Editorial published in the January 2026 issue of "Agriculture & Industry Survey" magazine
The silence after the applause
There seems to be a strange silence in rural India today. Not the peaceful quiet of a self-sufficient countryside, but a silence that comes after noise — the kind that follows a performance when the lights go off and the audience walks away. Here and there in our media, one hears about farmers, their names are invoked by our politicians in their speeches, their struggles are quoted in policy reports. Yet when one actually travels into the villages, one finds none of that excitement, none of that noise. Only silence — and fatigue.
It is as though “agriculture” has become a convenient backdrop for everyone except the farmer himself. Every few weeks, some new campaign, award, or headline claims to celebrate farmers. But look closely and one sees the same pattern: a company seeking publicity for its product, an institute chasing a grant, a ministry promoting its scheme, a technocrat saying politically correct words. Everyone uses the word farmer to climb a step higher in their own career ladder. When the cameras are switched off, the event ends, and the speeches fade, the farmers quietly go back to their fields — unchanged, unnoticed, and untouched by all this noise.
The entire ecosystem around agriculture has turned performative. Conferences are organized where experts talk about “sustainable rural transformation”. Farmers are invited as showpieces, often made to wear their turbans and hold a sheaf of grain for the photograph. They are applauded, sometimes even given an “award,” and then left to find their own way home. It has become a ritual — a play that repeats itself year after year. The same actors, the same dialogues, the same applause. Only the farmer’s reality remains stubbornly the same.
This is not to say that science or technology is useless in farming. Far from it. But the motive behind much of what passes for agricultural research and publicity today has drifted far from the soil. Many “projects” exist primarily to justify funding, not to serve farmers. New gadgets and apps are launched with great fanfare, but few survive beyond the pilot stage. Journals and conferences chase citations and awards, not solutions. The farmer, who should be at the center of all this, has become an invisible extra in a drama directed by others.
Even the so-called farmer awards — state, national, or corporate — follow a similar script. Selection is often arbitrary, the same few names circulate, and the ceremonies are more about promoting the organizers than honoring the farmers. The photographs appear in newspapers, ministers issue statements, and soon after, everything is forgotten. The winners return home to the same problems —financial difficulties, poor irrigation, and market exploitation. The award brings no structural change, no new opportunity, no institutional follow-up. It is applause, not empowerment.
Meanwhile, the real issues of rural life — declining soil health, lack of storage, absence of technical manpower, the flight of youth from farming — rarely make it to the mainstream conversation. The urban media treats agriculture as an occasional spectacle, not a living system. The “farmer issue” becomes relevant only when there is a protest, a suicide, or an election. The rest of the year, the cameras turn elsewhere. No one asks why there are so few laboratories, workshops, or training centers functioning in the villages. No one wonders why agriculture, which feeds the nation, has failed to attract even a fraction of the scientific energy that urban India devotes to startups or software.
The result is a sense of intellectual emptiness in the countryside. The silence is not only economic — it is cultural and moral. Villages no longer see debates about innovation or community projects. The educated youth have left. Those who remain have learned to be cautious, even cynical. They know that every “initiative” will come with banners and selfies, and disappear once the funding cycle ends. They have seen too many outsiders arrive with promises and depart with reports.
And yet, despite this atmosphere of exhaustion, farming continues. The farmer plants, harvests, and endures. He does not hold press conferences or issue policy papers. He works, he waits, and he watches as others speak in his name. Actually he doesn’t even care about all this now. Agriculture survives in India not because of the many who claim to “promote” it, but because of the few who quietly persist in doing it because they have nothing else to do.
What India urgently needs is not another campaign or award but a cleansing of this public hypocrisy. Let policymakers spend a week living in a real village, not visiting one for an hour. Let companies measure their “rural engagement” not by the number of banners printed but by the number of farmers who actually benefit. And let our media remember that agriculture is not an event — it is a way of life.
Until that happens, the silence in rural India will deepen. The performances will continue: the experts will speak, our politicians will make some noise and muddy the waters, the lights will flash, and the audience will clap. Then, when the play is over, the farmers will quietly pick up their costumes, return to their fields, into the deafening silence of rural India — unrecorded, unpaid, and unsung.
Editorial published in the January 2026 issue of "Agriculture & Industry Survey" magazine
The silence after the applause
There seems to be a strange silence in rural India today. Not the peaceful quiet of a self-sufficient countryside, but a silence that comes after noise — the kind that follows a performance when the lights go off and the audience walks away. Here and there in our media, one hears about farmers, their names are invoked by our politicians in their speeches, their struggles are quoted in policy reports. Yet when one actually travels into the villages, one finds none of that excitement, none of that noise. Only silence — and fatigue.
It is as though “agriculture” has become a convenient backdrop for everyone except the farmer himself. Every few weeks, some new campaign, award, or headline claims to celebrate farmers. But look closely and one sees the same pattern: a company seeking publicity for its product, an institute chasing a grant, a ministry promoting its scheme, a technocrat saying politically correct words. Everyone uses the word farmer to climb a step higher in their own career ladder. When the cameras are switched off, the event ends, and the speeches fade, the farmers quietly go back to their fields — unchanged, unnoticed, and untouched by all this noise.
The entire ecosystem around agriculture has turned performative. Conferences are organized where experts talk about “sustainable rural transformation”. Farmers are invited as showpieces, often made to wear their turbans and hold a sheaf of grain for the photograph. They are applauded, sometimes even given an “award,” and then left to find their own way home. It has become a ritual — a play that repeats itself year after year. The same actors, the same dialogues, the same applause. Only the farmer’s reality remains stubbornly the same.
This is not to say that science or technology is useless in farming. Far from it. But the motive behind much of what passes for agricultural research and publicity today has drifted far from the soil. Many “projects” exist primarily to justify funding, not to serve farmers. New gadgets and apps are launched with great fanfare, but few survive beyond the pilot stage. Journals and conferences chase citations and awards, not solutions. The farmer, who should be at the center of all this, has become an invisible extra in a drama directed by others.
Even the so-called farmer awards — state, national, or corporate — follow a similar script. Selection is often arbitrary, the same few names circulate, and the ceremonies are more about promoting the organizers than honoring the farmers. The photographs appear in newspapers, ministers issue statements, and soon after, everything is forgotten. The winners return home to the same problems —financial difficulties, poor irrigation, and market exploitation. The award brings no structural change, no new opportunity, no institutional follow-up. It is applause, not empowerment.
Meanwhile, the real issues of rural life — declining soil health, lack of storage, absence of technical manpower, the flight of youth from farming — rarely make it to the mainstream conversation. The urban media treats agriculture as an occasional spectacle, not a living system. The “farmer issue” becomes relevant only when there is a protest, a suicide, or an election. The rest of the year, the cameras turn elsewhere. No one asks why there are so few laboratories, workshops, or training centers functioning in the villages. No one wonders why agriculture, which feeds the nation, has failed to attract even a fraction of the scientific energy that urban India devotes to startups or software.
The result is a sense of intellectual emptiness in the countryside. The silence is not only economic — it is cultural and moral. Villages no longer see debates about innovation or community projects. The educated youth have left. Those who remain have learned to be cautious, even cynical. They know that every “initiative” will come with banners and selfies, and disappear once the funding cycle ends. They have seen too many outsiders arrive with promises and depart with reports.
And yet, despite this atmosphere of exhaustion, farming continues. The farmer plants, harvests, and endures. He does not hold press conferences or issue policy papers. He works, he waits, and he watches as others speak in his name. Actually he doesn’t even care about all this now. Agriculture survives in India not because of the many who claim to “promote” it, but because of the few who quietly persist in doing it because they have nothing else to do.
What India urgently needs is not another campaign or award but a cleansing of this public hypocrisy. Let policymakers spend a week living in a real village, not visiting one for an hour. Let companies measure their “rural engagement” not by the number of banners printed but by the number of farmers who actually benefit. And let our media remember that agriculture is not an event — it is a way of life.
Until that happens, the silence in rural India will deepen. The performances will continue: the experts will speak, our politicians will make some noise and muddy the waters, the lights will flash, and the audience will clap. Then, when the play is over, the farmers will quietly pick up their costumes, return to their fields, into the deafening silence of rural India — unrecorded, unpaid, and unsung.
Editorial published in the January 2026 issue of "Agriculture & Industry Survey" magazine