In A Different field

After having worked as an agricultural assistant in the Agronomy department at Pune8217;s Agriculture college for 14 years, completing his Bachelors in Arts degree side by side, going back to his family business of farming was an obvious choice for Bhosle. But he went a step ahead and thought of nourishing the roots he came from. 8220;Having come from a farming background, I was aware of the state of farmers in Maharashtra. Nearly 65 percent of the citizens of our country are farmers and are unfortunately the most neglected sectionof the society. And at that point, I felt that the only way of making them strong was to make them knowledgeable,8221; says Bhosle.

With journalism as the sole way of reaching out to masses, Bhosle approached Mukund Kirloskar with the idea of launching a magazine dedicated completely to farmers in 1967. 8220;Initially we published a supplement dedicated to farmers together. It was appreciated a lot amongst the farmers and that is what gave me the confidence to start the magazine on my own,8221; adds he. The result was the launch of the first agriculture-based magazine that Bhosle named- Baliraja.

Since its registration in 1969, till date, Baliraja has been the stream of hope, information, support and advice to farmers in remote villages of Maharashtra. 8220;For the first two years, in addition to the farmers8217; issues, I used to publish rural literature as well, but soon I realised that for the ones who are bothered about hunger on a daily basis, literature is not something that interests. I thus started focusing more on social, political, financial and technical issues of farmers,8221; says he.

A brief interaction with Bhosle is enough to understand that his sheer affection towards farmers makes him good writer despite not having any journalism background. It is the same affection that helped him run the magazine through the initial 15 years when the magazine did not make any profits and in fact ran into losses. 8220;There were times when I felt like closing the magazine. But then what kept me going were the reactions from farmers who would wait for the issue to get published and call and enquire if they did not receive one. During those days, I also wrote for other farming based magazines like Shwetkranti, Agro News and so on. Rs 1000 that I would earn from this freelance writing would help me better the quality of my magazine,8221; smiles he. With loans for the magazine on his head, as if the challenges were less that in 1977, his wife died of cancer. 8220;I was depressed at that time. I thought of selling off the magazine, but no one was ready to buy a magazine that had a loan on it,8221; says he.

Things changed in 1985 when his son Nitin Bhosle took over the marketing department and started looking after the financial aspects of the magazine. 8220;I then concentrated on improving the content of the magazine. I invited researchers, professors and successful farmers to put forward their opinion through the magazine. We also started new articles like pre-season advices, practical approaches of farming, seminars on natural farming, horticulture, fertilizers and so on,8221; adds he. Bhosle also ventured into farming just to get hands on experience in farming. To encourage the reactions from the farmers, Baliraja started giving Rs 100 for each 8216;letter-to-the-editor8217; along with prizes worth Rs 40,000 in various categories to the farmers.

Farming, believes Bhosle, is a capital-based-business. Farmers8217; suicides disturb him. In simple language he explains, 8220;As per research, one pair of bullocks can be conveniently fed by using five acres of land. But with the kind of soil that we have in India, three pairs of bullocks are needed for tilling, which in turn can be fed only through income generated from 15 acres. This disparity can be reduced only when we apply the rules of non-divisibility to farms. Like in UK, land automatically goes to the first son after the farmer8217;s death. This keeps the land undivided as well as keeps a check on the population. I have mentioned countless such remedies to improve the condition of farmers in India.8221;

With over 25,000 farmers reading and taking help from Baliraja monthly, for the past 40 years, Bhosle, now 73, wants to retire. 8220;When I look back at the years gone by, I feel like a farmer once again. It is just that the seeds sown were different. While as a farmer, I would have got the crop immediately, these seeds thrown into unknown made my journey fruitful for eternity.8221;