The only hope I saw in this desolate place was a school run by the NGO, Sewa Mandir, where a group of small children were being taught to read and write by a village girl who had managed to go to college in Udaipur. Kesar was proud of teaching the children, she said, because if they learned to read and write, their lives would change. There were little girls in her class as well as boys and she said that village elders were so aware now of the importance of education that they urged her parents not to marry her off too soon so she could continue teaching.

The problem is that educational standards cannot improve through non-governmental intervention, no matter how good it is, and government schools in most of rural India are in terrible shape. Teachers rarely come, and when they do, they rarely teach. Inevitably children drop out at an early age, but officials insist that there is 100 per cent enrolment and 70 per cent literacy. Lies only solve the problem on paper.

So, is there any hope that life for India’s marginal farmers will change? No. We can continue to waive loans, guarantee employment and run elaborate schemes to help women and children, but they will make no difference because marginal farming can never do more than keep people in poverty. My brother is a farmer with a large (by Indian standards) farm in supposedly rich and prosperous Haryana. He makes an average of

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