Farmers Launch Public Outreach Campaign

Upping the ante against the government on their unresolved issues, the farmers have announced a ten-day public outreach campaign from Wednesday, January 10, onwards. This campaign that has been named a ‘Jana Jagran Campaign’ is to be executed by the various constituents of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella organisation of various farmer outfits in different states of the country.

The campaign comes at a crucial time coinciding with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi set to launch the second phase of the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Manipur, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the process of setting a Hindutva narrative around the Ram Temple that is to be inaugurated in Ayodhya on January 22.

The country is effectively in ‘election mode’ now, and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held in three months.

The SKM released its campaign material in the form of a notice along with a leaflet on Tuesday. This will be translated in all the national languages and circulated to the residents across the country.

“The campaign material explains the acute and lingering agrarian crisis in India and how the crisis is affecting farmers, agricultural workers, workers and the youth.

“The campaign will explain the importance of adopting alternative policy of development to overcome the agrarian crisis, ensure more income and stable employment to the farmers and workers, prevent the corporate profiteering and loot in order to generate employment, adequate income through minimum wage and minimum support price (MSP) to workers and farmers,” the SKM said.

This is in sharp contrast to the claims being made by the government with regards to easing the problems of the agrarian community.

The SKM activists plan to undertake house-to-house visits in the villages and towns. They will distribute the notice and other campaign material to ensure massive support and participation in the struggle to achieve the demands of farmers and workers.

These were listed in the charter of demands that was adopted in the first ever all India convention of workers and farmers that was held on August 24, 2023 at New Delhi.

The aim now is to reach out to at least 40% of the 30.4 crore households across India. The farmers intend to ‘expose the central government’s narrative of corporate driven development’.

They will highlight the miseries and exploitation being faced by the people due to the decline in the per capita income, growing income inequality, denial of MSP to the farming community and the minimum wages to the workers.

The SKM has claimed, “The central trade unions have decided to join the Jana Jagran Campaign. The state level coordination committee meetings are taking place to make the preparations. The campaign will ensure participation of farmers and workers with family members in the tractor and vehicle parade on January 26, 2024 at district level across India.”

The notice released by the SKM stated that two thirds of India lives in rural areas and half of India practises the vocation of agriculture. It recalled the background of the farmers’ movement that was launched against the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of the passing of the three controversial farm laws which the farmers alleged were in favour of the corporates and multinational corporations (MNCs).

“These laws legally entitled big corporates to control cropping pattern, input prices and agricultural services, mandis and sale prices, agro storage and processing along with the food markets. Legal ban on hoarding and black marketing was also overturned.

“The farmers fought back and Government of India promised in writing to set up a committee and look into solving legal guarantee of MSP for all the crops according to the Swaminathan formula of C2+50%; to withdraw the Electricity Bill levying heavy charges and prepaid metres; debt waiver for farmers and punishment to guilty of Lakhimpur carnage including union minister Ajay Mishra Teni. The promises remain unfulfilled and farmers' distress is rising,” the notice stated.

The farmers have underlined that, “the government policies

are causing large scale unemployment, price rise, poverty, indebtedness and unbridled rural to urban migration. The RSS and BJP boast of ‘Modi Guarantee’ but the burden of microfinance debt on rural poor is forcing people to flee homes and sell assets.

“Rural unemployment is very high and rural wages are very low. The government itself is employing the helpless men and women in schemes only on honorarium as low as Rs 50 to Rs 200 per day. MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) budget and work is down while the payments remain pending.

“While PDS (public distribution scheme) ration has been promised for five years as bait for votes just like a rat is caught with the help of bread, laths of names have been cut off and the (PDS) portal does not function.

“Pension and insurance schemes are almost absent. To make life hell, electricity connections are being cut and prepaid metres are being forced.”

They have further elaborated how they continue to suffer on account of the rising input costs as subsidy for fertiliser is being withdrawn.

“Procurement is not done even at the declared MSP. Middlemen deduct almost Rs 300 per quintal from paddy MSP while in many states there is no government mandi or procurement. The problem of stray cattle created by the RSS has become a nightmare for both the farmers and those travelling by road,” they stated.

The farmers further plan to drive home the point that the youth are migrating for jobs in large numbers, and most are from weaker sections of society, besides being landless, marginal and small farmers. They serve as extremely cheap labour for big companies which derive huge profits.

“To help the ‘foreign’ companies and further deprive the Indian workers, Modi government has implemented the four labour codes which take away the rights of such workers to organise and unionise, right to proper safety in workplaces, right to minimum survival wages, job security, provident fund, employees’ state insurance (ESI), gratuity and other benefits.

“It is also privatising all the lower level government jobs and most of the public sector while making India a country of daily wage and contract labourers,” the campaign material states.

It further counters the government’s claims stating that, “The government is propagating a bogus narrative on high rate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, a three trillion-dollar economy even though it has trebled the accumulated internal debt on itself from Rs 55 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs 161 lakh crore.

“The per capita income is declining; income inequality is rising and just one percent of the Indians corner 40% of its wealth while lower 50% survive on just three per cent. It has waived Rs 14.58 lakh crore of corporate loans in the last nine years but fails to look after the poor.”

Taking a position on the continuing majoritarian politics in the country, the farmers are of the view that, “While RSS is skillfully

propagating Ram Temple as a political religious tool to divert attention, and it has already created a deep rift in the harmonious communal fabric of our society.

“This is a long term danger to the social peace and security

of not only the minorities but also the women’s rights and all the members of downtrodden castes as political Hindutva is extremely Manuvadi. It is clear that not only is the RSS and the BJP government totally sold out to the corporate and middlemen interests, even the corporate and MNC trust them.

“To prevent people from protesting it has already placed a number of hurdles like registering false cases, imposition of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and National Security Act (NSA), indiscriminate use of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and

other agencies, suppression of press freedom, manipulation of court proceedings against people, etc.”

The leaflet prepared by the SKM makes a very interesting reading where the acute agrarian crisis has been explained. According to the SKM, “The Modi government’s aggressive neo-liberal policies have resulted in expanding the acute agrarian crisis in India. Farmers are facing a debilitating attack on farmlands, price of farm produce, selling through mandis and consequently their earnings.

“Added to this is the unbridled hike in cost of production due to withdrawal of subsidies on inputs and the lack of remunerative price in the procurement market have made agriculture an economically non-viable occupation.”

The SKM claims the malaise of indebtedness resulting in widespread peasant suicides has spread to rural worker households also.

Accusing the government of betrayal on the promises made by the BJP in 2014 on implementing MSP according to the C2+50% formula for all crops and generating two crore jobs every year, the SKM said, “Lack of adequate irrigation, non-functioning crop insurance schemes namely PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) replacing PDS with direct benefit transfer scheme only adds to the hardships of rural masses.

“The agrarian economy is continuing to face a deep crisis despite its contribution to the GDP by enhanced production, thus forcing large scale rural to urban migration of the pauperised peasantry.

“It is no wonder that the number of cultivators in India has drastically declined to nine crore while the number of agriculture workers and the migrant workers now exceeds 13.5 crore and 23 crore respectively.”

It has also claimed that the agricultural workers that are a major component of the country’s agriculture dependent population are the worst-hit and pushed into absolute poverty and destitution.

“Data recently compiled by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revealed that the workers in the three BJP ruled states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are getting daily wages much below the national average,” the leaflet mentions.

It further states, “The shameful fact that 81 crore people constituting 68% of the population are dependent on free ration for bare survival which is the explicit evidence of extreme impoverishment of common people in the ten years of Modi Raj.

“Now, India ranks 111 out of the list of 123 countries under the Global Poverty Index which reveals the deep rot in the economy and rampant corporate loot of the people.”

The document also hits out at the phenomenal increase of wealth of the corporate houses in the face of impoverishment of masses of the toiling people. It states that while corporate taxes are being reduced and corporate houses are allowed to profiteer from state owned infrastructure sectors without making any investment, common people are being saddled with increasing prices, higher goods and services tax (GST) burden along with higher user charges for almost all public utility services.

The result is an ‘extreme obscene’ inequality of income in India. The document also opposes the National Monetization Pipeline Scheme.

Talking about the plight of the workers, it stated, “The impact of agrarian crisis is highly detrimental to the workers even in the organised sector. The migrated peasant masses in the urban centres function as a source of cheap labour.

“This enables corporate forces to unleash a reign of terror on the workers and deprive them of minimum wage and secure employment.”

It charges the government of facilitating corporate loot to benefit crony capitalists and MNCs through enacting a series of laws for ‘privatisation, casualisation and contractualisation’ of the public sector units from railways to defence sector and signing many free trade agreements.

“The four labour codes deny the workers hard won rights for minimum wages, eight hours work day, right to form trade unions and collective bargaining for better wages and benefits for a dignified life which are the rights enshrined in the Constitution of India.

“Large scale privatisation makes the statutory reservation to the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) irrelevant. Even state and union government employees are facing social insecurity due to denial of retirement benefits since the BJP has annulled the Old Pension Scheme (OPS),” the leaflet pointed out.

Interestingly, on Monday, Prime Minister Modi while interacting with the beneficiaries of Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra (VBSY) pointed out that during the earlier regimes, the scope of discussions that took place regarding agricultural policy in the country was only limited to production and sale, neglecting the various issues faced by farmers daily.

“Our government has made all out efforts to ease every difficulty of the farmers.” the PM claimed. He said the transfer of at least Rs 30,000 to every farmer through Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi was done as was the promotion of cooperation in agriculture with organisations like PACS (Primary Agricultural Credit Society), FPO (Farmer Producer Organisation), increase in storage facilities and boost to the food processing industry.

The Prime Minister said that toor or arhar dal farmers can now sell their produce directly to the government online ensuring purchase at MSP and better prices in the market. He added that the scope of this scheme will be extended to other pulses also. “Our effort is that the money we send abroad to buy pulses should be available to the farmers of the country,” the PM said.

Claiming that VBSY has become not only the journey of the government but also the journey of the country, the PM said, “Modi Ki Guarantee ki Gadi is reaching every nook and corner of the country. The poor people who spent their lives waiting to get the benefits of government schemes are seeing a meaningful change today. The government is reaching the doorsteps of the beneficiaries and proactively providing the benefits.”

“Along with Modi Ki Guarantee ki Gadi, government offices and people’s representatives are reaching to the people”, the PM added.

In his speech Modi highlighted the struggle of the poor, youth, women and farmers over many generations. He said, “Our government wants the present and future generations to not have to live the life that the earlier generation lived. We want to get a large population of the country out of the struggle for small daily needs.

“Therefore, we are focusing on the future of the poor, farmers, women and youth. For us, these are the four biggest castes of the country. When the poor, farmers, women and youth are empowered, the country will become powerful.”

A government release quoted one Gurwinder Singh Bajwa of Gurdaspur in Punjab telling the Prime Minister that the biggest gain of the journey of Viksit Bharat is that farmers have organised into small groups to get the best possible deal in the agriculture sector.

“He informed the Prime Minister that his group of farmers is working on poison-free agriculture and for that he received a subsidy for machinery. This helped the small farmers in ‘parali’ (crop residue) management and the health of the soil also. Bajwa informed about the significant decline in the incidents of ‘parali’ burning in Gurdaspur due to the assistance of the government.

“FPO related activities are also going on in the area. The custom hiring scheme is helping small farmers in the 50 km radius,” a government spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, Bajwa was quoted as saying, “Now the farmer is feeling that he will get proper support.”

“When the farmer told the Prime Minister that expectations are high as ‘Modi hai to Mumkin Hai’, Prime Minister Modi said that it is possible because farmers listen to his requests,” the spokesperson added.

The Prime Minister reiterated his request for sustainable farming.

“We should do farming as per the advice of our Gurus and protect mother Earth. There is nothing beyond the teachings of Guru Nanak Devji in the field of farming,” Modi said.

Meanwhile, the SKM, the farmers have appealed to their brethren that it is time to rise and raise their voice to force the government to address their problems.