Image courtesy: AP Photo/Manish Swarup
The All India Catholic Union (AICU) has expressed solidarity with farmers, and factory workers of all faiths across India. The 101-year-old organisation did so via a podcast in every official Indian language and even a few popular regional ones.
Among the languages spoken in the solidarity podcast were Hindi, Urdu and English, but also regional languages such as Tulu and Konkani. All listed national languages other than Sindhi were spoken by members participating in the Podcast, which is available on YouTube, and was live cast on Facebook by AICU spokesman John Dayal.
Introducing the podcast, he said, “The government has adopted an inhuman attitude towards the agitating farmers who are sitting outside the National Capital in biting cold and rainy weather. The new laws should be taken back immediately.”
AICU members are professionals, in services, and small businesses, and many of them work on the land – as farmers of paddy and other grains, as owners and workers in other agricultural produce including oilseeds, coffee, coconuts, areca nuts, spices.
“We therefore are naturally in solidarity with people of all faiths who are farmers, fishermen and workers in factories. We know and understand how much labour and sweat of the farmer goes into producing food for the country, and cash crops for export,” AICU National President Lancy D’Cunha said in a statement released to the media.
The AICU statement also said, “We know that the love the farmer has for the land, for the animals that he breeds, for the environment in which he labours. This cannot be measured in terms of just money,” adding, “We also know that in Europe and many other countries, the governments honour this labour of the farmer. Governments therefore give huge subsidies to their farmers.”
The statement further said, “We know that in the last ten years, more than 3.50 lakh [three lakh and fifty thousand] farmers have committed suicide because they could not repay their loans and the stress became too much. We therefore stand in total solidarity with the farmers who are now agitating at the gates of the National capital, New Delhi. The farmers have been in the struggle to save agriculture and thus save India from disaster, the AICU president said in the statement released to the media.”
AICU added, “The farmers are demanding the repeal of the three Agriculture laws that the government has recently enacted without any consultation and after throwing all democratic and even parliamentary procedures to the wind. These Agriculture laws, and the proposed Electricity Amendments, are detrimental to all people.”
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