Does the Indian Farmer need technology?

[Guest guest]

Dear Hare Krsna Mata:

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Wow! That was beautiful! Very powerful! A very clear, concise, eloquent

explanation of Srila Prabhupada's teachings re: cow protection, etc. and the

problems of their implementation. I wish you would write like this more

often. Thank you so much for this.

 

Ys,

Taraka dasa

 

> Nirguna prabhu,

>

> Thanks for your kind note. For the reference of others, I'm posting the

> Tavleen

> Singh article from India Today that you mentioned. She states that "What

> the Indian farmer really needs is technology."

>

> She's well-meaning to look at Indian farmers and try to figure out how to

> help them, but unfortunately she is ignorant and brainwashed. I should

> add that she is no more ignorant and brainwashed than 98-100% of the

> members of the U.S. Congress, who believe basically the same thing that

> she does.

>

> If she had actually studied the Populist Movement (1873-1896) in the U.S.

> and its aftermath -- and also studied Marx, Gandhi and E.F. Schumacher,

> she would understand that a means of protecting the small farmer does not

> exist within the

> framework of capitalism.

>

> The Populist Movement was the largest democratic effort in the history of

> the United States -- but partly because it tried to find a solution within

> the capitalist system it was a failure. Hundreds of thousands of farmers

> from all ethnic groups and all across the country joined together to fight

> the cheating banks, land owners and railway companies who were cheating

> and oppressing them. One way they fought was to make cooperatives for

> buying supplies and selling their products. Decades later, after their

> political demise with the defeat of William Jennings Bryant, Henry

> Wallace, who had been raised in Populist Kansas, actually brought many of

> the goals of the Populist movement into reality -- when

> Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D.

> Roosevelt.

>

> But historians understand that although the policies which the Populists

> strove for, did help farmers, they mainly helped the big farmers. The end

> picture is that whereas in the late 1800's well over 50 percent of the

> population were farmers -- but by the year 2000, only about 1 percent of

> the population were farmers. Capitalist competition had wiped out most

> farmers. Even today, it is becoming a huge sociological problem that the

> midwest is becoming largely deserted. Towns are dying from

> underpopulation.

>

> The point is this: Capitalist agricultural techniques --

> capital-intensive technology and inputs -- and market-oriented production

> -- inevitably wipe out small farmers. So what Tavleen Singh believes is

> the solution is in fact a slow

> way of killing farmers, and destroying their families as they are sent to

> the cities to become low-paid factory workers or unemployed -- languishing

> in living

> conditions even worse than what they knew in the country.

>

> U.S. Congress members and this Indian columnist do not realize that the

> only way

> to actually help the small farmer is to abolish capitalism -- "thoroughly

> overhaul society" -- and set up viable subsistence -- self-sufficient or

> self-reliant -- farming villages. These villages will not offer the

> specter of concentrated wealth that capitalism offers, because capitalism

> means concentrating wealth among a few -- and properly protected

> subsistence farming would mean a much more equitable distribution of

> wealth.

>

> As long as we desire to enjoy great luxury, it will not be possible to

> help people like these farmers. But, people can give up that desire for

> luxury if they actually do experience a higher taste by engaging in Krsna

> consciousness.

>

> Capitalism is a religion -- or rather a cult. We have all been

> brainwashed by this cult, which hold out the promise of immense material

> enjoyment. Capitalism

> is a religion. People who are not sure whether or not God exists have an

> unshakeable faith that if the free market is allowed to function, then

> "the Invisible Hand" will provide the greatest good to the greatest number

> of people. For a serious student of history, there is no evidence that

> this is true, nevertheless, it is the unshakeable belief of most "modern"

> people. Capitalism is the religion of materialism. And capitalist

> technology in agriculture, such as the tractor, is an important item of

> faith in the capitalist theology.

>

> Tavleen Singh needs to realize that capitalism is always a competition,

> with the

> stronger forces always defeating the weaker. So it is with

> capital-intensive technology (as opposed to small-scale or appropriate

> technology) in agriculture. Over the years, the strongest farmers (not

> necessarilty the best) will gradually wipe out all the smaller ones.

> Capitalism is just like a baseball or soccer tournament. In the

> beginning, you may have a hundred teams competing, but by the end of the

> season, there will be only a few teams left to compete. So it has been

> with the history of market-oriented capitalist agriculture in the U.S. --

> of all the hundreds of thousands of Populist farmers,

> only a tiny handful of their descendents can still farm the land a hundred

> years

> later.

>

> What Srila Prabhupada is proposing is something quite different. He

> proposes to

> "thoroughly overhaul society." "Thoroughly" -- meaning even the economic

> system, even the system of government. And indeed, as Lenin accurately

> pointed out, subsistence agriculture cannot survive for long, unprotected

> in a capitalist environment.

>

> In one sense, the spiritual principle of cow protection is almost like a

> trick of Srila Prabhupada's to force us to develop models of subsistence

> agricultural villages. Because cows must be protected, it means we can't

> slaughter bulls. But to practically protect bulls, they must be trained

> for agriculture. But to use bulls for agriculture, produces a product

> which is too expensive to sell in a capitalist market and use the funds to

> support a family. Using the bulls for agriculture can only support a

> family, if the family consumes the produce directly (as advocated by Srila

> Prabhupada in numerous conversations in "Srila Prabhupada on Varnasrama

> and Farm Community Development"). But the family can only consume its

> product directly when they are living in a protected subsistence

> agricultural village -- properly trained and with no mortgage or rent to

> pay on their land. But such a village can only be set up by an

> enlightened Krsna conscious government.

>

> But, if such a village could be set up ("a small unit of ideal community"

> as Prabhupada says) it would be a hundred times more potent for attracting

> people to Krsna consciousness than anything we have today.

>

> But: ISKCON leaders are not interested in developing subsistence

> agricultural villages based on cow protection and working the oxen.

> Narayana Maharaja and his sahejiya followers are not interested in

> developing subsistence agricultural

> villages based on cow protection and working the oxen. And, also the

> rtviks, who claim Srila Prabhupada as their only guru are also not at all

> interested in fulfilling his ardent desire on this account.

>

> I'm sorry to say, but I believe most of these leaders, in all the various

> competing camps, with possibly a few exceptions, are either ignorant or

> cheaters

> on this account.

>

> The purpose of sex is to have a child. That child can be raised in Krsna

> consciousness and become a wonderful devotee. The devotional process of

> raising

> such a child will benefit not only the child -- but also his father and

> mother and other family members -- because of the exceptional spiritual

> insight that Krsna will give them in their day-to-day lives.

>

> But, the whole process is cut off if the couple attempts to circumvent

> having a child by using birth control. There will be no child. The

> practical spiritual benefit and spiritual realizations that could have

> accrued to that couple and their relations are never realized.

>

> Similarly when our so-called spiritual leaders attempt to circumvent the

> responsibilities implied by raising Dharma the bull and engaging him to

> work for

> a family farm, it means that all the spiritual realizations and preaching

> potency which could have developed are cut off. They are never realized.

>

> Instead of figuring out how to develop the "small unit of ideal community"

> which

> would be needed to properly care for the bull -- they attempt to solve the

> problem by creating concentration camps of cattle as in ISKCON Vrndavana

> or ISKCON Mayapur (inspired by the capitalist model). The bull is never

> trained. Or, they shun cow protection all together. The model of simple

> living and high thinking in a Krsna conscious village is never developed.

> And, in the worst cases, the swamis simply sit on a velvet cushion and

> fantasize about the activities of Krsna and the gopis, while holding their

> hand out for donations to

> build "spiritual Disneylands.". Without the proper engagement of our

> father, Dharma the Bull, real spiritual progress will never be realized.

> And the Krsna consciousness movement will never become powerful enough to

> attract all the people of the world.

>

> your servant,

>

> Hare Krsna dasi

>

> P.S. I'm sending Tavleeen Singh's article in a separate post. I believe

> that Vandana Siva ("The Violence of the Green Revolution") Arundhati Roy

> ("The Cost of Living") , and even E.F. Schumacher ("Small Is Beautiful")

> have far better insight on the futility of capitalistic solutions for the

> problems of India's farmers.