Kisan Khet Mazdoor Mahapanchayat to defend land and agrarian livelihoods

18 March 2013, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

A historic mobilization of more than 1 lakh [one hundred thousands] farmers, farm workers and agrarian masses belonging to a wide variety of social movements from across descended upon New Delhi today. Protestors at the “Kisan Khet Mazdoor Mahapanchayat” displayed their collective commitment towards getting the government’s attention to reverse the grave agrarian crisis caused by liberalization reforms supporting foreign investors, corporations; reforms that support elite consumerism instead of the agrarian masses and common people of India. Farmers from the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers’ Movements (ICCFM) comprising of independent mass farmers groups such as the Bhartiya Kisan Union and the Karnataka Farmers Movement (KRRS), have joined hands with the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) to defend rights to land, water, forest and seeds – the most important resources for agrarian people, and the source of food and livelihood for the Indian masses.

Addressing the masses at Jantar Mantar, Naresh Tikait, National Chairperson of BKU said, “Millions of food producers are being forced to abandon agriculture and leave the villages in search of insecure, unavailable jobs. Or they are pushed to even commit suicide in lakhs. At this rate, there will soon be only a small number of farmers left in the country. Our agriculture will be controlled by a handful of private corporations which exploit people in order to maximize their profits. Is this is a sensible route to take in an age of a deep environmental crisis, when thousands are dying of hunger and need a secure livelihood? If the Indian government continues to promote unharnessed industrialization and elite consumerism then where will the water and electricity come from for such large industrial projects and what will be the impact on nature and the poor?”

Speaking on the land acquisition act, Rakesh Tikait of BKU said, “Agriculture has been turned into a losing way of life: our lands, the main resource for our livelihoods, are being grabbed for private corporations. We have been trying to get the attention of the government but they have no time for the farmers. They make false verbal commitment. But this time our farmers committee has made a resolution that we will not move from Delhi until we get a serious commitment from the UPA government.”

All the farmers’ leaders collectively burned the Land Acquisition & Resettlement and Rehabilition Act 2011, which has been high on the national political agenda these days. Pointing out that although farmers supported a new land bill, they absolutely did not support the current form of the bill which has ignored the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee and converted the bill into an instrument for taking away farm land for private corporations. Medha Patkar of the NAPM said, “The first right over land is of farmers, so that they can produce food for the Indian masses, and have a livelihood. The bill should be returned to the parliamentary standing committee. Instead of grabbing more land the government should tell us first what it is doing with all the land that it has already taken from people over the last so many years, not even providing compensation or rehabilitation to the poor who have given up their land. The Indian government cannot grab our land for private corporations at any cost.”.

In the five point demand created by the Mahapanchayat, farmers income was pointed out as a major issue. “The average income of a farming household is a mere Rs 1,800, not enough to cover even basic needs. Even the lowest government employee, a peon, gets about Rs 20,000. How are we expected to survive at this rate? Farmers should get a guaranteed income like all other government officials,” said Rajpal Sharma of BKU. Calling the MSP(Minimum Support Price) an unjust and unscientific category which does not even cover the cost of production, they have instead asked for a profitable and remunerative price of all crops, which they call the Farmers and Remunerative Prices (FRP). Nandini Jairam of KRRS said , “the government is always proudly announcing more and more loans for the farmers. This is not going to help the farmer but push him further into debt, the main cause of farmers’ suicides. The government should be directly accountable for improving the net incomes of farming households and this is how we will measure the performance of the government. A National Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act should be created which will assure a guaranteed income to farmers, tenants and sharecroppers by making farming remunerative.”

When asked about the performance of the agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, Mr Pankaj Bhushan of the Alliance of Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture said, “Sharad Pawar is under the influence of Monsanto. Instead of supporting the majority of the small farmers of our country, so many of whom have committed suicide because of debt, Pawar is openly promoting controversial GMOs. Even the government’s own CICR has admitted that Bt cotton has failed but Pawar continues to push for this instead of supporting successful ecological farming models that are all over the country. He is anti farmer and anti national.”

“What we need is a secure market for our produce. Even if we increase productivity through various available technologies, where will we sell our crops? If we are given a market we can produce more than any GM in the world. Instead UPA is promoting free trade agreements, such as the EU-India FTA so that they can dump their produce in our country, pushing our local farmers out of business” said Yudhvir Singh of BKU.

Swami Agnivesh expressed his great contentment that at a time when a corrupt and anti people government continues to carry out its anti people agenda, it is a great sign that peoples movements are coming together to defend the rights of the common man and especially the Anna Datas. “It is a great shame for our country that we allow the suicides of our farmers and in fact deny that farmers’ suicides are going on. The parliament should have an emergency special session on the agrarian crisis.”

Chukki Nanjundaswamy of KRRS said, “The government has been sleeping, but this time we have come here from across the country and we will not leave Jantar Mantar unless they respond to our demands.”