Onions and Opinions

These days when I log on to Facebook, or receive messages on whatsapp, a good amount of content is dedicated to recently increased price of onions. Poor Mr. Mukesh Ambani (poor - not in monetary terms) they say, is no longer the richest man in India. Who is the richest man in India? The answer that they have is something like in the picture below.

I have the option to laugh it off and move on in life. But somehow, for some reason, I am unable to do so. The feeling that I have in my gut is like the one if you could mix 'irony' and 'pity' and drink it in one smooth motion. Why? Because I begin to think, is this person really that rich? Is he in a position to sit on an undefeated throne and negotiate his terms and conditions as he wishes to?
As my memory refreshed in one of the recent economics lecture, the share of Agriculture in the GDP of India has become third from first in past decades, while the number of people working in the agriculture sector remains higher than any other sector. It somehow tells me that the farmers are not getting their dues. Of course, I am no expert in economics and there's a real good chance that the inferences I draw are wrong. But what I have been hearing, seeing around me does kind of back this inference.
What do I hear? What do I read? "Farmer commits suicide." "Famine affects xyz state." "Crops flow down in excessive rains." In fact, there are times when news such as these become so common that most of us even stop noticing them, the same way we do not notice date on the newspaper or the name of the company publishing the newspaper.
What do I watch? A marathi movie titled "Pangira" had released in 2011, which revolves around lives of people - most of them farmers - in a village named Pangira. After getting through many problems of farmers, finally a young woman (heroine of the movie) with support of an old Teacher gets the farmers grow alternative crops such as onions in the absence of enough water available. The farmers toil and toil away, finally able to grow a good quantity of onions, with good quality. They take the onions to the ZP Bazaar, expecting a decent amount in return from the wholesalers and distributors, who would further take these onions to the common markets and earn hefty amounts on them. What are they offered? The amount, that does not even recover the money that they had already put in, in order to successfully grow the onions. They are emotionally destroyed, violence erupts, police are deployed, they get shooting orders, almost half of the farmers die from bullets, and life of the village Pangira is destroyed.
For a moment, let's forget the climax. Let's discard it, saying that after all it is a movie, and such things rarely happen in real life. But rest of it? Unfortunately, it is the stark reality that many of the farmers of India are facing day after day, months after months, years after years. Ruling party, opposition party remain mere independent variables in this equation. Today we say we have tears in our eyes even before peeling the onions, just because of the price at which we buy. And then we conclude thus, that it is obvious that onion farmers are getting richer and richer. Unfortunately, it largely contradicts the facts. The middlemen, the wholesalers, the distributors - they may be getting richer, or even they may not be. But the farmers remain at the lower end of the pyramid - and this is again where the irony steps in. They are the base of the pyramid, which would be nonexistent if we remove farmers from below. And yet, they are always under constant pressure from all the layers above. And the agriculture minister seems to be passing the buck to the farmers as well - saying that they are responsible for the price hike.
The point of stating all this here is this: First of all, I do get the pun intended in the picture above. I do get the funny side of the jokes circulating on various platforms. I do get the fact the the pinch that the common man feels is also a significant factor behind all this. But, I just wanted to put across this point of view as well. We are living in times when crops remain stored in warehouses beyond the point of them remaining usable, and then they simply end up down the drain. Why - they're not priced adequately. In these times, generalizing a farmer as rich is almost same as generalizing the likes of John Abraham, Katrina Kaif as "Actors". Some of them are, most of them aren't.
The opinions are open for debate (Not about the "models termed as actors" though). And the write-up is not intended to offend anyone. Mere flow of thought, kind of impulsive.