Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Justice needs to be done to farmers urgently' that was published in Newsband

Justice needs to be done to farmers urgently

The Supreme Court on Thursday took stern exception to Tamil Nadu government’s lack of "humanitarian concern" and initiative in saving its farmers. Its farmers have been protesting in the national capital for the past 31 days for relief. Tamil Nadu government did not even care to help the starving ryots.

The court said the State cannot always bank on the Centre for help. The Bench directed the Tamil Nadu government to produce all records of what the authorities have done to alleviate the farmers' misery. The same plight has befallen the farmers of other States including Maharashtra. This issue raises serious humanitarian concerns.

Tamil Nadu government has squandered the revenue in distributing freebies for their vote bank population and has gone bankrupt. They are trying divert the attention away from them by blaming the central govt. Also if the centre helps TN farmers then such a demand will come from other states also.

There is no governance in Tamil Nadu. Is it not shame for a state government to get an indictment from the Top court? The amount TN parties spent for the election could easily have been redirected to pay off debt-ridden farmers. TN government (irrespective of which party in power) spends thousands of crores on Freebies like Laptops, wet grinders, fans, mixie etc, but no money for farmers? Since most of the farmers have less than 1 lakh loan, this would mean that 8900 farmers could be made debt free by the parties. Even if the loan amount for each farmer was 10 Lakhs, that would amount to saving lives of 890 farmers.

It is true that loan waiver is not panacea. It’s actually dragging down economy. Why don’t the Governments make long term reforms to make farming profitable or better sector? The nation can’t live without farmers. Farmers are backbone to our country.

It is true that there is no government functioning at present in the state, as all the representative (MLAs) are busy holding on to their position, without minding about what is happening to the people of state. Centre has to bear some responsibility. It could not get Karnataka to comply with Supreme Court order. Already central government's executive, legislature and press are behaving like they belong to one establishment. Now the judiciary joins the bandwagon. God help this country.