From Premchand’s Godan to Peepli Live: A Century of Unbroken Agrarian Sorrow

In the year 1936, Munshi Premchand’s timeless novel ‘Godan’ was published. The protagonist of that novel, ‘Hori’, spends his entire life dreaming of rearing a cow, is crushed in the vicious cycle of the zamindar’s (landlord’s) land rent and the moneylender’s debt, and finally succumbs to heatstroke whilst toiling as a manual labourer on the road. At the time of his death, his wife Dhaniya does not possess even twenty annas (a historical currency unit where sixteen annas made a rupee) to offer godan (the ritual donation of a cow) to the priest.

Now come straight from 1936 to 2010.

Bollywood’s widely discussed film ‘Peepli Live’ arrives. In it, an impoverished farmer, ‘Natha’, is drowning in debt and, lured by a government compensation scheme, begins contemplating suicide simply to save his land from bank auction. The entire media, politicians, and the bureaucracy turn his plight into a circus, but no one speaks of saving his land.

Nearly 90 years have elapsed between 1936 and today. The British left, our own governments took the reins, fourteen general elections were held, and rockets reached the Moon. But has anything changed in the life of the farmer?

In Hori’s era, there were zamindars and mahajans (traditional moneylenders); in today’s era, there are banks, recovery agents, seed companies, and middlemen. Only the face of exploitation has changed; the agony of exploitation has not diminished by a single shred!

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The Farmer’s Cry in Literature and Cinema

In the second chapter of their book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’ (Devastated Farming, Ruined Villages), co-authors N. Singh and Vimla Singh examine all those documents of Hindi literature, poetry, and Indian cinema that recorded the farmer’s anguish.

They recall how in Bimal Roy’s 1953 classic film ‘Do Bigha Zamin’, Balraj Sahni (Shambhu Mahato) pulls a rickshaw barefoot on the streets of Calcutta to save his two bighas of land from an urban mill owner, spits blood from his lungs, yet in the end, a factory is erected on his land regardless.

Be it the poems of Kedarnath Agarwal, the searing satire of Nagarjun, or Nirala’s ‘Woh Todti Patthar’ (‘She Was Breaking Stones’)—Indian literature has repeatedly cried out to warn the rulers that a nation whose foundation is anchored in the fields will find its entire civilisation hollowed out if it drives the farmer to tears.

Yet the tragic irony is that politics reduced this literary pain to mere rhyming slogans for garnering votes at election rallies. When elections arrive, politicians remember Hori; the moment elections conclude, 80% of the budget is distributed in concessions to corporate entities.

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The Bitter Truth from the Book

Striking at this cultural and economic contradiction, the co-authors write:

“In literature and cinema, the farmer was either portrayed as a pathetic, helpless wretch, or eyes were shut to reality by singing false romantic songs such as ‘Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle’ (‘The soil of my land yields gold’). The reality is that the farmer is in no condition to sing songs, nor does he seek merely to be an object of pity. The farmer is a self-respecting labourer. When his cultivation cost stands at ₹2000 per quintal and the market compels him to sell at ₹1500, this loss does not arise from any divine calamity; it is a well-orchestrated plunder engineered by the ruling establishment.”
— ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’ (Chapter 2)

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What Is the Real Solution?

Rather than confining the farmer to a tragic figure shedding tears on the pages of literature, the following steps must be taken to empower him economically:

1. Cost-Based Assured Income: The M.S. Swaminathan Commission’s ‘C2+50%’ (one-and-a-half times the comprehensive cost) recommendation must be given statutory guarantee, so that the farmer never has to subsist on anyone’s charity.
2. Freedom from Debt versus Loan Waivers: A loan waiver is a temporary balm, not a permanent cure. The permanent cure is to make agriculture sufficiently profitable so that the farmer never feels the necessity of taking a loan in the first place.
3. Village-Level Processing Units: The farmer must not sell raw agricultural produce alone. Cooperative processing units should be established within villages themselves to produce sauce from tomatoes, crisps from potatoes, and jaggery (gur) from sugarcane, ensuring that the dividends of value addition flow into the farmer’s pocket rather than the middleman’s.

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A Question Worth Contemplating (The Message of the Book)

Will the society of independent India ever stop viewing the farmer merely as an ‘impoverished petitioner begging for relief’ and grant him his rightful status as the nation’s true ‘Wealth Creator’?

If you wish to understand how the economic wheel of agrarian exploitation has kept turning from the days of Premchand down to the present day, this chapter of the book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’ will truly open your eyes.