Documentary: Nero’s Guests
Nero´s Guests as a Documentary
- —Deals with a contemporary issue of grave social significance
- —A representation of reality and not a work of fiction
- —A hard hitting presentation, to the point without digressions, but exposing the ironies.
- —The odd title gains significance once we watch the documentary.
- —A story about India’s agrarian crisis and the growing inequality seen through the work of the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu newspaper, P Sainath.
- —One of Sainath’s, relentless campaign for creating awareness about rural poverty and farmer suicides
- —A national agenda, compelled the government to take notice and act
- —Throws light on the “Poor India” as against the "Shining India”
Who was Nero?
—Nero – An ancient Roman emperor who threw extravagant parties. In one of his parties, he faced the problem of lighting his gardens for the guests. He solved this problem by burning prisoners at the stake to light up his gardens.
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—There have been numerous cruel rulers like Nero over the centuries, but what was shocking was not Nero’s cruelty, but the indifference and identity of Nero’s guests who feasted on exotic food, while human beings were being set on fire.
Why Nero´s Guests is Hard hitting?
- —An eye opener to the problem of farmers’ suicides
- Personal accounts of the families of the victims
- —A critique of the system and the society
- When farmers are committing suicide we have fashion weeks and luxury conferences to ‘help the poor’
- —Exposes the social and the financial inequality
- Ever widening gap between the rich and the poor
- —Critique of the media
- No mainstream news channel has
- rural affairs correspondents while
- the same exist for politics, sports, and fashion, movies.
- —Exposes the phony commitment to agrarian crisis
- Most policy decisions pertaining to
- rural affairs are taken by economists and intellectuals who have minimal knowledge of the grassroots problems.
- ——Reveals the irony that millions starve to death while food grains rot away.
- —The policy decisions pertaining to 70% of the population are made by committees that do not incorporate even one of them.
- —Draws parallels between Nero’s guests, the privileged Indians and the government policies
Significance of the Title
- —Title raises an important question regarding the role of the society -
- Who are the Nero’s guests in this crisis?
- Who can ignore the plight and hardships of the farmers?
- —Sainath remarks that - We must choose whether we want to be Nero’s guests or not?
- -Whether we also want to keep silent by ignoring the injustices meted out to farmers and enjoy the benefits at the cost of their suffering ?
Agrarian Crisis in India
—The rate of growth of agricultural output is gradually declining in the recent years.. It is alarming that India is moving towards a point of no return, from being a self-reliant nation of food surplus to a net importer of food. All these trends indicate that the agricultural sector in India is facing a crisis today. It is argued that the root cause of the crisis was that agriculture is no more a profitable economic activity when compared to other enterprises. The related factors responsible for the crisis include: dependence on rainfall and climate, liberal import of agricultural products, reduction in agricultural subsidies, and dependence on money lenders, decline in government investment in the agricultural sector and conversion of agricultural land for alternative uses.
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