Ashok Dhawale: 'Freedom to be exploited"

I n March 2018, the All India Kisan Sabha mobilised 50,000 peasants to march a distance of 180 kilometres from Nashik to Mumbai in order to make their voice heard on several issues plaguing the agriculture sector. To combat unprecedented agrarian distress and cascading farmer suicides, the AIKS has for long demanded a one-time loan waiver by the Central government for all farmers and agricultural workers; implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of declaring MSP at one and a half times the cost of production and setting up a universal machinery for government procurement at this MSP; revamping of the PM Fasal Bima Yojana to help farmers reeling under floods, droughts and other natural calamities, not corporate insurance companies, as is the case now; massive expansion of the MGNREGA with increase in the number of days and wages and its extension to urban areas to combat burgeoning unemployment everywhere; stringent implementation of the Forest Rights Act to vest land in the names of Adivasi farmers; and so on. Apart from trampling over the rights of the States to enact the legislation related to agriculture, the provisions of the Bills take away the rights of the State to regulate agricultural marketing or contract farming, to intervene in the interest of the State’s farmers in cases of dispute and malpractices by companies, or to impose taxes and levies. Apart from the fundamental elements of this net, which I have enumerated above, we have been stressing from day one of this COVID lockdown that considering the massive rural and urban distress, Rs.7,500 a month for every non-income tax paying family in the country and 10 kg of grain, one kilogram each of dal, sugar and cooking oil per head a month must be given gratis by the Central government till the pandemic ends. There is a real fear among farmers and consumers that the Central government is moving in the direction of winding up the MSP, government procurement of food grains and the public distribution system altogether.