Page 18 - English Tehelka Issue 12 - June 30, 2018

CoverStory farmers

uring the seventy years of India’s inde-
pendence, we have marched forward
on many fronts; especially expansion of
industry and service sector and open-
D ing up of the economy to leverage the
benefits of foreign trade. What a pity that every step
put forward has pushed food grower of our country
in despondency. This has been empirically tested by
the economists in terms of dwindling profits in agri-
culture due to stagnation in income and burgeoning
number of suicides in states like Tamil Nadu to highly
progressive states like Punjab.
India is a vast country with diverse ecological,
environmental, social, religious and ethnic milieu.
Owing to diverse natural endowments different
parts of the country face different sets of challenges
in terms of development of infrastructure, urbanisa-
tion, industrialisation, health and education but ag-
ricultural distress is a phenomenon present in every
state and all pervasive. At some places it is due to lack
of irrigation facility, while others may be facing huge
cost of drawing water from available sources.
A plethora of problems from depleting water ta-
ble to lack of post harvest infrastructure, exploita-
tion of farmers at the hands of middlemen, low price
discoveries despite Minimum Support Price (MSP)
of certain crops determined by the government,
mounting debts of farmers for the funds borrowed
from institutional and non-institutional sources of
credit, inadequate crop-insurance cover, declining
fertility of soil due mono-crop culture and subse-
quent rise in usage of fertilisers adding to the cost
of farmers, delay in availability of seeds, fertilisers
and credit (from institutional sources) during the
cropping season, scarce extension services, back-
ward and forward market linkages, pest attacks on
cash crops like cotton- are some of the factors those
have undermined the viability of agriculture as an
occupation.
An all India National Sample Survey (NSSO) study Protesting
(2003) reported that 40 per cent of the Indian farm- peasantry
ers expressed their desire to quit farming as it is no
more a profitable occupation.
The high cost of cultivation due to rising input
costs and stagnation in the prices of agricultural united they stand India are now found extending support to their fellow demands of farmers by the Maharashtra Government.
commodities is the primary reason for driving the Of late, the farmers have become more organised cultivators in their fight for demands with their respec- On June 6, 2017, six farmers were killed in the police
farmers away from their core-competence. The and united in voicing their demands. Probably they tive state governments to seek their rightful demand. firing in Mandsuar in Madhya Pradesh, when the farm-
transformation of workforce from farming to non- have realized that in the prevailing scenario, the cor- The long march (180 kilometers) by the farmers of Maha- ers of western Madhya Pradesh were protesting for high-
farming activities, which is apparently distressed- porates are able to exert pressure on successive gov- rashtra from Nasik to Mumbai ( March 6 to March 12) that er remuneration of crops and debt relief. As the farmer
induced transformation, has been adding an ever- ernments to seek bailout packages and tweak taxes culminated at Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha was a spectac- agitation turned violent, police fired at them, killing five
increasing number of reserve army of labourers. in their favour as they have federations to lobby for ular event. Participated by close to 50,000 farmers and farmers and injuring eight. Farmers from different parts
Pursuing farming for many generations, these fami- their interests at the national level. The farmers’ organised by All India Kisan Sabha, the peasants’ front of of India congregated at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, to pro-
lies have no other skill-set and capital to switch to associations have remained confined to regional All India Communist Party (Marxists) has been registered test against the killings. This again, has been registered
other profession to eke out their living. Many of them level and had a myopic view of their demands that as one of the biggest silent and peaceful protest march as a regretful event in the history of farmers movement
find suicide as the ultimate remedy to their ordeal. restricted to only regional level. The farmers across that ended with the state government acceding to the in independent India, where the state government could

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