The Karnataka Assembly elections will be held on Saturday, May 12. The Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone untouched to wrest power from the Congress that now rules the state. It is evident that the BJP believes in ‘everything is fair in love and war’— as they are using every unfair means to come to power in the state.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath reached Karnataka to lead the furore of lies with which the BJP intends to delude the electorate. The people of Karnataka, however, have asked in sneer, being a north Indian, how would he understand the south of India and its culture? Indeed it is difficult for the BJP to grasp the culture of southern India, of Karnataka, the land which celebrates Tipu Sultan as its hero. The city of Bengaluru is still mourning the death of Gauri Lankesh.
The Congress government has failed its people in the inability to identify and punish the murderers in the state. There seems to be great similarity between the BJP and the Congress in the tremendous amount of wealth the contestants possess. This binds them in a single thread with pan-Indian corrupt leaders and politicians whose assets and wealth are beyond account and growing everyday when they come to power. This very ratio of disproportionate wealth of the contestants and the common people reveals a huge disconnect between the electorates and the ones who supposedly represent them.
We need to remember at this point that Karnataka is one of those states where the suicide of farmers is almost an epidemic. The other states in this line are Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. We have witnessed a huge farmers’ rally in Maharashtra; we have seen farmers across the country agitating and protesting against the agricultural policy of the Central government. That the single window solution as the Centre calls it is bound to fail the stakeholders, has been evident from its very inception. The ‘one size fits all’ policy created for the farm sector has been seen by farmers and experts as doomed and self-destructive. And the last nail on its coffin is the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
The calamity of farmers’ suicide has reached such a limit that the Supreme Court has asked for clarification from the state governments concerned, the Central government as well as the Reserve Bank of India, in order to understand the reasons behind it. The Court has enquired about measures taken by the government in cases of natural disaster, and when crops are destroyed due to such disaster or any other accident, or when farmers cannot bear the burden of huge loans. The Supreme Court has regretted that there is still no national policy which would ensure and look into the safety of farmers. On the contrary, the party shouting out the most, that is the BJP, finally intends to give away agriculture and farming to corporate houses, thereby eradicating, wiping out small scale farmers from this country.
We have listened to leaders laughing about farmers’ suicides. We have even heard them say that farmers have killed themselves because of dissatisfied love lives. Who then will speak for the farmers? Who then will ensure that no farmer again would be forced by the state to commit suicide? Who would bridge the gap between the shameless ‘haves’ and the powerless ‘have-nots’? The answer is simple; the answer is ‘nobody’.
[The views expressed belong solely to the author, and may not reflect the opinions of the editorial team]