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| India-Pakistan |
| January brings more joy to peasants than Eid or Diwali |
| 2010-01-23 |
| UMERKOT: January brings good or bad tidings, as the case may be, for the eternally indebted peasants in Tharparkar. They look forward to this month with more anticipation than one feels for Eid or Diwali and rightly so because their landlords settle accounts in January each year, enabling them to lay hands on their hard earned money or seek more debt. They feel genuine happiness when their accounts are settled even though, in most cases, they are told that a lion's share of their earnings will go into clearance of debt they seek as advance from time to time throughout the year and payment of bills for agricultural inputs, including seed, ploughing, sowing, soil development, fertiliser, pesticides as well as medical facilities. Nabi Bux Machhi, a peasant, is under Rs40,000 debt. He lives near Lakhoo Mori, a small settlement near Umerkot and wants to remarry after the death of his wife six months ago but can not do so because of debt. His landlord is not ready to lend him more money for fear he may escape after getting the money. Increase in incidents of peasants' escape has made the landlords wary and now they show reluctance to give advance loans. Machhi said that he had so far changed eight landlords. His landlords forced him to work more than his duties as peasant. He would collect firewood, cut grass, work as labourers in construction of his house and also listen to abusive language. He suffered losses during migration but he had to, not in search of better master but just for a less abusive and less inhumane one. All his children work at the farmland. He confirmed that expenses of soil development, sowing and threshing were borne by the peasant. If a peasant leaves a landlord during Rabi when the crop is ready to be harvested he is made to bear expenses of land development, ploughing and sowing but deprived of his share in the crop, he said. The new peasant looks after the standing crop, which includes irrigating, harvesting, threshing, packing and bringing it to the landlord's home but he, too, is denied any share in the harvest, he said. He complained that their women were routinely abused and assaulted but they had to turn a blind eye because they were poor and helpless. Asked why they have made it a habit to take advance loans, Machhi said that they had no other means of livelihood. They used advance loans to pay for their basic needs or clear debt of previous landlord, he said. “Thus, the vicious cycle perpetuates and we have accepted it as a way of life. It's a chain of bondage and they are sold like a commodity,' he said. Dharmoon Oad, a peasant, complained that he had cultivated mustard (toorio) on six acres, which were infertile and could not produce any crop but the landlord entered in his accounts Rs18,000 under land development and ploughing charges. Chothio Kolhi who was migrating to the lands of his new landlord said that last year he was hired by landlord Allah Warayo and obtained Rs60,000 as advance loan. He and his family cultivated cotton on nine acres and red chilli on one acre. But their hard work throughout the year could not save them even a penny. They sold their cattle and total harvest to the landlord to clear their debt. He said he had again obtained Rs70,000 from the new landlord. He also complained about manipulation of accounts. Taju Bheel, president of Sindh chapter of Workers and Peasants Group said that although peasants were basic stakeholders but their living standard had never changed for centuries. He said that in January each year, their accounts were settled and earnings of 75 per cent peasants swallowed up by debt clearance. They debt includes advance “peshgi' sought at the time of hiring, expenses incurred on seed, ploughing, sowing, soil development, fertiliser, pesticides and medical facilities. Young girls were routinely assaulted but mostly it depended on a landlord's character as well as peasant's, he said. About 67 per cent peasants were sold by one landlord to another each year in Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Badin, Thatta and Matiari districts, he said. He said that 77 per cent peasants were forced to leave their landlord who would them to another in return for his advance loan “peshgi'. It was a form of internal human trafficking, he said. “When a peasant offers his services at an agricultural farm his whole family become virtual bonded labourers and will have to obey orders of the landlord,' he said. He said that the peasant had no right to question rate of the crop or other expenses. “If a peasant dares to question he is implicated in false cases of theft,' he said. The landlord buys fertilisers and pesticides from fertiliser agencies and earns handsome amount as commission. He swallows the commission and enters the amount with interest in the peasants' accounts. He also eats up sugar provided to him by sugar mills. In case of disaster or floods, the government writes off loans, revenue and taxes, which benefits only the landlord and brings no relief to the peasant. In some cases, peasants seek courts' help to gain freedom from bondage and the courts pass orders, declaring them as free but this does not make them free. It takes extra efforts by NGOs to get them released. They stay in NGOs-run camps, where they suffer lack of facilities and in some cases their girls are sexually assaulted by the camp organisers. In short, life becomes more burdensome for them in freedom than in bondage, he said. G.M. Bhagat, an intellectual, said that after settlement of accounts the peasants obtain more loans to buy new clothes for family, a nice turban, tape recorder and cassettes and live happily for 10 to 20 days. They had accepted it as a way of life and believed they would never be able to clear their debts, he said. Faqir Haji Ilyas Rajar, a landlord, said that in past peasants owned oxen and other agricultural inputs but now landlords bore all such expenses including tractor, trolley, thresher and treatment. He said there were no private jails in Umerkot and blamed some vested interests for raising the bogey of private jails to serve their own interests. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 The feudal Muslim landlords of the Punjab backed Jinnah and his Pakistan because they feared the land reforms promised by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress party after the British left India. |
| Posted by: john frum 2010-01-23 12:37 |