Plot

P.Sainath and Bhatia take us into the villages of India, where a quarter million farmers have committed suicide since 1992 due to faulty government, corporate and IMF WB policies and the increasing scale of the sad reality.

The one hour documentary starts with Sainath addressing a group o young students, describing what he has seen, year after year as a journalist in the villages of India. The film then accompanies him - to the villages of Maharashtra, to the houses of families where one of the farmers have committed suicide, and allows them to speak for themselves. What unravels is a tale of a cruel attempt to corporatize the Indian agricultural scene, rendering millions of farmers and labourers without any option but to finally kill themselves, large scale diversion of water to coca cola and pepsi factories and grape farms (used to make wine), cotton and sugar cane vis a vis food crops that farmers can use to address their own hunger. Occasionally he lets loose on all the entities involved, but ten minutes into the documentary, you the viewer yourself are seething with anger against everyone who has perpetrated this situation, and fully empathize with the helplessness that the farmers and their families feel. The documentary is hard hitting, poignant, and being current evokes action from the viewer, even if it is just a feeling of empathy. The film traces one of the largest forced migrations in India of several millions of people, leading now to poverty in cities. Considering that India has barely 50 million spending middle class and about 823 million poor, living in rural and urban areas, it is an eye opener for both Indians and foreigners, to whom a very different seductive image of India has been painted. However, on completing watching the documentary, the viewer comes out feeling stronger and more determined to correct the wrongs unleashed on the affected people of India, realizing that their fate has been similar to those of the increasing numbers of marginalized people in a number of developing as well as developed countries.