I am a master in India

Chapter 389 Peasants
Dwaram grew up in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. He was born into the lowest caste, the Dalits.

His childhood memories are filled with exploitation and humiliation; he didn't even have a pair of slippers.

At the village tea stalls, he was not allowed to drink tea from the same cup as everyone else.

In the early 70s, when he was ten years old, he attended a meeting organized by a leader of the Tripartite Party.

At this point, he dropped out of school and started working in the fields as a laborer, becoming a loyal member of the "Life-Saving Party."

He and other laborers were forced to work in the fields from four in the morning until ten at night, and their annual wages amounted to only one thousand rupees.

Dwaram and other members persisted in their strike for fifteen days, and nearly fifty nearby villages followed suit and organized their own strikes.

After the strike, they not only received a raise, but also got lunch for the first time in their lives, along with a flashlight for working at night and a pair of rubber slippers.

In the mid-70s, police began arresting members of the Killing Party, forcing Dwaram to leave home and travel to Lucknow.

“Many people suffered misfortune at that time,” he said, making the shape of a pistol with his right hand and “firing a shot” into his chest.

"Then why did you dare to come to Lucknow?" Ron asked in surprise.

“I only stayed for a few days, then I boarded a train and ran to Kolkata. I worked as a helper at a tea stall there, and in 85 I took a ship to the UAE and became a construction worker.”

"He's even been abroad." Ron nodded, looking at him with newfound respect.

“I caused trouble there too; they treated me like a beast of burden. So I organized a strike and was subsequently deported,” Dwaram said with a laugh.

Ron couldn't help but smile; this guy was a restless fellow.

"Let's continue with the story of red sorghum."

"Yes, sir."

Dwaram said that farmers in Hrdoi, Uttar Pradesh, are heavily reliant on middlemen, namely seed merchants.

These merchants buy agricultural products from farmers and then resell them to buyers in other parts of India, deciding which crops farmers should plant in which season.

In this way, the agricultural production process is reversed.

First, out-of-town buyers decide what crops they need, and then the seed merchants tell the farmers what to plant.

Seed dealers have also taken over the functions previously performed by state governments, including distributing seeds and fertilizers, and even providing loans to farmers to help them pay for agricultural supplies.

“Previously, state-owned seed companies managed these matters, but after Mayawati came to power, she abolished them and appointed several seed companies to be in charge.”

“They’re all in cahoots; they’ve been paid,” Dwaram said with absolute certainty.

Ron nodded without saying anything; insider trading was all too common in India.

In short, a few months ago, about 25,000 farmers in the Herdoy region chose a crop called red sorghum and signed an agreement with Rashid Ansari, the largest local seed company.

The merchant promised to pay them a very high price to buy the red sorghum that would mature in the future.

As a result, after the farmers harvested the sorghum a few days ago, Ansari broke the contract, refused to take it away, and refused to pay them.

Farmers are anxiously waiting for piles of unsold sorghum. The most crucial autumn planting season is approaching, but they have no money to buy materials.

As a result, the farmers began to stir and some left the village to march and demonstrate in the city of Herdoy.

They gathered outside the district government office, but the operation dragged on and yielded little result.

So they gathered in Lucknow at the beginning of July today to organize a general mobilization for a citywide demonstration.

At dawn, before daybreak, tens of thousands of farmers poured into Lucknow, gathering outside the town hall in an unstoppable tide.

Dwaram is one of the organizers; he's good at this.

Around eight o'clock in the morning, nearly ten thousand farmers marched on the main road, by which time Ron had already gone to the suburbs.

A group of police officers drove up to investigate, but the farmers surrounded their jeeps, forcing them to abandon the vehicles and flee.

The angry crowd set fire to a police jeep and two tax office vehicles, then turned right onto a side road.

There were a few houses scattered along the roadside, and the group of people arrived at the door of seed merchant Rashid Ansari's house.

Ansari was a well-known middleman, and he also had a residence in Lucknow.

However, Rashid was not in the house. The farmers surrounded the house, forced the tenants to leave, looted the house, and finally burned it down.

Police attempted to intervene, but the crowd threw stones and bricks at them, forcing them to take cover behind a nearby house and fire back at the crowd.

One person was shot in the ribs, and three others sustained minor injuries.

But the destruction continued, with some people turning away from the main road and heading in another direction, burning down the home of another seed merchant, Maipar Ansari.

That's right, they are two brothers, both in the seed business.

After venting their frustrations, they gathered at the intersection of Highway 7 and Highway 16 on the outskirts of the city, sat on the ground, and blocked traffic.

Yes, that's where Ron is currently trapped.

Following the direction Dwaram pointed, Ron could see Rashid Ansari's residence.

More precisely, it was a mansion, three stories high. It had grooved columns, marble floors, long staircases, and numerous terraces.

Although Rashid Ansari's design inspiration appears to come from a famous Bollywood movie he watched.

But this luxurious building was actually a palace of Venetian merchants, and many of its structures were transported from the outskirts of Florida.

The white walls have now been blackened by fire, and where the doors and windows used to be, only empty frames remain.

The iron gate that once protected the mansion has long since disappeared, taken away by angry farmers in an oxcart and sold as scrap metal.

To protect the mansion, police even tried wrapping it in sheet metal and then securing it with chains.

But the farmers were unstoppable, and the police's measures were ineffective.

The fire has been extinguished, and the mansion is now in ruins, surrounded by scattered debris, making this once magnificent residence look very out of place.

Apart from that, the mansion seemed to have been airlifted to a deserted place, surrounded by only a few scattered small concrete houses.

The houses were modeled after Rashid Ansari's mansion, only on a much smaller scale.

There were no streets, no lights, no parks, not even a slum that wasn't so crude and barren.

On the other side, at Maipar Ansari's residence, the gate remained intact, and a wrecked black Ford Taurus was parked on the driveway.

The sloping roofs are covered with red tiles, the white walls have been burned black, and the doors and windows are gone.

Now, only an old man with a full beard remains in the house, angrily cleaning up the ruins on the second-floor balcony, as if only in this way can the mansion, now in ruins, regain its former glory.

Both mansions were once very grand and magnificent, and it is not hard to see how badly they have been damaged.

"Mr. Suer, it's not that the farmers are deliberately causing trouble, but that they've run out of options. Autumn planting is just over a month away, and they haven't even paid off last year's debts, let alone seeds."

They couldn't live like this. Before they came to Lucknow, more than six hundred farmers had committed suicide by drinking pesticide. This stuff was readily available in the countryside, even if they had nothing else.

Dwaram said that behind these farmers who committed suicide are hundreds of families, and more people will continue to die in the coming year.

The true death toll is definitely not just six hundred; it could be over a thousand.

However, the police may have identified and recorded only 600 cases, because they only counted male users with registered land as farmers when making their statistics.

Therefore, the figures do not include women, nor do they include serfs who were hired to work on other people's land.

In short, six hundred is the most conservative estimate.

Not only did Ron remain silent, but Satya, standing beside him, also sighed repeatedly.

"Dvalam, right?"

"Yes, sir."

“Mayawati has fallen from power, and the BJP is now in power in Uttar Pradesh.”

"Sir, if the government doesn't take care of them, how will these 25,000 families survive? They just want to live, but they can't find a way out."

For farmers, it might not matter whether Mayawati or the BJP comes to power.

Because no government cares about their lives or deaths, and the police even help the rich guard their homes.

Despite the grand spectacle today, the farmers know in their hearts that they will likely receive no promises in the end.

They were used to coming to Lucknow to burn down the Ansari family mansion, simply to vent their anger.

Keeping things bottled up inside for too long will make them stink.

Dwaram stood there blankly, and Ron was about to say something when someone suddenly shouted.

"Mr. Sur!" "It's Mr. Sur of the Land of Light!" "The great Mr. Sur!"
The crowd surged forward; everything happened too fast. Anil frantically directed the car to reverse, but it was too late.

There were so many people that they quickly surrounded the area.

Ron gestured for him to calm down, then glanced at Devalam outside the car door. The latter immediately dismissed the crowd, leaving a small clearing around the car door.

Ron got out of the car, and the crowd immediately erupted in cheers.

It was hard to say before, but now almost half of all Indians know him.

The wedding of Isha and Isha recently made headlines and was broadcast repeatedly on television.

His face is now more recognizable than that of Bollywood stars; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he's a household name.

Its reputation in Sur, Uttar Pradesh, is even more extraordinary.

Look at what they just said, the Land of Light!

The names "Crazy East" and "Filthy Land" are gone forever.

Now, Pufancha District has become the envy of many, with its newly built roads, soon-to-open affordable hospital, and dredged irrigation canals.
Most importantly, there are plenty of job opportunities with good salaries, job security, and jobs where you won't be treated like slaves.

Mr. Sue has such a good reputation that the farmers see him as if they have seen the light!

(End of this chapter)