Voices of resistance

Kinshuk Surjan
Promotors: Klaas Tindemans, Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Jan Vromman

In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class— the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees (0.25 Euro) a day” - Arundhati Roy

The farmer suicide isn’t the issue, it is only the manifestation of the bigger problem. The idea of development is so skewed in India, that all of the health, education, economic policies are focussed on ‘development’ of cities which only constitutes 30% of population. While the rest 70% living in villages suffer absolute abuse and apathy. High input costs in farming with little or no returns, burgeoning interest rates ( as high as 12% per month) from banks and private moneylender’s greed have pushed farmers into debts of astronomical figures. Humiliated by banks and private moneylenders, what must a farmer should do if not commit suicide? As an example, 17,368 farmer suicide were observed in 2009 and it has been only increasing since then. Now the state has devised new mechanisms to hide the numbers.

(though committing suicide does not absolve the farmer’s family from debt)

The middle class’s absolute apathy is reflected as national media refers farmers suicides as numbers or figures, like objects. And film or popular literature hardly bothers to look at them emotionally/intimately/realistically. Although if a Bollywood figure even had a minor flu, it does become national news. At present, there are no major voices of resistance in media or art.
For the first two years, through my research and film, I aim to examine the issue from different points of view to draw a portrait of the systemic exploitation.

What does an 8 year old orphan feel like growing up in a village where death looms. If yesterday his father poisoned himself with pesticide, a few days before his uncle had hung up himself by a tree, and he knows someone else might be forced to do the same tomorrow. How does it shape him?

How does a bank manager who has been given ‘targets’ to fulfill, disbursing and recovering loans at any cost, deals with his conscience when he belongs to the same village where farmers are committing suicide ? How does a farmer’s son become a loan recovery agent himself and uses tactics to humiliate and bully farmers?

How does a woman farmer, perhaps a widow, prove that she is also a farmer despite being a woman and be eligible for state sponsored compensation? What hopes a city holds for her son who doesn’t want to be a farmer anymore? How are they pushed to become labourers or modern slaves of cities? Isn’t loss of dignity even worse than loss of life?

My second query is to see the utmost impact of a documentary film in India, since hardly any documentary film gets a theatrical release here. What alternate distribution channels, and platforms I can find to reach the furthest corners and therefore if my film can have a tangible impact on grass-root levels.