In India, there is still a big role for MSP

Bedabrata Pain on his new documentary, the lessons from farmer distress in the US, and the need to extend minimum support price

- Prachi Pinglay-Plumber

When the farmer protests over the Union government's three farm laws stretched out in India in 2020-21, award-winning senior research scientist and filmmaker Bedabrata Pain began reading about it. The first thing he came across was farm suicides in the US. Pain, who won a National Award for his 2012 debut film Chittagong, realised there's a story to be told.

In 2021, Pain, who has previously worked at NASA, set off on a trip to explore farmer distress across the US and found that the privatisation and corporatisation of farming in the 1980s had not benefited farmers. The result of that trip is Déjà Vu, a documentary on the unexpected similarities between the plight of farmers in the US and in India. It delivers an ominous warning about how the free market squeezes small farmers out of the system and sometimes drives them to suicide.

Déjà Vu premiered at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in August. Pain describes it as "a challenging story to tell" because there were so many versions and angles to approach it from.

Ali Fazal and Naseeruddin Shah have voiced the film, which is co-produced by Resul Pookutty.

Pain, 62, who divides his time between India and the US, spoke to Lounge about the making of the documentary, the need to safeguard minimum support price (MSP), and the dangers of turning agriculture over to conglomerates. Edited excerpts from the interview.

Why did you think of making this documentary?

There is a question about Indians in the US—what their role is, what is their connection with India. And then there is pressure not to critique India or the US, the country you are from or the country you live in—and I have managed to do both.