" More than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history."
A study (yet another) recently published by The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law, found that:
" It is estimated that more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. A great number of those affected are cash crop farmers, and cotton farmers in particular. In 2009 alone, the most recent year for which official figures are available, 17,638 farmers committed suicide—that’s one farmer every 30 minutes."
The entire study can be downloaded/read at the following link:
http://www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf
Furthermore, as the world-famous and respected activist Vandana Shiva clearly states:
"Every suicide can be linked to Monsanto. Monsanto’s GMOs do not improve farmers’ lives. They have pushed farmers to suicide. Over 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last decade. 84% of the suicides in Vidharbha, the region with highest suicides are linked to debt created by Bt–cotton. This is neither ecological nor economic or social sustainability. It is ecocide and genocide."
source: http://www.goal-2025.com/2011/02/26/climate-change-and-agriculture-by-dr-vandana-shiva/
The root economic and political causes of farmers' suicide
Farmers' suicide in India are a result and a combination of Bt cotton/GMO's, corporate-sponsored flawed agricultural policies and suicidal economic policies imposed by the IMF/World Bank (i.e. market liberalization, privatizations, removal of subsidies to local farmers, etc.), blindly followed and implemented by corrupt and incompetent officials within the Indian government.
Some personal reflections addressed to the so-called Indian « elite » and ruling class :
From the British Empire & Mahatma Gandhi to the US Empire and Monsanto…
History tragically repeats itself…
Is it not a tragic irony of History that over fifty years after Mahatma Gandhi’s lifelong struggle to liberate Indians from the socio-economic exploitation and political oppression of the British Empire, - by ingeniously using the cotton sector and the Charka (spinning wheel) as a “weapon” for achieving Swadeshi ( i.e. economic & thus political independence)- the new “Empire” (US) and Monsanto are recolonizing the Indian cotton and agricultural sector and committing mass Genocide of Indian farmers in the process, with the political support and criminal complicity of the so-called Indian "ruling class" and "elite"...
Mahatma Gandhi is surely weeping tears from his Soul looking down at the deeply Violent, oppressive, exploitative, unjust, immoral, anti-spiritual and hellish society YOU the morally bankrupt so-called Indian “elite” and the corrupt Indian ruling class have built in India over the last + 50 years…
History tragically repeats itself, this time with the political support of high officials within the Indian government, the Indian ruling class and the so-called Indian “elite”, etc., all of whom have chosen to ignore the spiritual and moral lessons imparted by Mahatma Gandhi, and instead have skillfully mastered the deceitful, exploitative, oppressive and murderous “skills” of their previous and current colonial masters (US)…
NO, you the Indian ruling class and the so-called Indian “elite” have indeed surpassed the Immorality, Greed, Injustice, Exploitation and Oppression of both your previous and current colonial masters. Indeed, even your former British colonial masters never committed the Genocide that you have allowed your current colonial masters (US) to commit through your political support and criminal complicity, which has lead to the Genocide of +250,000 helpless Indian farmers and their families over the last 16 years!
You are all guilty of GENOCIDE and Crimes Against Humanity, Nature and God.
There is obviously no Justice in this low world. However, a Higher Justice awaits each one of you wretched souls.
You have wilfully chosen to disregard the moral and spiritual teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
However, you cannot ignore or escape the immutable Universal Law of Justice or the Law of Karma.
Indeed you will inevitably "reap what you have sowed"...
And the worthless fiat paper money ($US) paid for your loyal “services” to your colonial masters will be of no use to you in the Higher Court of Universal Justice.
Wait & See…
Some spiritual reflections and warnings from the Other Side…
What vanity or lack of wisdom drives
The guiding spirits of this age to doubt
The fact that laws celestial rule the lives
Of men and cannot be infringed without
Incurring penalties that must be paid
For individual or collective breach,
In strict accordance with the canons laid
For our collective crimes or sins of each?
Undoubtedly impartial jurists sift
The actions which debase us or uplift,
And after judging the ancestral pool
Decree a just reward, delayed or swift.
When deathless laws, we clearly understand,
Rule mighty suns and planets, sea and land,
Could not the wise Creator find one which
Would keep this moving lump of clay in hand?
Nor learned skepticism nor other trash,
Now ranked as wisdom, shall survive the crash,
Which soon will come to teach our wiseacres
That godless reason can become a curse,
And breed Satanic minds, if left alone,
With matchless intellect but hearts of stone:
A crop which is inevitable if
The attitude of scholars, hard and stiff
Towards sublime belief and faith, does not
To Revelation its true place allot.
Can we determine, when we ponder deep
On it that heaven has framed no laws to keep
Mankind upon the Path to reach the goal
It has appointed for the human soul;
And men are free to act as they decide,
To wallow in sin or to drown in pride,
And there is no Almighty Power to deal
With them, the fever of the mind to heal?
Behold the time has come when once again
The auguries of prophets shall come true,
And man, a rebel grown too proud and vain,
With tears for heaven's clemency shall sue.
Gopi Krishna – The Shape of Events to Come
www.gopikrishna.net
