Parth M.N.

Sharmila Joshi

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&quot;Inquilab
Zindabad,&quot; shouted a farm leader. &quot;Zindabad, Zindabad,&quot; the
farmers responded. At the end of a gruelling march across 180 kilometres, the exhausted farmers’ chants at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai – where the morcha concluded on March 12 – were less robust than they
were in Nashik, where the march began on March 6. But their collective spirit
remained unbeaten. Even after a week of walking in the heat, many with blistered
and bleeding feet, sleeping out in the open during the nights, eating little
food, even then the cries of &quot;Inquilab Zindabad&quot; didn’t go
unanswered.

The milestone march, organised
by the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha, the farmers&#39; collective of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist), began from CBS Chowk in
Nashik town with around 25,000 protesters. By the time the cultivators marched into Mumbai, their numbers had
grown to over 40,000, estimates Ajit Nawale, one of the organisers and general
secretary of the Kisan Sabha.  

All of them exhausted,
but with their determination intact.

As they went along, more
farmers from across the state joined the march at Shahapur (73 kilometres from
Mumbai)  and Thane (25 kilometres from
Mumbai). (See <a id="4459" linktype="page">From farm and forest: Long March to Mumbai</a>)&quot;The journey is
not as unbearable as the treatment meted out to us by the government,&quot; said
Vilas Babar, resting against a tempo parked at a ground in Bhiwandi taluka’s Sonale
village (around 55 kilometres from Azad Maidan), where the farmers were having
lunch on the afternoon of March 10. Dal and rice were being served from huge
aluminium vessels to thousands sitting on the ground. The farmers themselves had prepared the food
– each taluka
they came from had collectively pooled in the grains.

Shrirang Swarge

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A few hundred metres
before we reached the ground in Sonale, a dhaba on the highway served water to the thirsty farmers – four
employees of the eatery waiting with jugs of water and glasses, the jugs repeatedly
refilled from a nearby drum of water.

The rally had entered
its fifth day, and the farmers were still 55 kilometres from their destination
in south Mumbai. 

Babar, around 45, a farmer from Surpimpari village in Parbhani district of Marathwada,
took a train from Parbhani town to Nashik on March 5, and had been on the move
since. “What option did I have?” he asked. “The pink bollworm completely
infested cotton on my five acre farmland. It [the cotton that was to be
harvested] was around 60 quintals. Even if you go by the lowest estimate of 4,000
rupees per quintal, I lost close to 2.5 lakh rupees.” The bollworm attacked the cotton belts of Parbhani and
Vidarbha in November 2017, just around the time when cotton is harvested. 

Babar also cultivates tomatoes. “I am
imploring the traders to procure the harvest at 1 rupee a kilo, but they are
not interested [because the price of tomato has dropped so sharply, it has made
even the lowest rate unviable],” he said. “The government has to take note of
our demands, that include compensation to those hit by the bollworm and hailstorms [the state government estimates that 262,000 hectares were affected by hailstorms in Maharashtra; of these, around 98,500 hectares are in Marathwada, and 132,000 is in Vidarbha&#39;s Amravati district],  a minimum support price of 1.5
times the cost of production, a total loan waiver, and the implementation of Forest
Rights Act so that tribal farmers can get ownership of their land.”

On March 11, after starting out from Thane city at 11 a.m. after a morning meal on March 11 (having walked over 40 kms the previous day) , the farmers reached the KJ Somaiya Ground in Mumbai’s Chunabhatti area
around 9 p.m. There, they had planned to camp for the night. So Babar
thought he was done for the day. “I have had cramps in my legs since morning,”
he said, as the protestors poured into the ground, where the leaders of several
political parties made long speeches, delaying the dinner of the weary farmers.
“Tomorrow is the final leg,” he said. 

However, March 12 was a day when Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students would take their exams in Mumbai. The Kisan Sabha leaders
discussed this, and decided around 11:30 p.m. to resume walking after midnight,
so that the march would not hold up traffic, and students, the next day. Babar
had just reclined on a blanket, but his rest was cut short – he took a nap for
an hour, then picked up his blanket, put it back in his shoulder bag, and was
ready to start again at 1 a.m. 

Dignified in their desperation, the fatigued
farmers started trudging towards Azad Maidan, and reached the venue by 5 a.m. So
except for a short break in Vikhroli around 3 p.m., and an hour and a
half for dinner and some rest at the KJ Somaiya Ground – they had been walking for 14-15 hours of 18 hours by the time they reached south Mumbai. 

All along their route in Mumbai, the  farmers received a heartwarming welcome from
the city – individuals, residents’ associations, religious groups and political
parties queued up to offer water, biscuits and bananas at various junctions on
the Eastern Express highway and further into town.

At the Somaiya ground, I also met Kamalabai
Gaikwad, 65, just before midnight, as she walked up to a van distributing
painkillers. “There is no other way to continue,” she smiled. She had walked
barefoot from Nashik’s Dindori
village. The next day when I saw her, she was wearing chappals, a little too big for her worn-out
feet, but still, some footwear in the blistering heat. “Someone gave these to
me today morning,” she said.

Though more and more protesters
– with farmers from Dahanu, Marathwada, Shahapur
and other places – walking along  as the
march progressed, a significant number of the participants were Adivasi farmers
from Nashik district, who had started out on March 6. Their main demands are
ownership of land and irrigation facilities. 

Sindhubai Palve, in
her 50s, said it is high time she got a land title. “We toil on our land and
one day someone might take it away from us,” she said. Sindhubai, who belongs
to the Kol Mahadev Adivasi community, had come from Surgana taluka’s
Karvad hamlet. “Why can’t we get what is ours?” she
asked, “Also, the [Nar-Par and Damanganga-Pinjal] river project will eat into the land in Surgana [and will
displace Advasi farmers].” (See <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/they-run-the-farm-they-made-the-march">They run the farm, they made the March</a>)

Sindhubai, who I met
first in Bhiwandi and then at Azad Maidan, like many in the march, was walking
with cracked feet and blisters, applying a medicinal cream – given to her by an
ambulance accompanying the march – every night. “I have three acres of land,
where I cultivate rice,” she said, sweating. “But we do not have enough water.
We cannot sustain by solely depending on monsoons.”

When the morcha
reached Azad Maidan, amid the ocean of red flags and caps, several journalists from television channels and
newspapers tried to speak to the farmers. But the farmers were so exhausted
that many refused to talk, and requested they be left alone while they listened
to the speeches of CPI(M) leaders on the stage. 

By the evening of March 12, the chief
minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, said the government is “sensitive”
to the farmers, and will give a written draft of the solutions to their
concerns within two months. The delegation of farm leaders that met Fadnavis
then decided to cancel their plans of encircling the Vidhan Sabha building. The
farm leaders who negotiated with the state government called off the protest
after Fadnavis gave his assurances in writing, and promised to table them in
the Assembly. (<a id="4480" linktype="page">See After the March, the aftermath…</a>)The success of the march was evident not only from the government’s announcements. Three of its ministers actually showed up at Azad Maidan to tell the marchers that their major demands on Maharashtra’s aborted loan waiver, the change in the period it covers, and on the forest land rights of Adivasi farmers, had been conceded. The government also set up a six-member cabinet committee to quickly enforce these and pursue the other remaining issues such as pricing, health facilities for farmers and labourers, and more.When the decision to conclude the march
was announced, Sindhubai said, simply, “We trust our leaders” and got ready to
catch one of the two trains arranged by the Central Railways from CSMT to Bhusawal later in the night.
“We will see if the government acts on its promises. If not, we are ready to
march again.”Also see <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/i-am-a-farmer-i-walk-this-long-journey">&#39;I am a farmer, I walk this long journey&#39;</a> and <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/albums/from-fields-of-despair---a-march-with-hope">From fields of despair – a march with hope </a>

Long March: Blistered feet, unbroken spirit

ଦୀର୍ଘ ଯାତ୍ରା, କ୍ଷତାକ୍ତ ପାଦ ଓ ଦୃଢ ମନୋବଳ

लॉन्ग मार्च: पैरों में हैं छाले, दिल में अटूट हौसला

لمبا مارچ: آبلہ پا، پختہ عزم

লংমাৰ্চঃ ভৰিত জোলা ফুটিলেও প্ৰেৰণা অদম্য

ক্ষত পায়ে, অক্ষত প্রত্যয়ে আগুয়ান এক অনন্য লং মার্চ

लाँग मार्चः भेगाळलेली पावलं तरी अभंग अशी उमेद

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Long March: Blistered feet, unbroken spirit

The protesting farmers who assembled at Azad Maidan on March 12, drawing support from Mumbaikars along the way, know they’ve won a battle but not the war – 'We are ready to march again', they say

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