DESPERATE MEASURES
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Women go topless for rain relief
Published on Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 07:45, Updated on Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 11:41 in India section
Tags: Vidarbha, Farmer Suicide , Bhopal
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Bhopal: The woes for the country's farmers do not seem to end.
While in the Vidarbha region, hundreds of debt-ridden farmers are being driven to suicide, in UP, they are being doled out cheques worth Rs three as drought relief by an apathetic government.
The picture is dismal across India and shocking tales of hapless farmers resorting to desperate measures are rampant.
In Madhya Pradesh's drought-hit Dindori district, the Baiga tribal women farmers have resorted to ploughing their fields half-naked to please the rain gods.
Spurned by the state government, these desolate women farmers have taken to the bizarre "ritual", seeking divine intervention for rain.
"We don't have anyone to help us. This year the rains did not come and our crop failed. The government has not come to help us so we are trying to help ourselves by pleasing the rain god. Our children are dying of hunger. We are eating leaves of trees from forests,” says a woman farmer, Tiahu Lal Bahelia.
While the village's menfolk sit outside the fields, women have wielded the plough with no cloth covering the upper half of their bodies.
Once the "topless ritual" is over, villagers worship a frog, dip it in water and use that water to sprinkle the fields.
They believe that sprinkling this holy water will be an invocation enough for some rain relief.
With a rain prayer - "Look oh bird we have no one. Oh Rama, look at our fate there's no one to take care of us" - on their lips, these farmers are yet to witness the fruits of their labour.
However, they still cling on to their beliefs with a hope that it might end their cycle of hunger and deprivation.
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