Children from the Gouda tribe in Thiruvannamalai district are the most sought-after to work in the Bt cotton sector, because they are cheap labour.

Geeta (name changed) remembers that a man approached her parents and convinced them to allow him to take her with a group of children to work for Rs150 and three meals every day. Lured by the money and the prospects of good food, her parents readily agreed. She is among scores of children rescued on the way to Bt cotton fields.

October-November is generally the month when fortune looks up for the Gouda tribe of Jawadhu hills in Thiruvannamalai district, Tamil Nadu. It is the time when their children between the ages of five and fifteen are employed for cross-pollination of hybrid Bt cotton seeds in Salem district, especially in Attur Taluk.

A significant number of Bt cotton farmers in Salem, the cotton belt of Tamil Nadu, are shifting to other crops citing low yield and escalating expenditure.

Subramaniyan, fondly called ‘wadhiyar’ by others in his village of Kannamuchi, near Mettur, in Salem, was the first to grow Bt cotton, starting five years ago. He sowed seeds of the crop in six acres of land. Along with him, an entire village patiently waited for the pest-resistant plants to give a bountiful harvest. As the harvest time neared, the labourers working in his cotton field began complaining about skin allergy and stopped coming to work. Contrary to the claims of the seed companies, half the plants were attacked by insects. Even worse, the quality of the harvested cotton, when compared to the hybrid variety that he had been using, was very low. After incurring a huge loss that season, he gave up cotton cultivation, which he had been doing for nearly two decades, and shifted to turmeric and plantain farming. “The Bt cotton had less weight though it looked fluffy. I got far lesser price for Bt cotton when compared to the hybrid cotton I had been growing. I was so disappointed. Since then I have never done cotton farming.”

Observers have been shocked to hear that the country’s most literate state is flooded with swindlers offering ‘get-rich-quick’ or ‘earn-high-returns’ schemes. Lakhs of Keralites who attempt to double their money in short time spans have ended up in the nets of fraudsters.

In recent months, the media has been regularly coming up with revelations of many frauds in the areas of real estate, money chain, multi-level marketing, pyramid schemes and network marketing. ¬¬Data from investigators shows that within the last four months, filing of frauds in the state amounts to more than Rs 2000 crores.

Many of these cases have inter-state ramifications and have been handed over to the Crime Branch in Kerala. The interesting fact is that most of these companies are headquartered outside Kerala, but the number of agents in those areas is almost zero.

When asked what he thought about Western civilization, the Mahatma had famously said that he thought that it would be a good idea. The same can be said about a ‘Free India’ – that it would be a good idea.

Arguably, the most important legacy the British left behind was the Indian Administration Service (IAS), the machinery of bureaucracy, which runs the country. This was meant to serve the interests of the colonizers ruling the country. Today, the administrative corps seems to by and large serve the interests of an elite body that is elected to power every five years. Together, they have been bleeding the country white, with impunity, is the people’s consensus.