P. Sainath

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India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian. 

It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational
crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth
fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no longer just a
measure of loss of land. Nor only a measure of loss of human life, jobs or
productivity. It is a measure of our own loss of humanity. Of the shrinking
boundaries of our humaneness. That we have sat by and watched the deepening
misery of the dispossessed, including the death by suicide of well over 300,000
farmers these past 20 years. While some – ‘leading economists’ – have mocked
the enormous suffering around us, even denying the existence of a crisis.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has not published
data on farmers’ suicides for two years now. For some years before that,
fraudulent data logged in by major states severely distorted the agency’s
estimates. For instance, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and many others claimed
‘zero suicides’ by farmers in their states. In 2014, 12 states and 6 Union Territories
claimed ‘zero suicides’ among their farmers. The 2014  and 2015 NCRB reports saw <a href="https://psainath.org/the-slaughter-of-suicide-data/">huge, shameless
fiddles in the methodology</a> – aimed at bringing down the
numbers.

And yet they keep rising.

Meanwhile, protests by farmers and labourers are on the
rise. Farmers have been shot dead – as
in Madhya Pradesh. Derided or cheated in agreements, as in Maharashtra. And
devastated by demonetisation, as in just about everywhere. Anger and pain are mounting
in the countryside. And not just among farmers but amongst labourers who find
the MNREGA being dismantled by design. Amongst fisherfolk, forest communities,  artisans, exploited anganwadi workers. Amongst those
who send their children to government schools, only to find the state itself
killing its own schools. Also, small government employees and transport and public
sector workers whose jobs are on the anvil.

Jaideep Hardikar

And the crisis of the rural is no longer confined to the
rural. <a href="https://www.epw.in/journal/2017/38/commentary/stagnant-employment-growth.html">Studies</a>
suggest an absolute decline in employment in the country between 2013-14 and
2015-16.

The 2011 Census <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/census-findings-point-to-decade-of-rural-distress/article2484996.ece">signalled</a>
perhaps the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/decadal-journeys-debt-and-despair-spur-urban-growth/article2487670.ece">greatest
distress-driven migrations</a> we’ve seen in independent India.
And millions of poor fleeing the collapse of their livelihoods have moved out
to other villages, rural towns, urban agglomerations, big cities – in search of
jobs that are not there. Census 2011 logs nearly <a href="https://psainath.org/over-2000-fewer-farmers-every-day/">15 million fewer
farmers</a> (‘main cultivators’) than there were in 1991. And you
now find many once-proud food-producers working as domestic servants. The poor
are now up for exploitation by both urban and rural elites.

The government tries its best not to listen. It’s the same
with the news media.

When the media do skim over the issues, they mostly reduce
them to demands for a ‘loan waiver.’ In recent days, they’ve recognised the minimum
support price (MSP) demand of farmers – the Cost of Production (CoP2) + 50 per
cent. But the media don’t challenge the government’s claims of already having
implemented this demand. Nor do they mention that the National Commission on
Farmers (NCF; popularly known as the Swaminathan Commission) flagged a bunch of
other, equally serious issues. Some of the NCF’s reports have remained in
Parliament 12 years without discussion. Also the media, while denouncing loan
waiver appeals, won’t mention that corporates and businessmen account for the bulk
of the non-performing assets drowning the banks.

Perhaps the time has come for a very large, democratic
protest, alongside a demand for Parliament to hold a three-week or 21-day
special session dedicated entirely to the crisis and related issues. A joint
session of both houses.

Binaifer Bharucha

On what principles would that session be based? The Indian
Constitution. Specifically, the most important of its Directive Principles of
State Policy. That chapter speaks of a need to “minimise the inequalities in
income” and “endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities,
opportunities….”   The principles call
for “a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall
inform all the institutions of the national life.”

The right to work, to education, to social security. The
raising of the level of nutrition and of public health. The right to a better
standard of living. Equal pay for equal work for men and women. Just and humane
conditions of work. These are amongst the main principles. The Supreme Court
has more than once said the Directive Principles are as important as our
Fundamental Rights.

An agenda for the special session? Some suggestions that
others concerned by the situation can amend or add to:

3 days: Discussion of the Swaminathan Commission report
– 12 years overdue. It submitted five reports between <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/search/?q=Swaminathan+Commission+reports&amp;type=resource&amp;language=en&amp;sort-by=relevance">December 2004 and
October 2006</a> that cover a multitude of vital issues
and not just MSP. Those include, to name a few: productivity, profitability,
sustainability; technology and technology fatigue; dryland farming, price
shocks and stabilisation – and much more. We also need to halt the
privatisation of agricultural research and technology. And deal with impending
ecological disaster.

3 days:  People’s testimonies. Let
victims of the crisis speak from the floor of Parliament’s central hall and
tell the nation what the crisis is about, what it has done to them and
countless millions of others. And it’s not just about farming. But how surging
privatisation of health and education has devastated the rural poor, indeed all
the poor. Health expenditure is either the fastest or second fastest growing
component of rural family debt.

3 days:  Credit crisis. The unrelenting
rise of indebtedness. This has been a huge driving factor in the suicide deaths
of countless thousands of farmers, apart from devastating millions of others.
Often it has meant loss of much or all of their land. Policies on institutional
credit paved the way for the return of the moneylender.

3 days:  The country’s mega water crisis. It’s much
greater than a drought. This government seems determined to push through
privatisation of water in the name of ‘rational pricing’. We need the right to
drinking water established as a fundamental human right – and the banning of
privatisation of this life-giving resource in any sector. Ensuring social
control and equal access, particularly to the landless. 

3 days: The
rights of women farmers. The agrarian crisis cannot be resolved without
engaging with the rights – including those of ownership – and problems of those
who do the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/they-run-the-farm-they-made-the-march">most work in the
fields and farms</a>. While in the Rajya Sabha,  Prof. Swaminathan introduced the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/resources/the-women-farmers-entitlements-bill-2011/">Women Farmers’
Entitlements Bill</a>, 2011 (lapsed in 2013) that could still
provide a starting point for this debate. 

3 days: The rights
of landless labourers, both women and men. With mounting
distress migrations in many directions, this crisis is no longer just rural.
Where it is, any public investment made in agriculture has to factor in their
needs, their rights, their perspective.

3 days: Debate on
agriculture. What kind of farming do we want 20 years from now?
One driven by corporate profit? Or by communities and families for whom it is
the basis of their existence?  There are
also other forms of ownership and control in agriculture we need to press for –
like the vigorous sangha krishi (group farming) efforts of Kerala’s Kudumbashree
movement.  And we have to revive the
unfinished agenda of land reform. For all of the above debates to be truly meaningful – and this is very important – every one of them must focus, too, on the rights of Adivasi and Dalit farmers
and labourers.While no political party
would openly oppose such a session, who will ensure it actually happens? The
dispossessed themselves.

Shrirang Swarge

In March this year, 40,000 peasants and labourers <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/long-march-blistered-feet-unbroken-spirit">marched for a
week</a> from Nashik to Mumbai making some of these very
demands.  An arrogant government in
Mumbai dismissed the marchers as ‘urban Maoists’ with whom it would not talk. But
caved in within hours of the multitude reaching Mumbai to encircle the state
legislative assembly. That was the rural poor sorting out their government. 

The highly disciplined marchers struck a rare chord in
Mumbai. Not just the urban working class, but also the middle classes, even
some from the upper middle classes, stepped out in sympathy.

We need to do this at the national level – scaled up 25
times over. A Long March of the Dispossessed – not just of farmers and
labourers, but also others devastated by the crisis. And importantly, those not
affected by it – but moved by the misery of fellow human beings. Those standing
for justice and democracy. A march starting from everywhere in the country,
converging on the capital. No Red Fort rallies, nor skulls at Jantar Mantar. That
march should encircle Parliament – compel it to hear, listen and act. Yes, they would Occupy
Delhi.

It might take many months to get off the ground, a
gargantuan logistical challenge. One that has to be met by the largest and
widest coalition possible of farm, labour and other organisations. It will face
great hostility from the rulers – and their media – who would seek to undermine
it at every stage.

It can be done. Do not underestimate the poor –  it is they, not the chattering classes, who keep
democracy alive.

It would be one of the highest forms of democratic protest
– a million human beings or more showing up to ensure their representatives perform.
As a Bhagat Singh, if alive, might have said of them: they could make the deaf
hear, the blind see and the dumb speak.

A long march of the dispossessed to Delhi

കുടിയിറക്കപ്പെട്ടവരുടെ ലോങ് മാര്‍ച്ച്

ಇಲ್ಲದವರ ದೆಹಲಿ ದಂಡಯಾತ್ರೆ

দিল্লীলৈ বঞ্চিতসকলৰ লংমাৰ্চ

ਬੇਦਖ਼ਲ ਜਿਊੜਿਆਂ ਦਾ ਦਿੱਲੀ ਮਹਾਂ ਮਾਰਚ

চলো দিল্লি: সর্বহারার সংসদ অভিযান

वंचितांचा लाँग मार्च – चलो दिल्ली

வஞ்சிக்கப்பட்ட விவசாயிகள் வீறுகொண்டு எழுவது எப்படி?

ବେସାହାରାମାନଙ୍କର ଦିଲ୍ଲୀ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟନ୍ତ ଦୀର୍ଘ ପଦଯାତ୍ରା

बेदख़ल लोगों का लंबा मार्चः चलो दिल्ली

بے دخل لوگوں کا ایک لمبا مارچ: چلو دہلی

Mumbai

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A long march of the dispossessed to Delhi

Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament

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