PEEPLI LIVE - Reel to Real

Farmer Gajendra Singh allegedly hung himself from a Tree and committed suicide in Jantar Mantar, the place of AAP rally on Wednesday.  Many things are not clear in this unfortunate episode. 

While he was still on top of the Tree, AAP Leaders headed by its Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal were on the stage engrossed with their own proceedings.  Few minutes later, one can see Kumar Vishwas and the CM repeatedly shouting in the microphone asking police to go and help and indicating their supporters that Delhi police is not doing anything and they are not in their control.  Even the Videos of Kumar Vishwas doing the rounds in social media suggests something else. There was no anxiety or expression of shock in their face when they were instructing the police using the Microphone.  Why didn’t the CM use the same microphone to address the Farmer directly?  This is just one small question.  There are several questions which need to be answered and all of those are already doing the rounds in all the media channels.  I am not interested in getting into those details. 

My question is very fundamental.   Thousands of farmers are committing suicide across India, every year.  Now we have one who has committed this shocking act in public.  What happened to humanity?  No matter what happens in front of us or around us, are we going to just ignore and carry on with our work?

The State Governments and Central Governments are working out some compensation plans for losses incurred by farmers due to unseasonal rains, hail storms, drought, etc, etc.  Whether the terms of compensation are correct or the amount sufficient is another debate.  The proposed land accusation bill is not the reason for the suicides and not the solution for it as well.  To link it is very illogical.

The need of the hour is counseling.  The country does not have a proper counseling system.  Why can’t the country open help lines and counseling centers where the dejected farmer can open his heart and get some comfort.  I am sure that some NGOs might be providing some counseling service.  But we need it across India and such a system can be setup only by the Government.  It is after all its responsibility. 

Once the Disaster/Calamity takes place the affected farmer goes through disappointment, depression and distress in the same sequence.  Once the pressure of repayment of Loan and livelihood is also added to him, he feels it is difficult to handle and starts thinking of taking his life.  At every stage after the disaster/calamity strikes, the farmer will be better off with proper counseling.  In fact, if these Counseling centers have advisers, they can even suggest alternate methods of farming based on the monsoon forecast, etc.  A whole lot of services, alerts, measures and policies can be implemented through these centers.  But to start with we need the government to realize the need of setting up counseling centers.  I hope it happens quickly; failing which we might see more PEEPLI LIVE enacted in real.