By Binoy Viswam
The challenges posed by those who provide food for the nation is not as simple, as the rulers think it to be. The farmers of India are waiting at the borders of the national capital for the last one week. At the moment tens of thousands of them from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP and Uttarakhand have reached the various gateways to the national capital. No amount of force and intimidation could succeed in suppressing their unflinching determination. Their hearts and mind are throbbing for the country and its food security. Those who do man ki bat as part of the routine propaganda scheme cannot understand the honest minds of the farmers. The man ki bat of real India can be seen now at the borders of Delhi.
All along, in its publicity exercise the government was keen to eulogise the annadathas of the country. Doubling the farmers’ income was the crowning promise of the BJP which has never materialised. In turn, they came with three agriculture related bills. In fact, those bills were the death bell of Indian farmers. The agrarian crisis in the country is so grave that thousands of farmers committed suicides during the Modi regime. Reason behind this phenomenon is the unscientific and anti-farmer price mechanism in the country.
While the cost of farm production was always on the increase, the price of their produce was constantly falling down. This mechanism pushed the annadathas ruthlessly into the debt trap. In the most hypocritic manner the Modi government guaranteed freedom from the debt trap. But their real intention was that to promote capitalist greed at the cost of the farmers’ lives. Contract farming and corporatisation were the hallmarks of the farm laws. Essential Commodities Act was altered to suit the greed of the capital. In such a situation the farmers have no other option but to fight unitedly to repeal the anti-farmer laws, the noose around their neck.
The farmers’ agitation is a life and death issue not only for those who wait at the borders but for the whole farming community. In that way this struggle is the concern of every Indian. Their fight against corporatisation is to realize Atmanirbhar Bharat. It is to uphold food security in self-reliant India. The country understands the meaning of their struggle. The Modi government that has adopted FDI as the ultimate solution has their ulterior motive to surrender the large Indian farming sector before the foreign capital.
Similarly, like the labour reforms, agriculture reforms also are drafted for the appeasement of foreign looters. In order to hide their subservience to the FDI, they preach that now the farmers can bargain with everyone, everywhere to get the maximum price for their produce. Statistics say that 82.6 per cent of the Indian farmers are those holding less than two hectares of land. The ‘generous’ BJP government asks them to bargain with multinational giants like Monsanto and domestic giants like Adani, Agri Corp, etc. Understanding this fact, the workers and peasants have taken up the challenge. We witnessed the India of the toiling masses coming together to put up their heroic resistance against the retrograde policies of the right reactionary government.
Cutting across the political barriers the workers and peasants came to the field on November 26 and 27 announcing the awakening of a united fighting force. Since then two rounds of talks have been held with then Modi ministers but the deadlock remains. The present movement is a significant step towards worker-peasant unity which would add a promising class content to the ongoing series of struggles. This is not a political battle associated to any political party. This is a battle of the working people to save their agriculture and industry together with their rights and lives. In that battle they uphold the causes of sovereignty, secularism, and democracy of India. In that sense it is political too, committed to the constitutional principles. With this clarity in understanding the communists and all other secular democratic forces have ever stood in support of the peasants and workers. Needless to say, that support will continue, staunch and stable till the end.
It is the ugly politics pursued by the government that compelled them to see Khalistan and left extremism in the farmers’ struggle. So disappointed they are seeing the ever-increasing fighting mood of the peasants who remain peacefully day and night at the borders facing the unbearable cold of a harsh December. They follow a perverted world view only through the mirror of fanaticism and extremism. That is why they unleashed all their propaganda apparatus to slander the peasant struggle. This strategy could only fail. The right-minded people of India know very well the truth behind the farmers’ agitation. They know that the farmers are struggling for the whole country.
It is not the farmers, but the BJP trying to bring in politics into the concerns of food and agriculture. The government should set aside its narrow politics and false prestige and concede to the demands of the farmers immediately. They should understand the mood of the country in support of the farmers. Several people of reputation have decided to return their Padma awards and Arjun awards in protest of the government approach to the farmers’ agitation. Several political allies of the BJP have expressed their solidarity with farmers. The truck owners of the country have also come out in support of them. The words of the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were the reflection of the global mood. It is high time the government opened its eyes to reality. (IPA Service)