Documentaries Club

Farmer distress in India is a complex issue to tackle. I shall attempt to briefly describe the historical context behind the current state of agriculture. Problems in the agriculture sector stem from the issue of land ownership. Before British India, there was a system of Jagirdars and Zamindars who reported to the king, but the peasant essentially owned the land. The Permanent Settlement Act by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 made Zamindars hereditary land-owners and made the cultivators landless. It created a rift between the two. The land became a commodity to be bought and sold and it has led to land fragmentation through the years. Needless to say, British rule until 1947 had been characterized by mismanagement of peasants and famines. Post-independence, the Nehru Administration's focus on heavy industries, took attention away from agriculture. India became recipient of the  Public Law 480 (PL480) program of the USA in 1954. It allowed them to buy grains in their own c...

The current debate surrounding the central government's merits can be best described as polarized. With issues such as employment, national security and women safety gaining prominence among the youth and public discourse more broadly, a core element of Indian Democracy is consequently strengthened- Government accountability to its people. It's a positive sign for a young and rising country of 1.3 billion people that young and older citizens alike are posing difficult questions to the ruling BJP party, and the recent internet boom certainly takes a huge chunk of credit for that. Then how did this polarization in India (and many western nations as well) come about? The answer lies within the smartphone and mobile data boom itself. With a community of 200 million, India is by far Whatsapp's largest market in the world. Free to install and easy to use, it has facilitated communication for the ordinary citizen, not only between distant parts of the country, but also across ...