or they did not receive water for a day, people agitated and newspapers headlined that agitation. At the same time nobody bothered to notice that in rural areas there was no power daily for twelve hours, if you missed a bus then there was no next bus for six hours and people got drinking water just once in four days. Ninety percent people in the villages of this country suffered from simple diseases like diarrhoea or scabies which could be cured with simple medication. Yet there were no dispensaries to treat these diseases in villages. Whereas, Government spent millions of rupees to construct specialty hospitals in the cities to cure diseases which might be affecting not even one percent of the population. All this, Joshi explained, was the result of the urban bias in our Government’s planning. This was quite in tune with his overall concept of the ‘India versus Bharat divide’ which has been mentioned earlier. Joshi himself defined Bharat and India in the following words: ‘Bharat is that notional entity which continues to be exploited by the same policies as those of the Colonial Rule even after the British left; while India is that notional entity which has obtained the inheritance of Colonial exploitation.’ Joshi talked of the following “Panchsheel (five principles) of Exploitation” which he called “sultani calamity” and which were used by “India” to exploit “Bharat”: 1. Do not pay the farmer for his produce the price that can adequately cover his production cost. 2. To stop the farmers from revolting against injustice, keep showing them carrots of false hopes by measures like starting Market Committees which did not end the injustices because they harassed the farmers just as much as the earlier traders.
184
Q
Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
