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Globalisation has no say here

Rasheeda Bhagat

CALICUT, Dec. 8

A SWADESHI wind is quietly blowing through some of the districts of North Kerala. Elsewhere in India urbanites might be thirstily gulping down Berry apricot juice and wolfing down Lindt chocolates. Even the snack bar at Calicut airport has on offer only a Thai brand of awful orange juice priced at Rs 35 for a 250 ml pack, against our very own and much more delicious Onjus or Real brands available at less than half the price.

But if the farmers of Kerala have their way, such brands will very soon make an exit from these areas. Beginning with the boycott of palm oil in preference to oil from what Keralites reverentially refer to as kalpa vriksha (divine tree) for the coconut t ree, the movement kicked off by a group of farmers in Koorachundu, about 45 km from Kozhikode town has all the makings of spreading.

So in the Calicut and Mallapuram districts palm oil is out and coconut oil is the flavour of the day; Pepsi and Coke are replaced by tender coconut water. Very soon home made soaps, toothpowder and more will enter the marketplace under the brand name Ind farm (Indian Farmers Association) to push out MNC products.

``Maybe in a month or so,'' says Rev. Antony Kozhuvanal of the Sacred Heart Church in Thiruvampady, about 35 km from Kozhikode, ``vegetables using only organic manure, totally boycotting chemical insecticides, will be marketed under the same brand name.' '

During the last couple of months, at this parish church as well as the Koorachundu St. Thomas Church, he and his counterpart Fr. Augustine Kizhakekkattil, have been using the Sunday sermon to sensitise their parishioners about the economic virtues of goi ng swadeshi.

``In the last four years I have been alarmed to find that rural people are slowly getting disinterested in farming and only want office jobs. Farmers are exploited all the time. With coconut, rubber and areca nut prices crashing to an all-time low, the c hallenge before us was to rekindle an interest in farming,'' he says.

Normally, it is difficult to organise farmers but with the prospect of starvation staring them in the face, if not immediately, at least in a few months if the same bleak story continued, you find in this belt a surprising burst of energy and passion.

Globalisation is definitely out and the slogan of the day is self sufficiency and swadeshi. The farmers started the movement and local merchants have joined. ``Apart from making our own soap, toothpowder and simple medicines using the wealth of medicinal plants in this region, we are encouraging people to raise chicken and grow their own fish by supplying fishlings,'' says Rev. Kozhuvanal.

When the Gulf boom was at its peak and rubber, coconut and areca nut prices were soaring, ``people, specially the women, didn't want to be bothered about raising chicken or keeping cows. They found it easy to buy milk, chicken and eggs from the stores. T o put it plainly they had become lazy,'' he said.

But with incomes getting depleted to almost a quarter in many homes, laziness is a luxury they can ill-afford. ``We have no choice but to return to the Gandhian principle of swadeshi and self-sufficiency''.

So was there a possibility of their joining hands with outfits like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch?

``Oh no,'' says the priest who has done his doctorate in Gandhian politics from the University of Toronto. ``Their swadeshi and what we're talking about are totally different. While we are talking about the Gandhian ideal of swadeshi, these people are co ncerned only about religion and culture. What we're talking about is simplifying daily living and avoiding wasteful luxuries.

``World over we've seen that when people start getting things at a cheaper rate they stop producing. And after a few years they will have to face the prospect having to pay much higher prices for imported items. That is why we want to go back to Gandhiji 's style of self sufficiency. Whatever you need you produce in your own village. This is our `swadeshi'. It is not curtailing our relationship with other countries. In a world which is one big village interchange of culture is good. So that is how our sw adeshi is different from theirs,'' adds the Rev. Father.