Vishaka George

Samyukta Shastri

Sharmila Joshi

Text Editor

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”Must we slog like this, and should our children suffer too? If we earn decently then our children can benefit. But right now, I just don’t understand how we can even fill our stomachs,” says Devidas Bendkule.On the March 11, nearly 40,000 farmers from across the state of Maharashtra entered Mumbai. They had walked all the way from Nashik for six days, covering over 180 kilometres on foot. They continued this march till the 12th, walking the last 15-20 kilometres in silence and darkness, finally assembling at Azad Maidan in the south of the city to press for demands they felt the government had betrayed them on – a loan waiver, minimum support price for their crops, procurement, and many more.

In our first episode of PARI podcasts, we speak to farmers like Bendkule who had joined this march in anger over being repeatedly let down by the State. They spoke of their struggles, urgent demands and even hopes with us. Also in conversation is our founder editor and rural affairs reporter, P. Sainath, who sheds light on why this protest brought thousands to the highways and the streets. He speaks of how the highly disciplined marchers struck a rare chord in Mumbai not just with the urban working class, but also the middle and upper middle classes; and lastly, why this event is a milestone in Indian history.While the Maharashtra government agreed to most of the farmers’ demands on March 12, it is yet to fulfil several of them.But peaceful protests like this are important. It’s when the voices of the poor get heard. In this episode and in a recently published article, Sainath makes an appeal for a very large, democratic protest, alongside a demand for Parliament to hold a three-week or 21-day special session dedicated entirely to the agrarian crisis and related issues. A joint session of both houses.We would like to thank photographer and reporter Sarthak Chand, who spoke to several farmers on the field and brought their struggles to light, PARI Fellow Parth M.N. for his stories on the march, and Himanshu Saikia, Siddharth Adelkar, Aditya Dipankar and Gaurav Sharma for helping us produce this episode.

The farmers who help keep democracy alive

গণতন্ত্র রক্ষায় তৎপর যে সকল কৃষিজীবী

ஜனநாயகத்தை உயிர்ப்புடன் வைக்கும் விவசாயிகள்

کسانوں نے جلائے رکھی ہے جمہوریت کی مشعل

किसानों ने जलाए रखी है लोकतंत्र की मशाल

ଗଣତନ୍ତ୍ରକୁ ବଞ୍ଚାଇ ରଖିବାରେ ସହଯୋଗ କରୁଥିବା ଚାଷୀମାନେ

Mumbai

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Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

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The farmers who help keep democracy alive

PARI’s first podcast features the voices of Maharashtra’s farmers, who marched peacefully from Nashik to Mumbai in March 2018. They speak of their struggles and hopes – and what they demand of the state

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