A Tribute to a Humble Farmer

No, this is not about our former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, but my father. It would, however, be injustice to describe a multifaceted personality that he was, just as a farmer. He was an accomplished singer of Kirtan, Baul and Kavigan (Tarja), and proficient in playing several musical instruments. He organised and directed a Jatra/Alkap troupe where most of the members were agricultural labourers and illiterate. Those familiar with Kavigan would know that it is quite difficult to perform in this form of music. It is essentially a musical duel where two singers will challenge each other, and hence, one needs to compose and sing instantly! This also requires huge knowledge of mythology and folklore on which these songs are based. His involvement in all these was purely amateurish and he never tried to draw commercial advantage out of these. One of his protégés went on to form a professional Alkap team, quite successfully. He was an excellent cook for some specialized items in which he could easily beat an average five star chef. Even my mother was an excellent cook and proficient in some specialised items. However, none of my parents were quite keen to cook general items that are prepared at an average home on a regular basis and surely, none of them liked cooking every day, and hence, that was a bit of problem at my home.

He was a good carpenter as well. All the doors, windows and furniture items that we had at our home were made by him. When we were young, it was quite common for the kids in our village to drag around a small Rath on the day of Rathyatra. Once, just before a week of such a day, I and my brother requested him to make a Rath for us. When he agreed, we could not even imagine what he was planning to give us. For one whole week, he left everything else and worked day and night to make the most beautiful Rath that my village had ever seen. We and our friends were delighted, and profusely thanked him. Then he announced that his musical troupe will also accompany our Rath! It became a delight for the whole village.

Social Orientation

He was highly religious, yet liberal in his outlook. He led the Gajan festival of the village in which common villagers leave their home for a week and become Sannyasi and worship Lord Shiva and try to derive satisfaction through non-sexual pain, devotion and sacrifice. He himself would not be a Sannyasi but would guide them through all the rituals and would be called a Diasin. In the holy month of Baisakh and other auspicious days, he led the Kirtan at the main village temple, followed by a round of the main streets of the village touching other temples and holy places. Yet he was extremely popular in the Muslim community. Muslim women would generally avoid coming out in open and talking to men especially from outside their family. But he was an exception. One evening, a middle-aged Muslim woman came to our house crying. This would generally be an unacceptable behaviour from a Muslim woman. But she could do it because she came to our house. Upon enquiry, my father came to know that she had a fight with her husband and he slapped her in front of their children and grandchildren. My father sent somebody to him and he came running. Even before my father could say anything, he started apologizing to her, and my father. My father only said, “I do not want to hear that this has happened again!” He said, “Kill me if I do it again!” They left as a happy couple...

His only uncle, with whom he was deeply attached, died young just few months after his marriage. This was an unbearable shock to him, but to make the matter worse, his aunt, whom he used to call Chhoto Ma (little mother) was held responsible for his death and was forced to leave home immediately. He always wanted to get her back, but who would care for the wishes of a child! Finally an opportunity came when his grandfather arranged for his marriage. He put the condition that he would marry only if his Chhoto Ma participated in his marriage and that she would also continue to stay with the family even after his marriage. This was unthinkable at that time, as widows were considered inauspicious and would not be allowed to watch the marriage rituals taking place even if they stayed in the family! But he made it happen. He included his own daughters to act in his Jatra troupe even though most of the other members came from agricultural labour, and the so-called low caste families. This was also unthinkable in the 1960s as people thought nobody will marry a girl who sang, acted and danced in a Jatra troupe!

Approach in Agriculture

That he was involved with so many things did not mean he did not take his farming seriously. But again, he was a different kind of farmer. He would grow some 40-50 agricultural crops in a year. This required a huge amount of knowledge. He would try to minimize his exposure to the markets for agricultural goods, both as a seller and as a buyer. This was because agricultural market is highly volatile and risky. Hence he would also diversify his crop-basket to optimize his risks. But when it came to perishable crops like vegetables, he would cultivate largely for family consumption and any excess produce would generally be distributed among the neighbours free of cost instead of being sold in markets. In any case, accessing markets for perishable crops was quite difficult and hence cultivating them on commercial lines was quite risky. Apart from vegetables, he grew cereals like paddy, wheat, oats, different types of pulses, oilseeds, jute, hemp (linen), potato, onion, calcasia, coriander etc. Cooking oil at my home was a mixture of 80% Tisi (flaxseeds oil) and 20% mustard oil. Flaxseeds oil is considered to be exceptionally healthy and very few people can afford it now, but it was used daily at my home. We never had our rice with newly harvested crop except on the day of Navanna. Rice that was more than a year old was considered to be healthy.

Farmers would compete with each other to get the maximum yield, but he would always keep away from such a race, and he would rarely achieve the maximum yield or even near to it. He would consult the government appointed advisor, yet, he would never go by his advice! Once, the advisor asked him to use 20Kg of urea on a particular field for a particular crop, but he asked me to buy only 10Kg. I asked him why he was ignoring his advice. What he told me was amazing! He told me that he (advisor) was advising to get the maximum yield but that was hardly a sound strategy. What a farmer must look for was the maximum profit. He told me that from his own experience using just about 50-60% of what they advise generally gives the best results. After that cost goes up at a rate faster than the rate at which the productivity goes up. He was not a trained economist and I was also just in my high school, so he did not use these terms, but this is the crux of what he told me. Many experts and policy makers in India are always worried that Indian agricultural productivity is quite low. But the fact may be that higher productivity elsewhere might be driven by huge subsidies, and chasing the highest possible productivity (per acre) can never be the best possible commercial decision! In my understanding, one of the root causes of agrarian distress today is that the government (through its policies and extension education system) and the private sellers of agricultural inputs have been pushing the farmers towards maximum yield per acre, rather than maximum profit. He understood this way back in 1980s!

He was also aware that the excessive use of chemicals degrades the quality of soil. Hence for many crops he would try to use organic fertilisers and very little of chemical fertilizers. For vegetables, he never used chemical pesticides but Neem oil, and in some cases, dung-cake ash from the kitchen! He was also averse to growing water-intensive crops. But the logic here was not just environmental but commercial as well. He told me that water-intensive crops tend to offer higher revenue per acre but not profit unless the cost of irrigation is negligible, which was of course not the case in my village, as electricity for irrigation was still not available there. He was acutely aware that excessive irrigation will affect the fish stock as ponds were the only source of irrigation in my village then. However, he avoided growing paddy in winter season even after electricity was available as he anticipated fall in ground water level as such signs were already visible in as early as the 1980s.

Most other farmers would believe that he was not doing well in terms of yield as he was into too many things. But in reality, he did actually quite well in some crops like potato, onion and pulses. But paddy being the main crop, people generally focussed on its yield and success in other areas would generally be ignored. Another aspect of it was the issue of quality. The vegetables that he would grow were of exceptionally good quality. For example, the cauliflower that he grew was so good in taste that I am yet to see similar anywhere else even after some three decades have passed. He knew it very well that growing Tisi (flaxseeds) degrades the land substantially. Hence, he would always grow it with Bengal gram, a nitrogen-fixing crop, so that the level of fertility is maintained. An important consideration for his crop diversification was that in some years, some crops get hugely damaged by pests and diseases. Hence if you have relied on just one crop, and if that crop has been damaged, you will be in big trouble.

The time when I saw him as a farmer was rather difficult for the land-owning class as the state was being ruled by the left front government where agricultural labour will occasionally go on strikes during the peak seasons. But the people who worked with him would defy the ruling party diktat to work in his field. This is because he took care of them throughout the year. He would pay wages in advance during lean season without charging any interest and even in peak season he would not insist on repaying all of that in a straight row as most other farmers did. He would suggest that they could repay advance wages in alternate days only and on other days they would be paid in cash. My mother was a practitioner of traditional medicine and provided free treatment to everybody. But these people would be generally reluctant to approach her. My father would keep a watch on them and their family members, and if he noticed something wrong, he would advise them to visit my mother. My mother acquired this knowledge from her father who passed it to her on the condition that she would never use it for commercial advantage, and would not deny treatment even if the person concerned was her worst enemy. Because this is the instruction he also received from his own guru. One of my sisters is still practicing it. Since a large number of people working in our field were Santals, my father also picked up their language which helped him establish good rapport with them.

As was the tradition then, workers were paid not only in cash but also a Kg of rice for a day. But he will add some pulses, vegetables, edible oil and salt, so that they do not have to run around for buying them which could involve walking for 2-3Km. Moreover, while other farmers would ask them to visit their homes to collect their rice component, my father would deliver them at the place of work which will save them another 2-3Km of walking. My father’s approach was often disliked by fellow farmers as they thought that he was spoiling the labourers and the labour market. But I think he was able to enhance labour productivity and its assured supply just by being nice to them. 

He also had given a part of his land on share-cropping and his relationship with them was so good that during the Operation Barga, when the local CPM leader pressurised them, including a threat of social boycott, they simply refused to register. For them no piece of paper could be as valuable as the trust of my father, and they did not want to shake it, and hence, narrated their ordeal with the leader to my father. One day my father met the leader on the road and told him that he was sorry that he was on the way of his achieving 100% success in Operation Barga target. He was thoroughly embarrassed! After that he stopped harassing them. My father never betrayed their trust, and eventually, sold those pieces of land to the same share croppers at concessional rates when he realised that none of his sons would be doing farming. In fact, those people never bothered to register the land in their name even after paying the price. While some of them got their land registered in their name from us several years after his death, some land is still in our name! Couple of years back, when one of my uncles introduced me to a person to whom I had to transfer some land, he appeared to be absolutely unknown to me. So I asked him if my father sold the land to him, to which he said, no, it was sold to Mr. X. So I asked, if he was his son. He said no, Mr. X sold it to Mr. Y, and he bought it from him. Finally, I came to know that he migrated from some other village and he did not know my father or anyone of us! I was shocked, and asked how he could get so much of confidence to get into such a deal. He told me, he heard so much about my father and we from other villagers that he was fully convinced that my father’s blood could never betray even if the sun rose in the west! Interestingly, all these people who showed such trust in him were Muslims!

What I admired most

As like most farmers in the village, he did not want his sons to be dependent on land and wanted us to move to the service sector. Though, he was quite confident that we would succeed in this mission, yet he did not want to take risks as many other youths who could not secure a job after studies, could not become a good farmer either. So, he would ensure that we remain grounded, and forced us to acquire most of the skills that he had. At that time, of course, we detested it a bit as our life was not as comfortable as other children, but now we appreciate it. One casualty of this, of course, was that my love for football had to be sacrificed. I did quite well in acquiring those skills and actually acquired some more. So, when electricity came to our neighbourhood, I did the entire electrical wiring and fitting work in my house which took me about a month as it was quite a big house. Even two years back when I shifted to my new house, I did not call an electrician!

He died in 1996, but his exact date of birth was not known. My grandmother remembered that he was born on the day of Buddha Purnima and it was a Monday. From this I came to the conclusion that he was born on April 30th, 1923. He could not cross the boundary of a high school and spent all his life in the village where he was born except for visiting some places as a tourist, yet he was much ahead of his time. With limited resources and huge constraints, he tried to live his life fully and bring smiles to the people around. He gave me full freedom to choose the path I took in my career and did not even offer any comment except a few words of encouragement. But only once he expressed his difference of opinion with me. This was when I decided to take a full time job before completing my Ph. D. This was after I took the decision as he was not consulted in advance, and hence, there was no chance of reversing it. But he was quite upset. I had my reasons. He was not keeping well, and agriculture that was his only source of income was becoming less remunerative. I was getting UGC (University Grants Commission) fellowship. So I was not required to receive any support from him. But I was not able to support him much. I wanted to do that as my younger brother was also studying. But he was not convinced. He said, "Now it will be extremely difficult to complete your Ph D. It might not happen in my lifetime. It might also retard your career growth!" His words proved prophetic. I did complete my Ph. D. but not in his lifetime. I did not appreciate what he said then. But now I wonder that a person who did no go beyond school, and lived in a village all through his life, could comment so accurately on the prospects and career of a person who was doing Ph. D.! While I do not regret it even now as I had my own reasons, at hindsight, I must admit, he was right as he had the foresight that I lacked!

My only regret is that he could not allow his daughter exploring their own life the way he did for his sons. They could not study beyond school. However, he had his own reasons. There was no institution of higher education near my village which was also not connected to the nearby town as it had no motorable road. By the time I finished my school, my village got a semi-motorable road. There was also social pressure and that of the pernicious system of dowry. I had seen some people humiliate my sisters and my father just because they belonged to the family of a prospective groom. Thankfully my sisters did not have to go to such families. The sweetest part of my childhood was that my sisters filled my life with love and care. But I could not do anything for them as the youngest of my sisters got married even before I became a teenager. Had I been elder to them, I could probably change things as they were good at studies and had the potential to do much better in life! My father could have done differently had there been a support within the family. Nevertheless, my only solace is that the sisters I am talking about are quite happy in their family life. For me, twenty two years after my father left us, he still remains the source of inspiration that helps me face life with fortitude. Thank you “Baba”!