India farmer protests grow in fight to stop gov’t assaults
https://themilitant.com/2020/12/19/india-farmer-protests-grow-in-fight-to-stop-govt-assaults/
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 51
December 28, 2020
Tens of thousands of farmers in camp near Indian capital New Delhi
protest government assault on their livelihoods. Inset, car caravan in
Montreal Dec. 12 in solidarity with farmers’ actions.
VIKAR SYED/AL-JAZEERA; INSET, MILITANT/KATY LEROUGETEL
Tens of thousands of farmers in camp near Indian capital New Delhi
protest government assault on their livelihoods. Inset, car caravan in
Montreal Dec. 12 in solidarity with farmers’ actions.
Tens of thousands of farmers continue their protest blockade around New
Delhi, the Indian capital, demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi
withdraw new agricultural laws that will drive down the prices farmers
receive for their crops. They’re fighting to defend their livelihoods
and prevent more of them from being driven off the land.
Thousands of farmers arrive each day to swell their encampments. Talks
between farm leaders and government ministers remain deadlocked.
“We will not allow the government to change the rules because they want
to hurt farmers’ income by filling the pockets of big companies,”
Gurwinder Singh, a 66-year-old farmer from Punjab told Reuters at a Dec.
8 protest.
Working farmers from the northern states, many of them Sikhs, have
spearheaded the actions. On Dec. 13 hundreds from Rajasthan stalled
traffic for hours on the Delhi-Jaipur national highway as police blocked
their march into the capital. The next day, farm leaders held a daylong
hunger strike, while others staged sit-ins outside government offices.
The governing Bharatiya Janata Party pushed the bills through parliament
in September, anticipating that strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns it
imposed would limit opposition to these moves.
The legislation is to end the decades-old system of state purchases of
farmers’ wheat and rice at fixed rates, food that is distributed to
millions of people at subsidized prices. The new laws would lift
restrictions on big capitalists stockpiling food to manipulate prices
and allow them to more easily buy up land from debt-laden small farmers.
“Our students are going to many villages across Punjab to educate
farmers about this new farm bill and its negative effects,” Sukhripir
Kaur, 22, of the Punjab Students Union, told Al-Jazeera Dec. 14. “Our
parents work in the fields and they are the backbone of our economy.
What will they do if our land will be controlled by the government and
corporate sectors?”
Convoys of tractors with covered trailers set up as makeshift shelters
stretch for miles outside of New Delhi. Large community kitchens prepare
free meals all day for those joining the protests. The kitchen at Singhu
feeds nearly 30,000 farmers and others.
Temporary medical centers staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses dot
the camps. Everything from impromptu libraries and bookstalls to
laundries have sprung up. Farmers are in for the long haul, building up
their stockpiles of supplies. Separate facilities are being erected so
more women can stay in the camps.
Modi said Dec. 12 that the farm laws are part of his “modernizing”
drive, backed by the ruling capitalist families. His assertion that this
would “make farmers more prosperous” is actually aimed at boosting big
capitalist farm owners at the expense of millions of small farmers.
The vast majority of India’s farmers, already struggling to make a
living on inherited family plots of less than five acres, know they will
be worse off. Burdened by growing indebtedness, India’s rural poor have
one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
Under pressure of the protests, Modi made a belated offer to retain some
of the price supports, but leaders of about 30 farmers’ unions at the
head of the actions say it’s not enough.
“If the government wants to hold talks we are ready, but our main demand
will remain the scrapping of the three new farm laws,” farm leader
Kanwalpreet Singh Pannu told the press.
The opposition Indian National Congress party backs the protests. Some
of Modi’s ministers have denounced the actions, claiming they are
instigated by the rulers of neighboring China or Pakistan. Others have
redbaited farmers alleging their actions are infiltrated by “leftist and
Maoist elements.”
“This government wants to give control of Indian farming to big
corporates,” Balram Singh, 25, son of a farming family from Punjab
state, told The Times of London at the Singhu border encampment Dec. 14.
“Farmers will not survive. People will die.”
Big capital has long demanded the Indian economy function as a single
market. Modi aims to boost investment from foreign and domestic
capitalists to enhance his “Make in India” campaign. In 2017 his
government eradicated a multitude of varying tax regulations across the
country’s different states for the same reason.
India has the world’s fifth largest economy. Despite the acceleration of
urbanization and industrialization in recent years, more than half of
the country’s population of 1.35 billion remains dependent on farming.
The capitalist rulers hope to drive more ruined farmers into the cities
to work in India’s expanding industry.
Since the 1960s the use of higher yielding crop varieties has helped
farmers increase production and reduce widespread food shortages in
decades past. Today India is the world’s second largest producer of such
crops as wheat and rice, as well as fruits and vegetables. But working
farmers have paid the price for this development, increasingly burdened
down by loans to buy the necessary seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and
machinery.
Workers protest unpaid wages
The farmers’ actions have given new confidence to workers to fight the
bosses’ attacks. Thousands of workers at the Wistron manufacturing plant
in Bangalore gathered to protest outside the plant Dec. 13, demanding
unpaid wages and a reduction in working hours. The company makes iPhones
for Apple. When the cops arrived some of the workers ransacked the
plant, forcing bosses to suspend production.
Cops detained about 160 of the workers. A minister for the state of
Karnataka where the plant is located said its labor department would
investigate any underpayment of wages.
The farmers’ actions have attracted support internationally, including
from Indian immigrant workers in imperialist countries from North
America to western Europe. Solidarity car caravans were staged in New
York, New Jersey and Montreal Dec. 13. These came after a larger protest
in Washington, D.C., the previous day.
The most popular signs say, “No farmers, no food.”
Front Page Articles
No layoffs! Cut workweek with no cut in weekly pay!
Workers and farmers need to chart our own road forward
New Rochelle nurses fight for more staff, new contract
India farmer protests grow in fight to stop gov’t assaults
Family leads protests for arrest of cop who killed Casey Goodson Jr.
Socialist Workers Party campaigns widely with ‘Militant,’ action program
Feature Articles
Protests across Kurdistan demand unpaid wages, jobs, services
Also In This Issue
Venezuelan elections deal blow to US rulers’ attacks
Bob Cantrick, communist cadre for over 5 decades
Walmart workers give ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP
US executes two more federal inmates, three others scheduled
Editorials
Holiday greetings to workers behind bars
On the Picket Line
Rolls-Royce jet engine workers strike to defend their jobs
Books of the Month
Teamsters show ‘with proper leadership, workers can overcome’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
© Copyright 2020 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxxx
Cookies
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn more.
Okay, thanks
--
Carl Sagan “Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No,
no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection
for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics,
Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s
done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule
is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away.” ― Carl
Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark