Context: The political allegations levelled against the State in the context of the farmers’ protest are far removed from the facts.
For more than a month now, farmers are writing a new history, camping at the borders of Delhi.
In some manner, the upsurge by these farmers resembles the ‘Occupy Wallstreet Movement’ in the United States, in 2011, whose slogan reverberates even today across the world: “We are the 99 percent”.
Unflinching willpower
The government might have thought that the farmers would retreat to their villages after a couple of days or a week at the most, but this is not the mood at all among the farmers.
A self-contained lifestyle with all necessary arrangements for food, shelter, clothing, and sanitation are in place, represent the unflinching will of a people who consider agriculture as their culture.
Their utmost proximity to soil and nature has tempered them as steel, while helping them remain calm and cool at the same time.
The firefighters in the government are stubborn in saying that there can be no compromise on the implementation of the three Farm Bills.
But these sons and daughters of the soil, who sow the seeds of hope to feed their fellow beings, have maintained inimitable self-restraint.
Their struggle, their unity, their patience, and the massive nature of their battle are having an impact on the cohesive nature of the ruling alliance, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The government expected the farmers to tire out and slowly retreat from the battlefront. But it is mistaken.
The determination by the farmers to go on with the struggle is only strengthening by the day.
The situation in Kerala
There are no Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and mandis in Kerala, the concept of the Minimum Support Price is not prevalent in the State.
Mandis regulated by an APMC are not in existence in Kerala. But it does not mean that the interests of farmers are not taken care of in the State.
In fact, Kerala is the State where farmers’ rights are being protected by the government itself, and much more effectively than any other Indian State.
While the government of India has fixed the procurement rate for rice at ₹18 a kg, the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala is procuring rice from cultivators at ₹27.48 a kg.
In the same manner copra (dried coconut) is also procured at a much higher rate in Kerala than the price announced by the central government.
Kerala is the State where increased basic price is ensured not only for paddy but also vegetables and fruits.
Sixteen such items are enlisted by the government where the basic prices (per kg) are guaranteed. To cite some of them, tapioca (₹12), banana (₹30), garlic (₹139), pineapple (₹15), tomato (₹8), string beans (₹34), ladies’ fingers (₹20), cabbage (₹11) and potato (₹20).
Apart from crop insurance, paddy cultivators will get the royalty in Kerala at the rate of ₹2,000 per hectare.
In 2006, when farmers’ suicides became the order of the day across the country, the Left Front government introduced a debt relief commission that extended a helping hand to the farmers, thereby saving them.
The corporate stamp
This is the reality of the farm Bills. Though they claim ‘to enable’ the protection and the empowerment of farmers, the truth is just the opposite.
The purpose of these laws is the enabling of the corporatisation of Indian agriculture and the introduction of contract farming.
When Ministers continue to assure the continuance of mandis they are practically pushed out of the scene, as it happened in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere.
The annadatas know that these laws would ruin the backbone of the agricultural economy and badly affect the food security of India.
The farmers are in the struggle in order to prevent such a calamity from happening.
