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Rasheeda Bhagat

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Andhra Pradesh to console the families of distressed farmers, who had committed suicide by consuming pesticide, has kindled a ray of hope in the hearts of the distressed farmers of rural Tamil Nadu. Badly affected by four years of drought, the farmers in the villages of Madurai and Theni districts are a devastated lot. With their crops having failed consistently, with the bore wells they keep sinking to greater depths with money borrowed at exorbitant rates of interest failing to yield life-sustaining water for their crops, with debts mounting and families migrating to neighbouring towns and cities in a desperate search for some form of livelihood, the small farmers with landholding of one to three acres, have little to smile about.

And yet there is a glint in the eyes of Velusamy, President of the Theni District Tank Farmers Federation, helped and organised by the DHAN Foundation, when he says that for the first time in years, he finds a "Prime Minister who thinks it is important to talk about farmers and their problems. Our plight is terrible; we have no water, we have no money; and we barely manage one meal a day, but he has given us reason to hope for better times."

His message to Dr Singh is simple. "There is a lot of distress and desperation among the farmers in the drought-affected regions of India. But we don't want your money. Give us water... do whatever you can; spend whatever you can muster... but make sure that we get some water to sustain our livelihood."

It is with a lot of pride that farmer after farmer in this belt sends a clear message to Delhi. "We don't want your charity; if you give us money or dole, you reduce us to beggars. We are prepared to work hard, but we need water," says Lakshmikanthan, President of the Madurai District Tank Farmers Federation. He adds that in this period of distress, the farmers want the Government to hold their hand and provide an enabling environment in which they can turn back to their lands to sustain them and their families.

Both the farmers, who are above 60 years of age, know that this is easier said than done, but they are talking from decades of experience. And as Chitra, a woman farmer who lost her husband several years ago, puts it, "We farmers have been feeding millions of people in this country for several decades. We have seen extremely happy times (MGR's era is remembered by several farmers for "copious rains"), but we are now in trouble. Should the rest of the country not help us?"

Thanks to the efforts of the DHAN foundation, which has been working with farmers in this region for over a decade now, farmers in villages which had traditional water sources like tanks and drinking water ponds, have come together to form vocal and effective groups which have fought ferociously to save the village tanks and water ponds from extinction and encroachment.

But unfortunately, though the desilting work, removal of encroachments, repair of bund, etc have helped tremendously during happier times, thanks to persistent drought, most of these tanks have now dried up.

Seeking the help of the Government and government organisations in holding their hands in the task of restoration of tank irrigation and regeneration, construction and maintenance of community wells, both the farmers point out that in a big city like Madurai, the biggest encroacher is the Government and government institutions. Says Velusamy, "The building of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court is constructed on the Ulaganeri Tank bed and so is the Thallakulam Police Station. Similalry, the Madurai District court has been built on the Sathamanglama Tank bed.

Adds Lakshmikanthan wryly, "When man sins, you can complain to God, but when God sins, which court can you appeal to?"

But Velusamy has a lot of hope from the new prime minister. "He is sincere and honest, and he has been talking about the need to reach the money meant for rural people directly to the Panchayats. But as a farmer, I know that even the Panchayat Presidents siphon off a lot of money meant for the people's welfare. So I would advice him to devise a scheme through which the money comes directly to the grama sabhas."

Lakshmikanthan underlines the need for the PM's team to "talk directly to the farmers. If he wants to help farmers, let him talk to us directly. But let them not bring in a scheme with huge allocation of funds; the money will never reach the needy. Let them have small schemes at the grassroots levels that benefit the small farmers."

Almost all the farmers you speak to in this belt are nostalgic about the past. Velusamy recalls the MGR days "when there used to be plenty of rains and I used to get 15 quintals of cotton from one acre. Water was never a problem and we used to have second and third crops. After harvesting paddy, we used to get crops like chillies, groundnut and millets."

But this was during an era when the rain gods were benign. Today, there is no water at 300, 500, or in some places, even 700 ft. This leaves one wondering how feasible it is to depend on ground water and if more small dams that can store water during good rainfall years are not the answer for such situations. Environmental concerns and the rehabilitation of the affected families are of course important, but when such projects are stalled or delayed, unfortunately the victims are only poorer and more distressed.

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