Tamil Nadu farmers continue protest with skulls at Jantar Mantar

NEW DELHI: V Rajalakshmi knows that repaying her agriculture loan of Rs 3.5 lakh is beyond her. But she realises that she will be harassed by the debt collectors. Trying to draw attention to her plight, the 60-year-old sits at Jantar Mantar with eight skulls arrayed in front of her. These, she claims, are the remains of farmers in Tamil Nadu who, unable to cope with the agrarian crisis , committed suicide.Having sold off her jewellery to survive a failed crop — she only retained a small silver nose pin — the white-haired woman, her face careworn, has been camping at Jantar Mantar with similarly afflicted farmers for a week now. People come, look at the skulls, the green-clad protestors and move on, uncomprehending of the crisis that makes a better future almost impossible for these wretched farmers.The skulls are a grisly reminder of what lies ahead. The Cauvery basin is nearly depleted of groundwater. Rivulets, streams and canals are running dry, and farmers have to dig up to 1,500 feet below ground to find water. “Our lands are bone dry because there has been no rain,” said the diabetic Rajalakshmi, who had taken a 5-acre farmland on lease with her husband.Another protestor, Perumal, disclosed that the farmers’ collectives in the Cauvery delta decided to exhume the skulls of the dead farmers as the symbol of their desperation. Perumal, who availed a Rs 5-lakh loan in 2004 to buy a tractor and agricultural inputs, now finds the repayment amount has bloated to Rs 20 lakh with the interest he has accumulated over the years. “I think they will seize my land because that’s the only asset I now have,” he worried.The farmer’s existential trauma is not simply due to climate. The recent outcry over the cola companies in Tamil Nadu is part of it. Explained Rama Naidu, an independent researcher who joined the sit-in after seeing his father lose his land for defaulting on repayment of dues: “The Palar river is drying up, and the wells bored by beverage companies are playing havoc with the water situation. Besides, input costs have increased heavily.”The South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association, which organised the protest, is demanding action to “prevent TN from turning into a desert”.It is also demanding fair price for agricultural produce and waiver of loans taken by farmers from nationalised banks (loans from local banks have already been waived off). Its concerns have found a few supporters. Satish Balraj, employed by a Gurgaon company, has joined the protestors. “I am here because my food is dependent on these farmers,” he says.Underlining the inadequacy of the measures taken by the Tamil Nadu government, Arupathi Kalyanam, general secretary, Cauvery Delta Districts Farmers Association, told TOI from Nagapattinam: “The Rs 2,247 crore relief announced to cover 20 lakh hectares of the drought-affected 48 lakh hectares is too little. Also, water is our main demand, perhaps through linking rivers through waterways. The centre must also give the farmers a subsidy to augment the measly minimum selling price.”Saying they met union water resources minister Uma Bharti on Tuesday, the protest leaders hoped she would think of a solution in the time she has asked for to assess the situation.