Ashok Dhawale
T
he unprecedented farmers’ struggle that began at the borders of India’s capital Delhi on November 26, 2020, and which won a historic victory over the reactionary forces of corporate communalism and also imperialism a full one year and fifteen days later on December 11, 2021, has been by far the largest, the longest and the most powerful nationwide farmers’ struggle in the history of India, and also in the world. This struggle had several distinctive features.
First, it was led by over 500 farmers’ organisations in the country, who had united under the platform of the SKM. This kind of broad issue-based unity among farmers’ organizations was unprecedented in the history of India. Large sections of the peasantry came together across the country and particularly at the Delhi borders, from agricultural workers to poor peasants to middle peasants to some sections of even rich peasants.
Second, it was fully supported throughout by the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs), in the true spirit of worker-peasant unity. In fact, the struggle itself began as a joint struggle, with the ‘Chalo Delhi’ call by farmers and an All India Working Class Strike on the same day – November 26, 2020. Lakhs of peasants and workers from all over the country came out on the streets in solidarity with the Delhi farmers’ struggle in the course of the last one year.
Third, it combated tremendous repression from the BJP-RSS-led central and state governments in the form of teargas shells, water cannons, dug up highways, massive barricades, lathi charges, wanton arrests, false police cases, and even farmers being mowed down by cars of a BJP Union Minister! Over 715 farmers were martyred in the course of this battle over the period of a year, including women and men, young and old.
Fourth, it faced constant defamation from the BJP-RSS combine and was ridiculously accused of being instigated by Khalistanis and Naxalites and Maoists, and even by Pakistan and China! As expected, sections of the corporate-owned ‘Godi’ media blurted out all these charges ad nauseum in typical Goebbelsian fashion and covered themselves with lasting shame. But the farmers’ struggle consistently fought against all this defamation and stood its ground.
Fifth, it combated the worst health disaster to strike India and the world in recent times, the deadly Covid pandemic. The earlier big mass struggle against the CAA-NRC-NPR in 2019-20 was suppressed by the government under the excuse of the pandemic. The farmers’ struggle began in the pandemic and continued right through the disastrous second wave from April to June 2021. The government deliberately pushed through the Farm Laws in the Covid pandemic, thinking that no resistance would be possible. Farmers blew that illusion to smithereens.
Sixth, in spite of lakhs of farmers laying siege to Delhi for 380 days and nights, the struggle was entirely peaceful and democratic. It truly adhered to Mahatma Gandhi’s celebrated maxim, “Truth and Non Violence are as old as the hills”. It also victoriously combated the criminal conspiracy of violence unleashed by the central government, its police and its agent provocateurs on January 26, 2021, Republic Day, at the time of the massive tractor rallies.
Seventh, it was entirely secular. The farmers’ struggle all over India cut across religion, caste, region and language. It included men and women, and young and old. The presence of women and youth in this movement was truly remarkable. The SKM began Mission Uttar Pradesh with a historic 10 lakh strong rally at Muzaffarnagar, which had been the scene of terrible communal violence engineered by the BJP-RSS eight years earlier. It was precisely this secular and all-encompassing nature of class unity that made it impossible for the government to suppress it.
Eighth, after the political defeat of the BJP in the state assembly elections in Kerala, Tamilnadu and West Bengal, in the local body elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and in the parliamentary and assembly by-elections in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, it threw the BJP-RSS regime on the defensive in the run-up to the state assembly elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It was this fear that made it repeal the hated Farm Laws.
Ninth, and most important, this struggle directly identified and attacked the corrupt nexus of corporate communalism, between the BJP-RSS-led central government and the Indian and foreign corporate lobby, symbolised by the Ambanis and Adanis. The Modi regime also brought in these Farm Laws at the behest of US imperialism and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Through its three major demands, this historic class struggle of the peasantry, in fact, squarely attacked the neo-liberal policies and imperialist dictates themselves.
WHY WERE THE FARM LAWS OPPOSED?
The farmers’ struggle had three cardinal demands. One, the repeal of the three anti-farmer, anti-people and pro-corporate Farm Laws. Two, the demand for a central law to ensure Minimum Support Price (MSP) and procurement at one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production – a seminal recommendation of the National Commission on Farmers, headed by Dr M S Swaminathan. Three, the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill, which sought to privatise electricity and massively increase power tariffs across the board.
The first demand was the repeal of the three Farm Laws that were first promulgated as ordinances in June 2020, and were then rammed through Parliament in September 2020 after trampling on all democratic norms. No reference to a select committee was allowed. No amendments were allowed. No voting was allowed. Some Members of Parliament who resisted the passage of these Farm Laws were suspended.
No Kisan organisation worth its name had demanded any of these laws, and no Kisan organisation was ever consulted. Although agriculture is a state subject under the Constitution, no state government was ever consulted either. As such, the Farm Laws were clearly unconstitutional.
The first Farm Act aimed to dismantle the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and hand over the entire trade in agricultural produce to domestic and foreign corporates. This would have destroyed farmers and agriculture, and would also have compromised the food security of the country. The Bihar state government under chief minister Nitish Kumar dismantled APMCs in 2006. As a result, farmers in Bihar are getting around Rs 800 to 1000 less per quintal of paddy than the MSP which is now Rs 1940. This Act eventually aimed to do away with MSP and government procurement of food grains altogether. With this, the entire public distribution system (PDS) would have been dismantled. This would hit 81 crore of both urban and rural poor, who avail of the relatively cheap food grains from the PDS.
The second Farm Act aimed to encourage and promote contract farming across the country. As our previous experience of contract farming in India and the world shows, this would only help the powerful corporate companies to loot the farmers. In a travesty of justice, there was no provision for farmers for approaching courts in case of any dispute. The real alternative to corporate farming is co-operative farming, which the government is not willing to consider.
The third Farm Act was a disastrous amendment to the Essential Commodities Act (ECA). The ECA had originally been adopted in 1955 to ensure the delivery of certain commodities or products, the supply of which, if obstructed through hoarding or black marketing, would affect the normal life of the people. Now the central government removed all restrictions on stocks of six of the most essential items, viz. rice, wheat, pulses, cooking oil, onions and potatoes. This would give the corporates and the big traders a free hand to hoard and black market these essential items and would hike their prices manifold. This would also endanger food security. In the Global Hunger Index figures declared recently, India already ranked 101st among 116 countries. This would aggravate even further.
If we see the neo-liberal direction of the Modi government’s policies from the Shanta Kumar Committee recommendations of 2015 on, it will be clear that these three Farm Laws were essentially meant to gradually dismantle the MSP regime, government procurement, storage of food grains in FCI godowns, and thus the entire PDS itself.
Eventually, this trajectory would also attack and seek to usurp the land of the peasantry in distress. An attempt was already made towards this end by the Modi regime through the Land Acquisition Amendment Ordinance of 2015. But that was defeated. However, many BJP state governments forced the same amendments through their state assemblies.
Now the entire agricultural sector was sought to be handed over to the domestic and foreign corporate lobby to increase their super profits and wealth. Within a week of the enactment of the Farm Laws, 29 labour laws that had been won by the working class after decades of bitter struggles were annulled in Parliament and were replaced by four anti-worker Labour Codes. The employment lifeline of agricultural workers, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), was starved of funds.
WHY ARE MSP AND PROCUREMENT SO CRUCIAL?
The second key demand of the farmers’ struggle was for a law to guarantee MSP and procurement of all agricultural produce at one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production (C2 + 50%), as recommended by the National Commission on Farmers, headed by the renowned agricultural scientist Dr M S Swaminathan. This was one of the promises in the BJP’s election manifesto of 2014, and it was repeated by Narendra Modi in his 400-odd speeches throughout the country as part of that election campaign.
But the very next year, in February 2015, the Modi government submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court of India (SC) which said that it could not fulfil this promise, because that would “distort the market.” Now the Modi regime claims that it has already implemented MSP at this rate. In reality, it has applied the formula A2 + FL, which is much lower than C2 + 50%, and has thus tried to deceive farmers.
Moreover, in most parts of our country, the MSP declared by the central government for 23 different ‘kharif’ and ‘rabi’ season crops has no meaning, simply because there is no government procurement in most of the states. Hence traders routinely buy agricultural produce from farmers at much less rates than the MSP. Even in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, government procurement is restricted mainly to only paddy and wheat. Hence the demand for a legal MSP guarantee is a key demand of farmers from all over the country. For the following key reasons:
First, successive central governments implementing neo-liberal policies have increased the cost of production in agriculture manifold over the last three decades. One, subsidies on agricultural inputs like fertilisers have been slashed. Two, corporates have been encouraged in the manufacture of seeds, fertilisers and insecticides aand prices have vastly increased. Three, the price of diesel, petrol, power and irrigation has also increased exponentially. Costs of production have indeed sky-rocketed.
On the other hand, the price that the farmer gets for his crop has not increased in the same proportion. There are numerous instances where the price that the farmer gets is not even enough to cover the cost of production.
Herein lies one of the major roots of the agrarian crisis in India today and the massive peasant indebtedness, leading to farmer suicides on the one hand and distress sales of farm land on the other.
The other basic root is, of course, the failure of successive central governments to carry out radical land reforms and distribute land to the tiller and to the landless. This was one of the fundamental slogans of our freedom struggle. In the neo-liberal era, this slogan has been replaced in practice with ‘Land to the Corporates’.
Second, this crisis is further aggravated by natural calamities like severe droughts, floods, hailstorms and unseasonal rains, with no proper crop insurance cover. These growing natural calamities in recent years are directly related to global warming and climate change. The Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has proved to be a farce, enriching corporate insurance companies at the expense of the farmers and ironically, the central and state governments, all of whom shell out huge premiums. Corporate insurance companies, while swallowing the premiums, refuse to compensate farmers for crop losses due to natural calamities, under one pretext or the other.
Third, as part of the neo-liberal trajectory, bank credit policies have been changed, and agriculture is no longer in the priority lending list, as it was before. With huge amounts of even agricultural credit being channelized to corporate agri-businesses, there is a severe credit crunch in the farm sector, especially for small and middle farmers. This results in farmers being thrown to rapacious private money lenders, who charge interest rates anywhere between 36 to 120 per cent per annum. There is no chance that farmers can ever repay such exorbitant sums.
Fourth, the agricultural import-export policies adopted under WTO dictates and the various Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have also hit farmers very hard. To give just one glaring example, the Modi government has slashed import duty on wheat to zero per cent. This had never been done before, a bonanza for foreign corporates in the wheat trade. Similarly, FTAs have severely hit cash crops in Kerala and elsewhere, and the dairy sector all over the country.
It is for all these reasons that the farmers’ struggle has demanded a law to guarantee MSP and procurement at one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production.
Another related vital demand of the peasant movement, in view of the alarming peasant suicides due to indebtedness, has been a complete loan waiver to the peasantry by the central government. Nationwide partial loan waivers to farmers had been implemented twice before by central governments. The first was in 1990 by the National Front government led by V P Singh. The second was in 2008 by the UPA-1 government led by Manmohan Singh.
But the current government has dismissed the loan waiver demand by farmers out of hand, in spite of having promised that too in the 2014 elections.
The same regime, however, has no compunctions in writing off bank loans to the tune of Rs 10.72 lakh crore to its handful of favourite crony corporates over the last seven years. This is in addition to the astronomical tax concessions given by this government every year to the corporate lobby.
The third demand of this struggle was the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020, which promotes further privatisation of power and aims to end cross subsidy. This will lead to a massive hike in power bills not only for irrigation pumps of farmers, but also for domestic use in both rural and urban areas in the country. It will hit all the working people.
RECENT MILESTONES IN THE FARMERS’ STRUGGLE
While the central government has been intensifying neo-liberal policies in agriculture, industry and other sectors with BJP-led state governments following suit, the last seven years have also witnessed a steady strengthening of peasant resistance against the neoliberal assault on their livelihoods. As agrarian distress intensified, farmers and agricultural workers raised their voices against it. Consider these major protests by farmers since 2014 after the Modi-led BJP came to power:
- The nationwide peasant struggle in 2015 against the Land Acquisition Amendment Ordinance led by the Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), a joint platform initiated by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), which forced the centre to eventually withdraw the Ordinance the first defeat of the newly installed BJP government;
- The four nationwide jathas undertaken by the AIKS, and the large rally of tens of thousands of peasants before Parliament in Delhi in November 2016, despite the savage attack of demonetization;
- The AIKS-led Kisan struggle of Rajasthan in 2017-18 for loan waiver and MSP, which succeeded in winning a good loan waiver package and other important demands;
- The 11-day united farmers’ strike in Maharashtra from June 1-11, 2017 and the AIKS-led iconic Kisan Long March from March 6-12, 2018, both of which succeeded in wresting a large loan waiver package from the BJP state government, progress in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), and increase in old-age pensions;
- The formation of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) in June 2017, with the AIKS being one of its major constituents, after the brutal police firing by the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government at Mandsaur that led to the martyrdom of six farmers;
- The AIKSCC’s impressive Kisan Mukti Sansad and the Mahila Kisan Sansad in Delhi in November 2017, in which thousands participated from across the country;
- The two seminal AIKSCC Bills prepared after extensive countrywide consultations and placed before Parliament in August 2018 – one for freedom from indebtedness, and the other for guaranteed remunerative MSP;
- The CITU-AIKS-AIAWU-led 10 lakh strong nationwide Jail Bharo on August 9, 2018, and the two lakh strong Mazdoor Kisan Rally in New Delhi on September 5, 2018;
- The AIKSCC’s one lakh strong Kisan Mukti March in Delhi on November 29-30, 2018.
The current nationwide farmers’ struggle was therefore not spontaneous: it was, in fact, the climax of all these earlier massive peasant struggles and campaigns.
Over the years, the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of remunerative MSP at one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production (C2 + 50%) and complete loan waiver to farmers, became the two main demands of the peasantry. The demand for increase in the days of work under MNREGA to 200 and wages to Rs 600, along with its expansion to urban areas, also became an important demand. The AIKSCC-led Kisan Mukti March in November 2018 adopted a 19-point comprehensive Charter of Demands of the peasantry and the agricultural workers of India, which went beyond these three basic demands. The AIKS played a vital role in the formulation of this Demand Charter.
After the Modi government promulgated the three hated farm laws first as ordinances on June 5, 2020, the AIKSCC gave a countrywide call for mass protests. Several other Kisan organisations in Punjab also began a struggle and they later formed a joint front of 32 farmers’ organisations, including the AIKS. The BKU (Ekta Ugrahan), a large farmers’ organisation in Punjab began its own independent struggle on the same issues. But it later joined the SKM.
When the central government rammed through the three Farm Laws through Parliament in September 2020 by murdering parliamentary democracy and attacking the federal principle (it also rammed through the four Labour Codes through Parliament the very next week), the AIKSCC gave a clarion call for countrywide actions on September 25 and also gave a call for a massive ‘Chalo Delhi’ on November 26. On October 26-27, 2020 the AIKSCC invited many other farmers’ organisations from Punjab, Haryana and other states, which were outside its fold, to a joint meeting in Delhi.
It was in this meeting that the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) was born and it unitedly led the farmers’ struggle from November 26, 2020. Organisations like the BKU (Tikait) joined the struggle soon after.
Ideologically, the organisations in the SKM belong to the left, right and centre. But it was indeed a welcome development that they came together around an issue based struggle.
For over 12 months, tens of thousands of farmers laid siege to the capital at its borders like Singhu, Tikri, Ghazipur, Shahajahanpur, Palwal and Mewat. They braved intense cold, scorching heat and torrential rains. It is this struggle that has now ended in a partial victory.
AIKS ROLE IN FARMERS’ STRUGGLE
The AIKS has been an important constituent of the AIKSCC and the SKM ever since their inception. In this capacity, it played a major role in the collective decision making and implementation of the recently-concluded farmers’ struggle. Whenever contentious issues came up, the AIKS always took a principled stand on them, for strengthening the unity of the SKM. This was generally appreciated by the other organisations.
Within the SKM, the AIKS also took the initiative to strengthen worker-peasant unity, and the unity of farmers with other sections of the people. As a result, the SKM publicly supported the demand of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) for the repeal of the four Labour Codes and for a halt to the privatisation drive of the public sector. Joint meetings of the SKM and the CTUs were held to coordinate nationwide actions. The SKM’s national convention in August 2021 at the Singhu border invited leaders of the trade unions, agricultural workers, dalit, adivasi, women, youth and student organisations and adopted resolutions in support of their demands. This united approach helped to make the Bharat Bandh of September 27 an unprecedented success.
While resolutely taking active part in all the SKM’s joint nationwide calls, some independent actions were also organised. The most effective was the CITU-AIKS-AIAWU call for the nationwide struggle on the anniversary of ‘Quit India Day’, August 9, 2021. This ‘Save India Day’ mobilised tens of thousands all over the country. Another was the week-long padayatras organised by the AIKS and its fraternal organisations in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which culminated at the Delhi borders on Martyrs’ Day, March 23. Several such independent actions were also organised by the AIKS during the year in several states.
The AIKS was the only peasant organisation in the country with a fair presence at all the six borders around Delhi. This AIKS mobilisation came from the frontline states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The AIKS in various other states also took the lead in sending contingents to the Delhi borders for several days each. They included Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamilnadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Besides, all SKM calls in the last one year were well implemented in all the 23 states where the AIKS has its units, with a total mobilisation of tens of thousands, putting it in the forefront among all SKM constituents.
Large Mahapanchayats under the SKM/AIKSCC banner, with good AIKS mobilisation, or under the AIKS banner independently, were held in Kolkata, Mumbai, Agartala, Patna, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Bengaluru, Belgavi, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Ongole, Chennai, Thanjavur, Kanyakumari, Thiruvarur, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Thiruvananthapuram and all other district centres of Kerala, and hundreds of other places in the frontline states like Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The AIKS participation in the SKM Kisan Mahapanchayats, especially in Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow and several other places, was impressive.
The frontline states and all other states of the AIKS did commendable work during this struggle. AIKS cadres all over the country were, in fact, incessantly on the streets since April 23, 2020, when the first call for mass action was given, within a month of the declaration of the first lockdown on March 24, 2020. After the nationwide farmers’ struggle began on November 26, 2020, the level of AIKS activity, of course, increased exponentially. Struggles on local issues were taken up and linked to the national issues.
TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FARMERS’ STRUGGLE
Today the entire country is being put up for sale through the government’s policy of reckless privatisation of the public sector, and through the National Monetisation Pipeline. Pro-corporate policies are being peddled under cover of the slogan of ‘atmanirbharata’. There is no public sector in India which has not been put up for privatisation and sale to Indian and foreign corporates – be it railways, airlines, airports, ports, mines, steel, coal, oil, irrigation, power, telecom, banks, insurance, education, health, and even defence. Now agriculture and land are on its hit list. And it was this that was resolutely opposed by the farmers’ struggle. The repeal of the three Farm Laws was a significant victory for the farmers and the people, and a humiliating defeat for the forces of corporate communalism.
However, the key issues of a legal guarantee of a remunerative MSP and procurement; sharp cuts in the rising prices of agricultural inputs; massive expansion towards a universal PDS with additional items; withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill; freedom from indebtedness; a comprehensive crop insurance scheme; greater expansion of credit, irrigation and power facilities; a repeal of the four Labour Codes; halving the astronomical prices of diesel, petrol, cooking gas and other essential commodities; doubling the days of work and wages for agricultural workers under the MGNREGA and extending the scheme to the urban areas; withdrawal of the New Education Policy; and most important, radical land reforms and a halt to the selling off of the country for a pittance through the government’s privatization drive of the public sector and the so-called National Monetisation Pipeline; all these and other issues need to be taken up through sustained and mass nation-wide struggles.
The farmers’ struggle and its victories should provide the inspirational template for these struggles ahead.
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Dr Ashok Dhawale is the National President, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)
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