Languages, traditional occupations endangered, says P Sainath

Founder Editor of the People's Archive of Rural India and Magsaysay awardee P Sainath said that rural India is the most complex part of land on Earth.

Delivering the first ‘Tallur Nudimala-2017: Karavali Kattu’ Endowment lecture, the renowned journalist said that the country is undergoing severe threat of losing the diversified culture in the form of languages and occupation. The languages and traditional occupations are endangered and are dying rapidly. About 255 Indian languages died in the past 50 years. India has 833 million people speaking 780 million living languages in its womb. Citing an example, he said that people living between Korapatna and Kalahandi in Odisha covering 240 km speak 40 different languages.

Lamenting that the media has ignored 70% of the Indian population in rural areas, Sainath said that the growth is dangerous for democracy. It is only the nation’s capital that gains priority and Mumbai comes next, for the Bollywood hype. Rest all cities are marginalised, he said.

Average national dailies which dedicates the front page for rural India is mere 0.67%. Last year, it was 0.26% catering to 69 to 70% of the rural population in the country. Only dismal news like farmer suicides, major disasters from rural India are highlighted. The generation that are supposed to produce knowledge will have incredibly ill-informed society as 70% of the population has no existence in the media.

He said that the problem with journalism is that it is controlled by the narrow class and caste structure. The people excluded from media should be able to tell their own stories. Citing an incident, he said it is peculiar crime that the person from North-East is beaten up in Delhi or harassed in Bengaluru just because they look like Chinese.

It is a great tragedy that our youngsters do not see or meet freedom fighters, who will be no more in another 3-5 years, Sainath said. The history is being rewritten rapidly. The text books these days carry superficial contents like plastic surgery of Ganesha and flying chariots during Ramayana. Quoting the 95-year-old freedom fighter Captain Bahv, who was responsible for Toofan Sene in Vidharbha in 1943 and set up Prati Sarkar, the scribe said, "We fought for independence and freedom. We achieved independence. Sadly freedom is still a distant dream."

The 70th Independence Day was observed by telling nothing about the sacrifice, he said.

He said that the government’s Skill Development Programme trains the traditional Kanchipuram weavers to be autorickshaw drivers instead of reviving the vanishing traditional culture. In rural India, giant deskilling is taking place, he observed. The world of education is becoming privatised and commercialised. Millions of children cannot afford education. He said 50.8% of wealth is amassed by meager 1% of the country, while bottom 10% has -0.7% wealth in 2016, which marks negative growth while the top 1% owns three times wealth of the bottom 90% of the population. He said, "There is so much of idealism among our youngsters, if we are able to tap them, there can be wonders.” 

DH News Service