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 Bhegade whom Joshi had appointed as a supervisor. He was expert in killing snakes. Work was conducted at four-five spots simultaneously. Joshi would pitch in at every place, stay for an hour or so and then shift to another spot. While digging a well he would put on his shorts and lower himself in the pit digging the wet mud out. He was not shy of working with his own hands. He did it every day, partly to encourage others to pitch in harder and partly because that also gave him a natural opportunity to chat with workers. Joshi wanted to finish most of the jobs within next four to five months because there was no guarantee that labour would be available after that. In proper Ambethan village there were hardly any landless labourers. They did work on other people’s farms if need be, after completing the work on their own fields, but there was no assurance that they would be available when you needed them. Many of those who worked on Joshi’s farm were tribal people who came from the surrounding villages. In the beginning Joshi had a bit of a clash with local villagers. He was paying his labourers Rupees three a day and that was same for men and women. That was according to the Minimum Wages Act. For him this was a meager amount but for the local farmers it was too high. They were paying less than half that wage. For women workers their rate was even lesser. Villagers complained, ‘You are spoiling them with this high wage. When we need them, they will not work for us for the wage we pay them. For you it may be okay, but we cannot afford it.’ ‘I am an outsider here. How can I pay less than the wage stipulated by the government? That will be a crime,’ Joshi would argue. Villagers were not convinced but they did not press the matter further. Because some of them used to work on Joshi’s farm, apart from managing their own, and were beneficiary of 78

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage