The Harvest of Broken Promises

The Harvest of Broken Promises is a theatre piece, set in 1990s India, in the moment when the neoliberal market opened its doors to global capital. It explores the transformation of farming practices and the devastating impact this shift had on farmers' lives, local ecologies, and the broader social fabric. At the heart of the performance is the historical arrival of multinational corporations such as Monsanto, whose genetically modified seeds, became the symbol of industrial
agriculture and dismantled traditional farming systems. The work confronts the dependency structures imposed by such corporations, which continue to shape rural economies and ecological futures. Blending video footage, interviews, live art, visual art, and folk tales, the piece moves fluidly between fact and myth, the personal and the political. Through the stories of Pankaj Tiwari, and a dozen of farmers from all corners of the world and present through video, the piece captures a deep tension between aspiration and survival. His story becomes a mirror for a generation caught between the promises of progress and the loss of ancestral knowledge. It traces how corporate greed and government complicity
buried ancestral knowledge, disrupted ecological cycles, and drove thousands of farmers to debt and suicide.