Why is our farmer held in contempt? Why is he an object of ridicule and butt of unkind jokes? Sadly those who guzzle most of what he produces denigrate his work most. Those who don’t know what the seasonal changes bring about, how the seeds are sown and crops raised, what winds and rains do to the fields, smugly laugh at peasant’s ‘ignorance’ as if puffed up with self-importance and befuddled by a sense of superiority. No doubt urban society is far more advanced but would it not be foolish to upend what it stands on–agrarian base.

What, it must be remembered, ensures human survival in urban centres is not what is created in its labs but what is produced in the countryside–food. The situation will not change if the nature of human species remains the same. What will happen if peasants stop cultivation for a year and food supply chain to the high table of the hoity-toity is disrupted? The sophisticates would stop grinning and laughing at peasants’ ‘idiocy’. If this country, despite all the odds, doesn’t erupt in chaos, it’s because of peasants who toil round the year and struggle to produce more than what is required for living at the subsistence level. But everything that they interact with is geared up against their interminable efforts to go beyond subsistence farming whether it’s government departments or private sector commercial initiatives. Describing peasants’ historical situation Waris Shah (18th century) says; “the fire consumes the peasant’s field / let’s see when does he come and douses it (Ikk Jat de khait nu agg laggi, vekhan aan ke kadon bujhawanda e). The burning field stands as a powerful metaphor of peasants’ eternal vulnerability. The fire in the present context is ignited by forces no longer mysterious which appear friendly but are predatory in nature. Ask any village idiot, for example, in Punjab and he will enumerate the main culprits. And they are, revenue department, canal department, department of electricity (Wapda), corporate sector (the latest entrant) and last but not least, the police.

Revenue authorities–even the minions–can play havoc with the people’s legitimate rights to the extent that landholders can face the horrible prospect of losing their landholdings as a result of artful fudging in the land register. Once tempering is done the victim has no recourse except to file a case in the court of law, which would be decided when his grandchildren reach his age.

The irrigation department has its grip at the farmers’ jugular vein as the farming in a very large area of the Punjab depends on regular supply of water from the canals managed by it. It can increase or decrease the amount of water released which may impact crops. Secondly, it’s the authority that decides the annual water charges (Aabyana) to be collected from the growers. So its favour or disfavour has consequences.

During the last two decades, most of Punjab’s countryside has been provided with electricity, paving the way for installation of power-driven tube-wells which help bridge the shortfall caused by insufficient supply of canal water to the fields. The farmers have to constantly deal with the problems of interrupted power supply and overbilling. But stable power supply and proper billing come at a price. In order to get the service listed in the official documents, the farmers have to cough up money more than legally required to keep the minions favourably disposed.

In the recent past, we have seen corporate sector’s aggressive intrusion in the world of our agriculture. It supplies hybrid and improved varieties of seeds promising greater crop yield. It’s almost a sole supplier of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides. But seeds supplied are of uneven quality and pesticides ineffective for being fake or tampered with, resulting in poor yield or crop failure. (Recent is the case of the maize seeds supplied by multinationals which caused crop failure in millions of acres in district Sahiwal and adjoining areas).There is no quality control over anything corporations get distributed as the official regulator and corporate sector are in thinly concealed collusion to the determent of the growers. All the players in the market ride roughshod over the farmers as their quarry being unorganised is easy to be hunted.

Lastly, the police! nothing can be more lethal than the police in the countryside’s social political and cultural landscapes. They are lingering vestiges of colonial setup designed and imposed to humiliate the people through coercion and brutality for what they were, the subjugated locals. Their main job was to rob the people of their dignity which they still do with impunity even after the end of the colonial regime.

The colonial regime has gone but colonial structures are very much here. Here is the police formula to deal with the country folks; start with a torrent of abuse and end with torture. They play the role of colonial masters in the rural areas as there are few checks on them. Unbridled use of force is what defines them. Police are legal tools manipulated by local feudal lords, big landholders, politicians and the establishment to keep the rural populace in check. The defiant can be booked in false cases, locked up and tortured by police at the slightest provocation at the behest of powers that directly and indirectly rule the roost. That ordinary mortals can be arrested at the minor offence and tortured in the outhouses of the powerful is no secret.

The situation as it exists is greatly disconcerting if one keeps in mind the runaway population growth rate in the country. Imagine the kind of resources we will need to import food if, in the words of poet Brecht, “the figures in the fields, brown-chested monsters” stop working “for the pale-faces in the petrifacts”. Imagine the density in the urban spaces if the peasants get disenchanted with their declining agricultural economy and rush to cities in search of jobs. Imagine if they, out of sheer desperation, decide to be out and block highways and motorways. Imagine the unimaginable. The unimaginable may happen, history tells us. Our agriculture is hovering on the brink. If we continue to push the peasants, a day may come and come soon when they would declare that they “will not accept the drop but must have the whole lot”. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2019