15 August 2016
Shetkari Sanghatana Demands
Minimum Secure Earning for Farmers, Farm Labourers
Thousands
of farmers came together under the banner of Shetkari Sanghatana in Anjangaon Surji,
a tehsil town in Amravati District in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra on the eve
of Independence Day to ask when will they have their freedom. They gathered at
Tehsil office, where they were stopped by barricades put up by the commando police
deployed there to prevent them from reaching the flag hoisting site in Tehsil
office. They sported red and white Sanghatana badges on their chest and black
bands on their foreheads asking “आमचे स्वातंत्र्य केंव्हा?”.
The administration put up the condition that the farmers
should remove their forehead bands if they want to attend the flag-hoisting
ceremony. This they refused to do. After protesting at Tehsildar office they
moved in a kilometer-long peaceful procession to the Market Yard grounds for a
rally. The procession was headed by a bullock cart carrying Vijay Jawandhia, Prakash
Pohre and Laxman Wange, all leaders of the Sanghatana as well as Bacchu Kadu,
independent MLA of the neighbouring Achalpur constituency, and others.
AT the Market Yard the farmers heard
their leaders for two-and-a-half hours and at the end took the Sanghatana oath
not to rest till farmers’ lives are transformed into honorable ones.
Many speakers
discussed the non-implementation of Swaminathan Report and blamed it on the
official policy of exploitation of the farmer. Girish Sahasrabudhe said that
the system is increasingly dominated by finance corporations and that those who
live by their own knowledge and their labour have been reduced to a less than
human condition with unequal treatment in all spheres of life activity. He
said that farmers along with the farm labourer, the artisan and the adivasi demand
that it is the first duty of the government to put in place a system in which
their minimum income is at least equal to the minimum pay recommended by the Seventh
Pay Commission and that this income should be regular.
Prakash Pohre
exhorted the farmers to strongly resist injustice piled upon them. He
said that the farmers will not rest now and that this was the beginning of a
new phase of farmers’ movement. He said the movement was fortunate to have
mentors like Vijay Jawandhia who is among those few who kept up the resistance
during the lean period after 1990. Vijay Jawandhia spoke about the misleading
announcements of the Government and misconceived policies like crop insurance
and Make-in-India. He talked in detail about the Seventh Pay Commission
recommendations and wondered how the Government plans to double the income of
the farmer by 2020. He surmised that the minimum wage in the next pay
commission may be around Rs 50,000 per month and demanded that the Government
should come out with a clear plan within one year on how it plans to increase
the minimum income of each farmer to this level.
-
Girish Sahasrabudhe
Lokavidya Jan Andolan, Nagpur
-
Girish Sahasrabudhe
Lokavidya Jan Andolan, Nagpur
