Farmers across India unite for common minimum agenda

On July 6, a motley of farmer organisations from various parts of the country will begin a march, trying to cover the epicentres of recent farmer uprisings. The date marks the completion of one month since the death of five farmers in a police firing at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

To be carried out in three phases, the yatra has been planned to conclude at Champaran in Bihar as the region celebrates 100 years of the Champaran Satyagraha launched by Mahatma Gandhi. Though sections of farm leaders trying to come together on a national scale for the first time are doubtful about the response the programme may get, the yatra will be keenly observed as it is coming after a series of farmer agitations, some of which were marked by novel ways of protest.

For instance, farmers from drought-hit Tamil Nadu carried out a 41-day strike earlier this year in New Delhi and did shocking things like holding rats and snakes in their mouth and carrying skulls of farmers who had committed suicide.

In Maharashtra, just before the uprising of farmers, morchas of Maratha community, mostly engaged in farming, saw participation of lakhs of people. Maharashtra farmers passed resolutions in their gram sabhas, gave a call for strike from June 1 and made it a success. Madhya Pradesh farmers, too, started their protests on June 1, with a similar call as that of Maharashtra.

BHARAT VS INDIA
Legendary farmer leader Sharad Joshi had coined the phrase Bharat vs India. The rapidly growing divide between rural and urban areas seems to be the prime reason for frequently erupting farmer agitations.

While Tamil Nadu farmers were trying to show their plight to urban India, the strategy of those in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh was to block supplies of milk and vegetables to big cities, which they see as pampered by governments. The protests seeking castebased reservations in Haryana carried out by the Jats, a farming community, had also adopted the strategy of causing inconvenience to urban areas.

Farmers who have taken to the streets during the peak sowing season of kharif are concerned not only about good price for their produce, but what they see as discrimination between urban and rural India.

Rampal Jat of the Kisan Mahapanchayat from Rajasthan said that despite the Constitution assuring equal treatment to all citizens, farmers were discriminated against. “Why can’t they get it (higher price for their produce) with retrospective effect just like the salaried people get their salaries after implementation of every pay commission report? We want the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations on the price of produce with retrospective effect from 2006.”

According to Jat, the prices of many farm produce are non-remunerative.

Agricultural trade continues to be highly regulated with government controlling imports, exports as well as domestic trading with imposition of stock limits, agricultural markets, government procurement and use of stocks to control market prices of food. Many farmers see commodity prices as being suppressed to save the urban consumer from inflation, causing a widening gulf between cities and villages, and leading to increased indebtedness and disappointment among them.

Even farmers cultivating opium in Mandsaur, where the police firing happened, are agitated about a fall in the price for their produce and lack of government procurement, said Narsing Dangi, a local farmer leader.

The feeling of oneness and urge to come together among farmers happened now because they now have a common minimum agenda, Jat said. “We used to fight for subsidised water, electricity, fertilisers, etc., till now. Remunerative price, which is our common demand today, was never an agenda,” he said.

The announcement of a loan waiver scheme by the new government in Uttar Pradesh was the latest trigger as farmers launched agitations elsewhere, especially in BJP-ruled states, demanding a similar treatment. The mostly leaderless movements started from Puntamba village of Maharashtra on June 1 and spread immediately to the rest of the state and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, where, farmers were disappointed due to low prices of onion, pulses and soya bean.

“If non-farmers do not think today that the prices are not remunerative, then farmers should quit farming. Some say food can be imported from places where it is efficient to do farming,” said Avik Saha, national convener of the Jai Kisan Andolan, giving the non-farmer context of the movement. “(But) it will not be sustainable.”

NATIONAL-LEVEL UNITY
After the agitations in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmer organisations from various parts of India came together in New Delhi and formed the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee (AIKSCC).

“The first and foremost task of AIKSCC is to strengthen and direct the ongoing farmers’ revolt in several parts of the country.

We recognise that there are two core issues for farmers’ movements, common and pressing for all farmers across the country: remunerative prices and freedom from debt,” Yogendra Yadav, founding member of Swaraj Abhiyan and Jai Kisan Andolan and a member of the core committee of AIKCC, wrote on Facebook. AIKSCC is planning a pan-India movement to raise these issues, he said.

Calling this unity of farmers of India as never seen before, Raju Shetty, founder leader of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathan from Maharashtra and a member of the AIKCC core committee, said: “This unity of farmers has happened not due to efforts of some leader, but spontaneously.”

Speaking about the attempts of the regional farmer organisations to unite at the national level, Shetty said: “When we met, many of us faced language barriers. Yet, we could communicate effectively using signs and gestures as our issues are common, our sufferings and feelings are similar.”

According to Sunilam, convener of the Rashtriya Kisan Majdoor Sangthan, the reason for unity of farmers is that they have realised that the government can crush the agitation if one fights individually or one can be bought over. “If we fight united, the government cannot crush the agitation nor buy out the individuals,” said Sunilam.

THE FUTURE
However, sections of the farm movement also have doubts about the strategy of uniting at the national level. “Farm movements and their projection at national level are more likely to be used as political ladders by leaders nurturing political ambitions who want to grow from local to state and state to national levels,” said an active member of a farmer group from Maharashtra, requesting not be named.

Veterans of farm movements have doubts also of the sustainability of the unity as today’s farmers are divided over many lines: caste, crops, regions and camps of egoistic leaders and their factions. For example, the issues of sugarcane farmers from western Maharashtra are totally different that of dry land cotton growers from Vidarbha.