Climate change brings
about dramatic catastrophes. One of our problems is ofcourse, to be alert to
the facts of history. The dinosaurs were killed by a meteor strike, or by their
own avarciousness. After their extinction, or miniaturisation, life continued
to evolve. As humans, we know our consciousness allows for both alertness and
detachment. The elite have access to water, because they can afford to buy
water. The debates on water sharing have been the most volatile of political
histories of the 21st century. South India is experiencing its fourth year of
drought and the wells remain resolutely empty. Social scientists have
continually drawn attention to the fact that the water tables are being
depleted because of the ownership of pumps by agrarian landlords and urban dwellers, and
that there is no way that the resources which were built up over aeons, can be
substituted by one or two rainfalls.
Farming practices
since the 19th century have meant that agricultural ownership of pumps and land
meant an uncontrolled use of water for various reasons. Farhat Naz (2014) in a
densely collated, but lucid work “The Socio-Cultual Context of Water” argues that unless the policies on water
management are made public and transparent, we will not be able to control the
way in which privatisation of water takes over the subcontinent. Water is what
we have always taken for granted, and the way in which we use it communicates
that we believe, optimistically, that rain when it comes, will sort out all our
problems. However, because of over pumping in rural and urban areas, and
because overbuild has been characteristic of our expansionist world views, the
future is grim.
Platitudes apart, we
have to take responsibility for how industrialised farming uses seeds which are
not renewable, but must be purchased each year by the farmer. These seeds
require an immense amount of water, fertiliser and pesticide. It's optimum
yield celebrated as surplus and green revolution, requires both machines and
manual labour to harvest. The problem lies in that this over productivity does
not have the granaries required to store. A well known aspect of the lag
between cost of production, and sale value was absorbed by the public
distribution system. This meant that the contradiction of yearly debt, (
purchase of new seeds, electricity, water, fertiliser, pesticide) was borne by
the farmer. The government purchased his/her crop just a little above the cost
of it' s production. This gave the farmer the meagre income required to conduct
annual cycle of sacred rituals, and the family obligations of marriage, birth
and death ceremonies. For the rest, he/she borrowed from the money lender and
entered further into debt. The public distribution system (20 kgs of rice per
month for the family) became a source of staying away from death. The
subsistence farmer grew his own food, which included rice, grains, lentils and
maize and sugar cane. Whether in Bihar or in Tamil Nadu, for the average
farmer, it was sufficient to manage his/her daily requirements from the land
around the house. Yams and bannanas, mangoes, sapota or chikoos...these were
all part of a daily diet.
During drought, farmers become refugees in
their own region. There is no manual labour available in the fields.
Starvation, or fear of death are paramount, as they are forced into non skilled work, or become urban mercenaries.
The rates of suicide
begin to rise, and society responds by a certain numbing of senses. Politicians
make the most absurd promises, and are famously known not to keep them. People
fear the backlash of what they consider
to be surveillance society, and tend to become even more quiet. There is a
complicity between the banal and the tyrannical. Since fate or destiny is
thought to be the only way in which individuals can cope, they submit to the
ardor of ritual, and submit to the anger
of the Gods, who with hold blessings. Since education is no longer prioritised,
karmic theory holds sway. However, since
the ideology of Malthusianism is general, not specific to any religion, the
fate of the poor is always dramatically posed as their problem, not ours.
Education provides us a distinctive understanding of causes and effects. We
know that mobility in the post modern world is made possible by computer
literacy and global languages such as English, French, Chinese and Hindi. We
also know that since India is now projected as a developed country (mission to
Mars being the key symbol) our ability to define our scientific expertise is
continually put to the test. Can we desalinate sea water? Will this allow human
beings to live on planet earth for a couple of millennia more? As Fidel Castro
once said, “ We live in the shadow of a dying sun.”
