Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Address farmers’ distress' that was published in Newsband

Address farmers’ distress

Last week, tens of thousands of farmers reached Delhi for a two-day Kisan Mukti Morcha to discuss the crisis in India’s agrarian economy. Their key demands included an unqualified loan waiver to mitigate indebtedness levels in farm households and better remuneration for their produce instead of promises on paper of high minimum support prices.

With rural distress palpable, elections for five State Assemblies under way, and the Lok Sabha election just about six months later, farmers’ issues are bound to further dominate politics. The government has done an about-turn on its responses and sought to reassure farmers by reiterating its own initiatives for the sector. The Opposition is using the farmers’ platform to take jibes at the BJP-led government at the Centre and in many States. Neither has focussed on the big picture strategy needed to reboot India’s hugely state-controlled farm sector.

Farmers are not just vote banks, but also critical economic actors who aspire to live without handouts. Farming is seasonal activity, each season has different crop pattern, and farming is not profitable activity any more. Why- thanks to NREGA of UPA, it has dried the labour from farms by disturbing the ecosystem, now labour has become costly, farming small holding farm can't employ machinery, again for want of fund and suboptimal utilisation owing to small holding, so they have to employ labour. Big farmers are not in distress, it is small and marginal farm - blame squarely lies on UPA. All the leadership of this moment is interested in politics and not concerned about farmers well being. They have no plans.Today Kishan & Jawan are most stressed all thanks to Congress misrule.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal shared the stage for the first time at Friday’s Kisan Mukti March, leading a show of Opposition unity in support of the farmers’ demands for fair prices and debt relief. The agrarian crisis is now on top of the poll agenda in the run-up to the 2019 general election. The importance of farmers at the ballot box clearly loomed over the show of united political support, with representatives from the Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress Party, Telegu Desam Party, National Conference as well as the Communist Parties sharing the stage and promising to support the proposed legislations.

While the central government did not directly respond to the farmers march or their demands, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh issued a series of tweets soon after Mr Gandhi’s speech, “Today, the Congress has remembered that we are an agrarian country…Why was their government indifferent to farmers for so many years?”

Just like the people with plenty of illegitimate riches cry against demo in the name of the commons, the rich farmers who had enjoyed free power supply and loan waivers grantned across the board by many govts are primarily aligning with self serving party men to demonstrate against govt. Though the plight of small farmers are very real and suffer despondency due to poor govt attention to maintenance of water sources, ensure power supply for lift irrigation, low farm gate prices offered by the middle men etc for decades, the present show of strength is just political to dislodge the Modi govt that poses a threat to the opponents.

Nothing but blackmail, where were these opposition leaders all these years? They suddenly wake up from a slumber of four years and start shouting at the government as the elections approach.