In a tweet, the popular IndianHistorypics handle shared the cover story of the erstwhile popular Hindi weekly Dharamyug (Sept 1972) titled: Ann Upjaaye Kisan ! Bhhooko Mare Kisan ! (Farmers grow food! Farmers die of hunger!). The focus was on how the people who produce food for the country were themselves living in hunger. That was a time five years after the Green Revolution had set in and valiant farmers in the north-western region had literally pulled the country from the throes of a ‘ship-to-mouth’existence.
Nearly 50 years later, the iconic farm protest at the doorsteps of New Delhi showcases the piteous condition of farmers, who have somehow survived against all odds, and yet produced a record harvest year after year. Faced with mounting indebtedness, the spate of farm suicides over the years leaves behind a trail of neglect and apathy. With the policy focus remaining on increasing crop production, successive governments have turned a blind eye to the deplorable living conditions of farmers and farm workers. This was the outcome of a flawed economic thinking that aimed at pushing farmers out of agriculture to join the army of daily wage workers in the cities.
For several decades now, farmers have been protesting in one part of the country or the other, demanding a guaranteed price for their crops in the form of a higher Minimum Support Price (MSP) and have invariably been asking for karza mukti (loan waivers). These two demands actually reflected the urgent need to address the crying need of providing economic justice to the farming community, languishing at the bottom of the pyramid. But nothing tangible came about, with the states either ignoring the protests or at best offering a temporary reprieve. The agrarian crisis in the process has only worsened.
According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), recorded farm protests across the country were 4,837 in 2016, 3,300 in 2017 and 2008 in 2018. A CSE study quoting media reports however showed the number of major farm protests in the country increasing five folds between 2017 and 2021. Besides local issues, most of these protests highlighted the economic disparities that farmers were living with.
Realising that the continuing farm protests had failed to draw nation’s attention to the acute farm crisis, and knowing that farmers and farm workers have been routinely treated by various political affiliations as nothing more than a vote bank, farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal had invited me way back in 2015 to take an initiative to bring farm leaders from across the country on one platform. We deliberated on the objectives as well as the challenges it posed considering that farm unions were broadly divided on the lines of caste, religion and political ideologies and bringing them together may not be that easy. A few decades back, I remember the two stalwarts of the farm movement in the country -- Mahendra Singh Tikait of Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and Prof M D Nanjudaswamy of Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sangha (KRRS) – too had wanted me to take an initiative to bring the farming unions together but I had politely wriggled out of it.
Not many of the 52 farm leaders, representing major factions of unions/organisations spread across the country, who assembled for a three days conclave at Chandigarh in Aug 2015, actually knew each other. That was perhaps the first time several farm leaders, cutting across ideologies and political affiliations had sat on the same table. During the course of the intense discussions that followed, aimed at bringing the farm unions together, the leaders acknowledged the need to work together and agreed to form a loose network called Kisan Ekta. More importantly, the Chandigarh conclave helped create a strong camaraderie and bonhomie among farmer leaders.
In the next three conclaves held at Bangalore, Akola and Shimla, an effort was made to reach out to some other farmer leaders as well. While the general consensus was that farm movement in the country should remain apolitical, there were a few who were strong votaries for forming instead a political party. Among them were some whose argument was that by being apolitical, as the past experience had shown, farmers would remain perpetually at the mercy of political leaders. Vote bank politics will continue to keep the farming community divided, and the farmer leaders should therefore consider forming a political party. Farmer leaders agreed in principle, but were not willing to take a political plunge, for reasons they understood better. In a TV interview at Shimla, to a question whether Kisan Ekta will soon be a political party, my response was that the objective behind uniting farm unions was to ‘influence’ the political process.
The year 2020 however marks a watershed in farmers struggle with all divergent leaning farm unions of Punjab coming together to wage a united protest against the three central farm laws. This has spread in other parts too. Not only from Punjab, farmer leaders from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh too have emerged taller on the national scene. So have many other regional leaders emerging stronger in other parts of the country. The rush for clicking selfies with them is an indication of their growing popularity. With farmer leaders now expanding the outreach through mahapanchyatsin different parts of the country, the crucial issue related to the withdrawal of the three central laws and the demand for making MSP a legal right for farmers has reached every nook. In addition, their efforts to reach out to other communities which certainly has political ramifications, is bearing fruits.
In any case, considering that more than 50 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture and allied activities, the time was never so ripe for the collective farmer leadership to rethink its role -- whether to go political or remain apolitical. After all, reversing the flawed economic design that has kept farmers deliberately impoverished all these years in the name of economic growth will require farmers to emerge stronger on the political front, and play a pivotal role in decision making. #
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