To understand the Agriculture Minister’s odd response in Parliament on farmers’ suicide, one needs to look at the manner in which such answers are put together
Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh is caught in a controversy, following his poorly-worded written reply to a question raised in Parliament. The question was about the farmer suicides. According to the Minister, dowry, love affairs and impotency were some of the reasons for the suicides.
The accuracy of Mr Singh’s answer requires research and debate. Who asked the questionIJ Who prepared the answerIJ How was it answeredIJ Hundreds of offices, spread across the length and breadth of the country, prepare the answers to questions that are raised in both Houses of Parliament. The prepared answers may be right or wrong.
The point is: Do we have a mechanism to record the number of farmers suicides that occur every minute in the countryIJ Do we have records for the reasons of these suicidesIJ The only available source of information seems to be the details collected by the police station nearest to the house of the victim. It is debatable if the police force is capable of digging out the reasons behind every suicide.
The controversial question and the equally controversial answer took this writer back to the days when he was working with Doordarshan, in 1985, as a transmission executive. One of the responsibilities of the transmission executive was to prepare answers to questions raised in Parliament about programmes telecast by Doordarshan Kendra under various categories. There were no satellite television channels or private FM radio stations at that time. Doordarshan and All India Radio were the only sources of information. Electronic media itself was yet to catch up.
Weeks before both Houses of Parliament were to meet, the Director ofDoordarshan, then K Kunhikrishnan, would get lengthy telegrams and telexes (yes, the precursor to the modern day e-mail) asking for details about various categories of programmes telecast by the Kendra during the last three or four years. Another telegram was about the percentage of Hindi programmes telecast during the financial year.
Some of the MPs wanted to know the total duration of the programmes telecast by the Kendra, and the percentage of Hindi, English and Urdu programmes telecast during the last three financial years. In addition to the percentage, the honourable Members also wanted to know about the duration of such programmes in hours, minutes and even seconds. The details of the programmes telecast on national integration, communal harmony, scientific temper and eradication of superstitions were frequently asked for by the Members.
Anything under the sun could be asked by the MPs and it was the responsibility of the transmission executives to come out with an answer. Some of the questions were bizarre and even macabre. Once, the office driver came to this writer’s home, knocking on the door well past midnight. The Director wanted me in the office. Telephones were rare in those days. This writer reached the office only to find a small team of transmission executives and programme executives sitting perplexed.
The material they had to give was as follows: ‘Details of programmes on upliftment of the poor, telecast by the Kendra during the last one year’. A colleague, Arunachalam, could dig out only one item under this heading: “Airlfting the people who got caught stranded in floods in a village in Assam by the Indian Air Force helicopters”! This had been shown as a news item for one minute.