t get water supply, no proper food, but we have to do something to get justice. How else can we make the government listen to us?" said P. Ayyakannu, the protest's convener. "During the elections politicians say farmers are the backbone of India but the farmer becomes a slave after the elections," he said. Angry and frustrated that the federal government has not done enough to help them, the farmers on Saturday collected their urine in bottles after the police intervened to stop them from drinking it in a symbolic protest to highlight the water crisis. "Delhi police stopped us from drinking urine, so we have collected it to take it to Tamil Nadu and pour it on our farms because there is no water," Ayyakannu, who is president of the South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association, told reporters at the protest site. The farmers tried to march to the prime minister’s residence but were stopped by police within the Jantar Mantar Road area that has become a protest venue in central Delhi. After 40 days, they suspended their protest on Sunday following a meeting with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E. Palaniswami, who promised the famers that their demands would be addressed. Earlier the farmers had vowed to remain in Delhi for 100 days if their problems were not resolved. Dressed in green loincloth and dhotis, the farmers tried different tactics to make themselves heard in the vast Indian capital. They shaved their heads, held mice and snakes in their mouths, flogged themselves, stripped and rolled on the road near the prime minister’s office, and even threatened to eat human excrement. Now that the farmers have halted their protest to let the government find a solution to their demands, at least there won’t be any need for the revolting spectacle of feces. The Cauvery delta of Tamil Nadu is among the worst drought-hit regions, but farmer distress has risen across India in recent years due to water scarcity, weak prices of commodities and crippling debt from banks and loan sharks. More than 100 farmers committed suicide in Tamil Nadu in January this year, according to India's National Human Rights Commission. About 12,600 small farmers and agricultural labourers killed themselves in 2015, National Crime Records Bureau figures show. Parts of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and West Bengal have suffered periods of drought. -- BERNAMA