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Market cheerleaders have been euphoric ever since liberalisation heralded in India. India became a much sought after destination for MNCs and international financial institutions.

Suddenly everybody was talking in terms of trade and business. Market and laissez fair was the in-thing. IT has caught the imagination of the country’s elite. New opportunities were let loose.

But these ‘so called’ euphoria could not touch a visibly large section of India’s population. The globalisation unleashed a new force called market, which was omnipotent and omnipresent. The domestic market did not remain oblivious to this new phenomenon and lead to lowering of prices of agricultural goods.

This phenomenon played havoc on the domestic farmers’ produce and the state (India) instead of safeguarding their interests, was busy in cramming the new Bible of international trade.

According to one estimate nearly 1 lakh desperate farmers committed suicides in the five year period of NDA rule. The current UPA dispensation came to power riding high on the disillusionment of farmers across the nation.

But the market forces became too powerful for the weak coalition governments of today. The promises were broken once again. Nothing new happened.

In the meantime, the cotton prices crashed which took a heavy toll on the economy and the lives of cotton growing area of Vidarbha. The government’s lip service could break much ice. And till date more than thousand of them have ended their lives since the ‘pro-farmer’ coalition came to power.

The sorrow of farmers’ wretchedness and their miserable condition lingers on when India is celebrating high growth rates, big investments, burgeoning bunch of millionaires and billionaires.

The sorrow becomes all the more when more than half of India’s population is unable to garner a pie of India’s new found wealth. This tumultuous situation begs an answer.