Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 28 February 2024

Goodwill Train To Delhi

SAVES TONNES, HELPS KISANS

By Shivaji Sarkar 

The farmers’ determination to march to Delhi stems from the profound belief that voices resonating in the capital echo throughout the nation. Allowing them access to the National Capital to articulate their concerns would validate their sense of being heard and acknowledged. 

A simple act of facilitating their travel by train from Ambala, a mere two-hour journey, to New Delhi could alleviate tensions and reflect positively on the government’s willingness to resolve a longstanding issue. This pragmatic approach not only avoids congesting roads but also signifies a proactive step towards dialogue and reconciliation. 

Kisans are struggling since 1960s and their demands remain unchanged. They want minimum prices and the political system has been denying the right prices to them while unmindful of the rising commodity prices since the time of Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 

It has been a problem during the Nehruvian era as well. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru himself started as a farmers’ leader of the Congress party, that led to the enactment of the UP Tenancy Act in 1938, considered those days a revolutionary act on land reforms. This law set in motion significant changes in agrarian structure setting in the abolition of the zamindari system in 1950s. It was an important milestone in land reforms. 

Still without a “foreign” hand the MSP for crops had not been possible. In 1959, a team of the Ford Foundation comprising US agricultural officials and scientists travelled to different states, met the people in villages, officers and chief ministers to understand the food production problems. It submitted a report to then minister for agriculture AP Jain called “India’s Food Crisis”. It paved the way for “guaranteed minimum price, publicised before the planting season, a market and its availability within bullock-cart hauling distance”. That is how the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) or Mandi Samitis came into being. It, however, took five years to start the MSP in 1964 from paddy season shortly after Nehru’s death. 

The country remembers the intense drought of the 1960s leading to food grain imports from the US, proverbially known as ‘ship to mouth’ existence. Though a good beginning in a country that had no system of organised kisan market, it faced a mismatch between the production price and input costs. Still the MSP ensured that farmers prosper in many states. 

One of the biggest farmers’ rallies was organised by Indira Gandhi as prime minister at the Boat Club, India Gate, lawns in March 1981, for launching son, Rajiv Gandhi. It was her reaction to the danger of a widespread, opposition-led kisan movement and erosion of the agrarian base of the Congress(I). Interestingly, kisan leader and father of defections Charan Singh never organised a farmers’ stir. 

A still bigger rally at the Boat Club was held during Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministership by western UP, Bharatiya Kisan Union, leader Mahendra Singh Tikait in 1988. They had a langar there for days together. Over a lakh kisans continued their sit-ins. They were addressed by opposition leaders, ministers and Rajiv Gandhi himself. It was a major media story even on Doordarshan.

All over the country several farm movements were held at states. Shetkari Sangathan held several rallies between 1980 and 2014 led by Sharad Joshi. Many of these confined to Vidarbha did not get much publicity.  The Left resolved West Bengal land issues. 

In 2009, the Tata group was forced to abandon plans to set up a factory at Singur in West Bengal to build Nano - the world’s cheapest car - after protests by farmers. It caused a political upheaval in West Bengal bringing the end to 34 year-long Left rule and rise of maverick Mamata Banerjee’s TMC. In 2011, there were violent clashes between farmers and police in the Bhatta-Parsaul villages of northern Uttar Pradesh over the acquisition of farmland for road and industry. 

On October 2, 2012, Gandhi Jayanti day, about 50,000 poor farmers, members of rural communities, including the landless and the tribal community, on a Jan Satyagraha, marching from different parts of southern India converged at Gwalior to continue their march to New Delhi. An alarmed UPA government, sent Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and Commerce Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to meet the organisers -- a non-governmental organisation called Ekta Parishad -- to accept the government’s promise that a draft national land reform policy would be prepared in six months. 

The Jan Satyagrah protesters did get lukewarm response in the media, but they were firm that welfare programmes like the rural jobs (MNREGA) were no solution to poverty. They demanded that their land be not acquired for roads and industry as land sustained livelihood and could lift tens of millions out of poverty. The ministers’ promises were not fulfilled during the UPA regime. 

The next NDA regime in 1920 brought three legislations allowing farmers freedom to sell their produce to anybody and anywhere; with price assurances and contract farming. It stirred a 17-month long agitation by farmers of UP, Punjab and Haryana at borders till these were withdrawn on December 11, 2021. 

Those unfulfilled promises, rising prices, severe mismatch between input cost and MSP stirred the present agitation by Punjab farmers on February 13 for marching to Delhi only to be prevented by the Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar’s highhanded police action with one death and 177 hurt at the Shambhu border in Punjab off Ambala. Borders around Delhi are sealed with barbed wire, fencing, sharp spikes, concretised walls and posse of policemen. Four rounds of talks were held at Chandigarh with central ministers. But farmers rejected diversion of cropping pattern and MSP guarantee on five crops other than wheat and rice. The Sanyukt Kisan Union led farmers from UP is now joining it. 

The government can solve it with empathy. It could arrange a two-hour local EMU train ride to New Delhi, allow a rally at Ramlila Ground, a km from New Delhi station, and hold talks with their leaders. Intelligently government leaders could address the farmers and win their hearts with a promise to holistically review the myriad farm issues and the vexed MSP. Satisfied farmers could go back by the same train in the evening possibly ensuring a political bonanza for the government on poll-eve. It would save tonnes in fortifying Delhi, may be enough to fund guaranteed MSP with immense goodwill.---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)