Jalandhar: The Narendra Modi government did not implement a minimum support price at C2+50% for farmers, as recommended by the M.S. Swaminathan Commission, during the last ten years. An estimated 1,0,0474 farmers died by suicide between 2014 and 2024 – an average of 27 deaths per day. But Ambani’s Reliance Group assets shot up from Rs 1,67,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 8,0,3000 crore in 2022.
“Like the East India Company, Modi’s Corporate-Hindutva company is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to looting farmers,” said the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) – an umbrella body of farmers’ unions which organised the 2020 farmers’ protests – in a new leaflet, ahead of their ‘Gramin Bharat Bandh’ announced for February 16.
The SKM leadership – including SKM Punjab led by Balbir Singh Rajewal and Darshan Pal and BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) led by Joginder Singh Ugrahan – also announced protests against the repression unleashed by BJP-ruled Haryana and the Union government on farmers trying to go to Delhi to fight for an MSP law, farm loan waiver and justice for Lakhimpur Kheri victims on February 15.
The SKM leadership – which had distanced itself from the ‘Delhi Chalo’ call given by the SKM (nonpolitical) and Kisan Ekta Morcha – on Wednesday said that they will be protesting the Haryana and Union governments’ high-handedness against the protesting farmers. The SKM leadership held a meeting and a press conference in Jalandhar.
Addressing the media, senior SKM leader Darshan Pal said that SKM Punjab has decided to make toll plazas free for the public to protest. “Over 100 farmers have been injured in the protest at Punjab-Haryana’s Shambu border,” he said. Reports have shown that rubber bullets used by the police have injured close to 130 farmers.
Darshan Pal said that BKU Ekta Ugrahan and BKU Dakonda too have decided to lead a ‘Rail Roko’ protest in Punjab from 12 noon to 4 pm. “We want to give a message to [Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal] Khattar and the Centre that this kind of repression and injustice against farmers should be stopped. It is a farmer’s constitutional right to be allowed to go to Delhi. Those accused (paramilitary forces) who injured the farmers should be identified and cases should be filed against them. The situation is tense at the border and the government must play a role in diffusing the tension, else Punjab and Haryana farmers’ anger will increase and the results of such a protest would not be good for the BJP,” he said.
In a video message, BKU Ekta Ugrahan president Joginder Singh Ugrahan said that they too have decided to protest the high-handedness of Haryana and Union governments in a four-hour ‘Rail Roko’ on Thursday. “We condemn the way the Haryana police stopped the farmers and threw tear gas shells at them. We support the demands of the SKM nonpolitical and the Kisan Ekta Morcha and urge everybody to join the protest in large numbers,” he said.
Earlier, BKU Rajewal president Balbir Singh Rajewal and other senior SKM leaders said that so far, they had not received any invitation from the SKM nonpolitical and Kisan Ekta Morcha farmer leaders, which is why they had not joined their protest. “However, we will be protesting against the atrocities of the Haryana and the Union government on the Delhi Chalo morcha farmers, who have been forcibly stopped from crossing the Punjab-Haryana border,” they said.
SKM’s ‘Gramin Bharat Bandh’ leaflet
In the leaflet, which was being shared on social media, the SKM leadership said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is claiming that he is considering the poor, youth, women and farmers as the four ‘biggest castes’ and his priority is to ‘respect’ and ‘empower’ them, but in practice, Modi is denigrating farmers and the other ‘three biggest castes’ with an unprecedented vengeance for his corporate partners.
“This vengeance on peasantry is because the monopoly capital in general and new monopoly house like Ambani and Adani in particular – which works closely with fascistic elements led by RSS-have identified peasant agriculture as a terrain for primitive capital accumulation. This was clear in a recent investigation by The Reporters’ Collective which exposed how Adani played a major role in shaping notorious farm laws and larger corporation agenda,” it mentioned.
The SKM leaders pointed out in the leaflet that this investigation, among other things, detailed how the Adani group lobbied with the Union government in April 2018 by saying that the“’Essential Commodities Act’ is proving to be a deterrence for industries/entrepreneurs”. “This first recorded instance of the Adani Group’s official advocacy for the repeal of the Essential Commodities Act was carefully and loyally incorporated by the Modi regime in drafting draconian farm laws.”
The leaflet states:
“The investigation also exposed how Niti Ayog colluded with corporates to create a narrative that the ‘time is right to move from agriculture to agribusiness’ and paved the way for the anti-farmer farm laws and corporatization.
…The much-hyped project for digitising agriculture too has a hidden agenda for furthering corporate penetration. This became very evident when the Modi regime forced the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to sign multiple Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with Bayer, a leading multinational agri big business house and Amazon Kisan, the e-commerce giant for research collaboration.
In the name of empowering small holder farmers, these MoUs are designed to deepen corporate tentacles over peasantry. This is also a shrewd attempt to bring pro corporate draconian farm laws-maximize corporate profits-through the backdoors.
Prime Minister Modi, aggressively promoting “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” as a hallmark of his hyper nationalism, is drastically cutting funds to public agricultural research, thereby jeopardizing the self-reliance of ICAR and farmers.
Without fighting Corporate – Hindutva combine tooth and nail peasantry won’t be able to survive. Worker – peasant unity has the strategic capacity to combat and annihilate fascistic formations.”
