In this podcast, Prof. Narendar Pani and Dr. Anant Kamath talk about inequality in contemporary India, exchanging thoughts, evidence, insights, and debates over why inequality matters, what it does, how it is viewed, and how it is experienced. Their conversation journeys through issues of inequality in everyday life, its impact on the economy and society, and reflections on how inequalities become aspirations in India today. In this process, they touch upon farmer suicides, migration, the left-behind, climate, conflict, technology, and gender, and inspect what inequality sounds like in our political conversations and whether inequality is linked to culture. Finally, they contemplate what is to be done about this.

For centuries, adivasi and other local communities throughout Karnataka sustained the ancient human-made tanks and the channels that connect them. These tank systems nourished the region’s agriculture and transformed its landscape. Since the times of the Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1646), farming families have relied on this innovative irrigation system to cultivate myriad crops both for self-consumption and for selling in the market. The waters from the tanks have breathed life into the ecosystems that sustain rural indigenous communities throughout the state, and the Neeruganti have been tending to this life force. Under their care, these tanks sustained the lives of all those connected to them.The tanks were once the centre of diverse rural ecologies, economies, and spirituality. As conductors of not only the labour that sustained tanks infrastructure, but the cultural practices that honour its deities, the Neeruganti wove the threads that formed the fabric of the local community.

“We are emotionally attached to this forest and for the past 25 years we are protecting this forest like our own farm.” According to Mr. Raju, almost 750 litres of water originate from a hectare of Shola every second and if the 10,000 hectares of eucalyptus plants and 15,000 hectares of acacia trees are removed from the reserve forest and native species are grown instead, Tamil Nadu might get up to 40,000 TMC of water and the Nilgiris has the potential to become the real overhead tank of South India. K.J. Raju, a mathematics teacher who is the secretary of the Longwood Shola Watchdog Committee (LSWC).

Farmers’ story is just this, if it rains we can harvest else nothing, we face drought, the farmer has to do something to survive. We are not able to cover basic farming costs, manure, labour, tractor hiring, the costs are too high. With all of this, the farmer can never prosper. He has been fighting nonstop but has not found justice and never will he find it. The farmer should not prosper, he has to keep slogging and they will continue enjoying. There is a saying, the buffalo slogs, and the bull enjoys, that’s what that state is. We are the buffaloes who keep at it. No matter which government is elected there is no difference, the government just says that they are pro farmers’ governments but the costs keep rising. The petrol and diesel costs have gone up. If we do get power it’ll be for about four hours and that too single-phase or low voltage. The farmer is just surviving, he’s barely alive.

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has been mining in Chirya, Manoharpur, Jharkhand for several years, and as a result, the natural resources have been contaminated, one of them is the river Hamsagandha. After the Gram Panchayat of Chiriya complained to the officials at SAIL a 9000 litres tanker was arranged to supply water to three villages. However, the entire river is polluted and access to clean water is now close to impossible. Here Donai Indh, water tanker driver, and Draupadi Samadh, a villager speak about the supply and the river.

Govind Hamram is a 60-year-old Santhal farmer and healer. He takes us on a journey through his world of hodopathy, on how he finds the herbs, the process of making the cures and how it is different from other treatments. And does it take community to save a forest?