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ఆదివాసీ జీవితాల సామూహిక విధ్వంసాల్ని వెలుగులోకి తెచ్చిన జయదీప్ హార్దికర్ - రైతుల సమస్యలపై ప్రత్యేక కథనాలు, మరెన్నో పుస్తక రచనలు
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00:00Today we have with us a very special guest, an author, a researcher, an award-winning journalist, Mr. Jaideep Hardikar.
00:08Welcome, Mr. Jaideep Hardikar.
00:09Thank you, Nisar. Very privileged. It's an honor to be here.
00:13Mr. Hardikar is also a recipient of Ramoji Award of Excellence.
00:18Today we will have a discussion with him and understand his work.
00:21Jaideep, I was going through your work and you have extensively reported on rural India, the agrarian distress.
00:27You have even written two books about it, extensively reporting on farmers during these times.
00:32What drew you towards rural India?
00:34In 1996, when I was passing out of my postgraduate degree in journalism,
00:42one of my faculty members, who was then the PTI Bureau Chief, Mr. B. Someshwar Rao, I interned with him.
00:49And in that one month, I think, he saw something in me where he felt that there is a particular bent in my mind towards a certain kind of journalism.
01:00And so, while passing out, he gifted me the book of Sainath, P. Sainath.
01:06That day, sitting in a small chai kadda in Nagpur, I read the entire book.
01:14So, that was my first really inspiration.
01:17And Rao told me that, you know, this is a journalism that, this is real journalism, this is something that you ought to be doing.
01:24And so, I started following Sainath's work in the Hindu.
01:26A couple of years down the line, when I started reporting on, say, the issue of displacement and their rallies, their protests,
01:35I realized that purpose in journalism, if you discover your purpose, I think the rest of the things fall in place.
01:42One fine day, when Sainath was touring Nagpur for a talk, I somehow managed to catch up with him.
01:50And then things, you know, then he took me under his wings in, you know, he was reporting from Andhra Pradesh around 96, 97,
01:58when the farm suicides basically started.
02:00I was seeing the same thing in Vidarbha, which is a contiguous cotton region.
02:04I started to follow that issue and then talk to a multiple level of people, farmers, experts, economists,
02:13just to build my understanding of why this is happening.
02:15So, that is how I began.
02:17But my first foray into, a serious foray into kind of rural journalism was when I backed the KK Birla Foundation Media Fellowship.
02:29That one year, I traveled across the country non-stop for 12 months.
02:32And I was astounded to see what happens to people who are displaced by development project.
02:39And if you remember, 1990s was a decade when the issue of displacement, rehabilitation was a very hotly discussed and debated subject.
02:48So, that started my journey, a serious foray into this subject.
02:53In fact, talking about that, one of your recent works, the story on Chandrapur and the human-animal conflict there,
03:00I see that it has, you know, holistically seen or covered that issue.
03:04Yeah, look, one of the things I am interested in, how is climate change impacting our life?
03:10If we use climate change as an overarching framework for politics, ecology, economy,
03:15then the question arises is, how do you report climate change?
03:20So, one of the things we decided to report it was to look at the ecological changes, which is, ecology is a physical construct.
03:27Climate is a very broad process which is very difficult to capture in terms of events.
03:34So, we decided to look at people, ecology and climate change.
03:39Now, ecological zones in India are multiple.
03:42There are forest zones, there are hills, there are mountains, there are oceans, grasslands, river belts.
03:48So, I thought I will start with forest.
03:51Now, one of the defining stories of India today is a huge, it is a deepening problem of ecology, climate and changes,
04:02biotic pressures that are changing and are bringing wildlife in contact with human beings.
04:07Yes, exactly.
04:08So, my frame there is to look at how is it impacting farming?
04:13Because farming itself is in a crisis.
04:15Now, this is a new headache.
04:17So, that is how I began with Tadoba and eventually, gradually, I will fan out in different parts of the country.
04:25I started with Tadoba because I understand that region, but I am also trying to study, say, central India,
04:32how does the landscape change, northern India.
04:35So, while I am reporting on this, I am trying to research and study more and more about the north, east, west, south,
04:41because this crisis has multiple angles and multiple dimensions.
04:46You have also written two books about rural India.
04:49One of them is A Village Awaits Doomsday and it is about the personal stories of people displaced.
04:54Now, in journalism, we are told that you have to be very objective.
04:58But when you go to such places, you have to empathize as well.
05:02So, how do you balance between empathy and objectivity when you are reporting such stories?
05:06I am not doing this for myself.
05:08I am not wanting a name here or money.
05:11This story is important because the world needs to understand a daily life.
05:17Stories are important.
05:18You know, if you, let's say, if you are a development junkie, unless you understand the other side of development,
05:25how are you going to come to a, you know, a middle ground where you say, okay, I don't want this development,
05:30if it is trampling millions of people.
05:33I might take that value position.
05:35Right.
05:36But if I am not telling that story, society is not always just beautiful.
05:40It has also got grey shades and dark shades.
05:42We got to tell those stories as well.
05:44Regional journalism, I understand it is not as strong as it should be in India, how it covers.
05:49We mostly have a person from a distant corner covering, you know, an urban life or an incident at some other place.
05:56But however much it is happening, the regional journalism, do you think it has some role or it is shaping conversations
06:02around national policy or especially policies which are related to rural life?
06:07So, if you look at Indian media, it is pretty much the national media today is basically the media that is in the four metropolitan cities
06:15and two other, you know, wannabe metros.
06:18But India is such a vast country from J and K down south up to Kanyakumarayan, from east, northeast to say western coast.
06:27Do we read stories from Simanchal?
06:29We don't.
06:30Do we read stories from northern Karnataka or Hyderabad, Karnataka?
06:34We don't.
06:35Do we read stories from Maratwada regularly?
06:37We don't.
06:38Do we read stories from Ryal Sima?
06:40We don't.
06:41Are there reporters?
06:42Yes, there are reporters.
06:43But those are beat reporters or the regional journalism or regions and reporting of the regions is national media, has to be a national media.
06:53We report on probably every single agro-ecological zone in the country.
06:58By choice, I stayed in Nagpur because I am closer to the stories.
07:01If you draw 400 kilometers of periphery around me, like circumference around me, I can reach Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, I can reach up to Gujarat, Telangana.
07:12So, all this region is highly under-reported.
07:15It is a territory full of tribal life, full of climate issues, forest issues, agrarian distress.
07:22It is very, very diverse.
07:24I don't see India from Delhi or Bombay.
07:27I look at India from Nagpur or from the small places and then see how is India shaping up.
07:33And if you look at past 20 years of India, all the major stories are happening in the hinterland and heartlands of the country.
07:40Whether it is cricket, whether it is farm crisis, cultural, New Olympians, politics.
07:47Every single major story of the country is happening in hinterland and heartlands and we are not there.
07:53We now need a media where we have impeccably trained local people who can tell local stories in a global context.
08:03But I think our mainstream media is yet to acknowledge that and yet to come to terms with that.
08:10Sir, can you share an incident or an experience of yours probably from the previous years, you know,
08:16which profoundly impacted your perspective on rural distress?
08:20Agrarian distress is not just economic issues.
08:23There are multiple structural spirals that kind of animate or that kind of inform the life.
08:33It is not just some nondescript individual, unnamed individual dying.
08:38His whole family, there is a historiography to a village.
08:42I am just coming from Maratwada where I went to a village called Kari.
08:47I thought there is only one farmer who had committed suicide.
08:50It turns out that in the last 24 months, in the same village, there have been 30 suicides.
08:56Why is it driving? What is it driving?
08:58So, I think I will need to go back to that village again and again.
09:01Because in the first or second trip, people do not talk.
09:04The question is why?
09:06There was a young boy, he said, you are the first person to come.
09:10And I said, why do you think your voices are not heard?
09:14He says, no, no, no. We have a voice.
09:16The question is, we can speak. We want to talk.
09:21Question is, are there people to listen?
09:23So, I think journalism to me, that profoundly changed me as a journalist also.
09:29That our job also is to listen.
09:31Exactly.
09:32I think it makes you more humble. It gets you the story.
09:36And then you tell those stories in the most empathetic fashion as much as whatever your craft is.
09:43So, I am trying to better the craft.
09:45Because in today's cacophonic world of social media, my stories don't stand that much a chance to be read.
09:52So, the thing is, how do you compete with the, you know, worldwide web?
09:56While you have explored themes of migration, inequality and, you know, resilience,
10:01which one of these three do you think is, you know, feels most urgent?
10:07They are all interlinked. Tariff war, for instance.
10:10Trump has imposed tariffs. There is a war going on between the world's most developed countries.
10:15How does it impact a small soybean farmer in Latour?
10:18So, he is facing a downward spiral in prices. Prices are not going up.
10:23Then this year has been the most incessant rainfall year.
10:26He has lost his crop. So, there is climate impacting him.
10:30And there is a market which is now influenced by domestic and international prices.
10:35And here is a guy sitting there, who has no comprehension of both the processes.
10:40So, we got to somehow explain it to both the policy makers and those who are kind of suffering the malays of the distress.
10:48You know, there is an AI boom these days and there are AI driven agricultural practices like modified seeds,
10:54genetically modified seeds. What is your viewpoint on it?
10:57I will quote Professor M.S. Swaminathan, the preeminent scientist of India, who says that technology is class agnostic.
11:07You know, it has its implications. The question is, do we use appropriate technology?
11:12I believe that AI or a new technology cannot be an answer.
11:17It's not a one fit all solutions or a one pill that can resolve all the issues.
11:21If the technology, AI and digital innovations in land and agriculture will lead to digital inequality.
11:29There will be farmers just as we saw in Green Revolution, a set of farmers who were benefited by Green Revolution.
11:35But there was also a vast amount of lands which remained rain fed and could not really economically flourish in that period of 70s and 80s.
11:46Same thing might happen in the countryside today where digital connectivity might lead to better information system or supply chains for supply chains rather than those areas and those people who have no education in that thing.
12:02So, I can see that digital divide will be a new factor in the next 2-3 years itself.
12:08Add into that, if I ask, how do you see rural India evolving in the next, let's say, one decade?
12:12I am seeing massive out-migration for many regions.
12:15I don't see people, particularly young people, wanting to stick to the countryside.
12:21We have to start thinking about collectively of what all is needed.
12:27There is a social malaise now, particularly in the rain fed and small farmer, small holder farmer agriculture.
12:33Now, their children are getting, are not able to marry.
12:37I see this into a major social crisis in 5 years time.
12:42Young men unable to find brides for themselves, even from the landed upper caste backgrounds in the countryside.
12:50There are hundreds and hundreds of people who are unmarried at 35-36.
12:55And we need more reporters, we need careful policy, we need long-term policy stability and states' involvement beyond the doles, you know,
13:071500 rupees, 2000 rupees, it is easier political, it gets you political capital, but it ruins the long-term reconstruction of the countryside.
13:17Sir, as we conclude this conversation, what does the Ramoji Award of Excellence mean to you?
13:22Lack of motivation or lack of, I don't know what, should I, would have been pretty low.
13:27So, this comes out of the blue and I have no words to express my sort of deep gratitude to the jury, to the group, you know, it means a lot.
13:38It is stamped that, okay, whatever I have been doing, somebody is tracking.
13:43That motivation or that boost or that moral support will go a very long way.
13:49So, I am deeply indebted to the Ramoji group.
13:51It is in the legacy of a person who created regional journalism.
13:55Exactly.
13:56That makes me all the more happy.
13:57And I am very proud of it.
13:58Congratulations.
13:59We are also proud of having you here.
14:00Thank you for speaking to us.
14:03Thank you very much.
14:04Very honoured to be here.
14:08Thank you very much.
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