Day 26 : We are killing our fellow humans

We are killing our own kin. The food they are eating is pure poison— only that it is slowly killing them. Schemes like free ration might seem good to a few but from what I see they are a ticking time bomb. From what I have heard off the record from people who have an insider knowledge about the grain yards, I feel we are in a deep state of crisis. The grain yards have enough food to feed the people who are on ration for atleast another 10 years. That’s not an issue, what is disturbing is the pesticides they are spraying to keep the grain intact. This is pure poison, coming forth as heart attacks, kidney failures, cancers, etc. We know very well that not only the marginalised communities are eating these free ration, but even the affluent villagers are buying this grain on other people’s ration cards or even in black, because its cheap. The rice given under the PM’s scheme, as I am reminded by the people I am meeting, floats on water and some of it looks like plastic and is sponge-like/plastic. The old ladies in the house spend their afternoons separating this plastic rice.

Does anyone not see the change in Konkani villagers health in the past decade? Or am I the only blind person?

Only in the last few years, since I have come back to my village, I have seen endless patients reporting heart failures, high or low blood pressure or cancer. Recently, our neighbor, who was like our family, died of kidney failure. This wasn’t common. More even if everyone is trying to buy such cheap ration, what does it say about the state of family economics within the society? They are definitely being pushed to the brinks. Taxes are going up. People are paying taxes on everything and yet they don’t have enough to buy decent food. Free grain and free money through various schemes have rotten the fabric of the Konkani village. The affluent are angry about this, they expect people to earn their food but this seems to be coming from a place of inconvenience rather than a place of affection and understanding. The affluent in the village have lost their labour to the rich people living in Mumbai. It seems targeted and well thought of, the way the farming communities are being fed free food and pushed away from their fields. The more they move to Mumbai, the better it is for big business people and ministers to move in swiftly by buying their ancestral land under the guise that this land is anyway infertile. The jungle is thus disturbed and destroyed and no one asks any questions. Look at this project here..

When it comes to agriculture, from my own experience, the seeds given by the Konkan Krushi Vidyapeeth (Agricultural University) are useless and outdated. We were given four bags of lentils which were sized below average, had holes in every seed and were laced with chemical powder (pesticides). How is a farmer supposed to live off of such a crop? It is an act of deliberation. The more farmers leave their land to move out to the cities to do housework, the more land is acquired by this lobby. Sadly, the land which is being bought, is being bought by the local minister or politician itself. He/she sells and resells it to the business people.

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Here in Ladghar, many hills were bought off by the local politicians. The villagers who owned this land, had outdated 7/12 (ownership documents). Due to the lack of education and the local government offices being inept to provide these documents swiftly, this land was transferred to this politician lady who currently cozies up with the party whose symbol is clock. The villagers had filed cases but due to the 7/12 documents being overwritten by these politicians, they had to retreat. There is extreme pressure in every village around this place. Every land is being sold off and although the original inhabitants- the villagers are still farming in these lands, they don’t know when the ministers and local politicians will feel the need to grab all this.

In the village at the top of the hill, Teleshwar Nagar, I saw boards which said, “Outsiders are not allowed to buy land here.” But the irony is, all land around this tiny village is already sold off and what remains is a tiny piece of land which the villagers own. Some time back a firm from a nearby city bought off the land close to this village. They want to flatten the land and build bungalows here which overlook the sea. The villagers resisted, mainly because they were never taken into consideration when this deal was done. When the asked for a meeting on this issue, they realised that the local Panchayat had documents which showed the NOC’s (No Objection Certificate) of these very villagers. A middle aged villager told me, “God knows when they took our signatures and thumb prints. Our backwardness in such matters was taken advantage of. We are helpless now. We see huge trucks carrying building supplies passing the tiny streets but we can do nothing about it.”

They can do nothing about it. They have lost morale and more even there is extreme negativity in such areas. I feel we need a psychologist in each village to spread some positivity in these villagers. The city people have to change. You, the city-people, will have to be their mouthpieces. You will have to ring the alarm bells within your communities. You hold a lot more power than these villagers. With negativity nothing can change, with positivity we hold a chance to change..

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The idea of this walk is to highlight the issues, spread an ecological conscience within the people, listen to them and bring them together to see if we can bring about a change that can move towards a future that aids people rather than pushes them away from their homeland.

If you can help me by contributing for this walk, then please do, I could start a kickstarter or manage crowdfunding through some other website, but none of those options are available to me here in India. So, I will be dependant on your donations. You can contribute through paypal - here’s the link. I will send out a personalised postcard if the donations are above $30 and if it’s above $100 then whatever comes out of this walk - a book, a documentary or anything else - you will be the first ones to receive it.

Thanks for your continual support. I am truly grateful!