The MVA has put forth a set of ambitious proposals aimed at transforming the agricultural landscape of Maharashtra. By focusing on financial security, infrastructure development, and long-term sustainability, the manifesto seeks to create a more supportive environment for farmers. Key commitments include ensuring Minimum Support Prices (MSP), simplifying crop insurance schemes, and investing in rural infrastructure. These measures are designed not only to alleviate the immediate financial burden on farmers but also to address the structural issues that have long hindered the agricultural sector in the state. With a focus on improving market access, offering financial relief to affected families, and promoting agricultural diversification, the MVA’s promises seek to lay the groundwork for a more resilient and thriving farming community in Maharashtra. These promises have been discussed in detail below:

Immediate relief for farmers: Debt waiver and loan repayment incentives

Maharashtra has one of the highest rates of farmer suicides in India, a tragic statistic that has often been linked to the crushing burden of agricultural debt. Farmers in the state are particularly vulnerable due to their reliance on monsoon-dependent crops, which often fail due to unpredictable weather patterns, such as droughts, floods, or delayed rainfall. In the face of these challenges, many farmers turn to loans from moneylenders, often with exorbitant interest rates, which further entrench them in debt.

The MVA’s promise to offer debt waivers of up to Rs. 3,00,000 to farmers is a direct response to this crisis. It is not just an economic relief measure but also a symbolic gesture aimed at restoring the dignity and financial viability of Maharashtra’s farmers. The debt waiver will enable farmers to break free from the cycle of indebtedness that has plagued them for years, providing them with the opportunity to rebuild their agricultural operations and reinvest in their future. Moreover, the Rs. 50,000 incentive for regular loan repayment serves as a proactive measure to encourage fiscal discipline and reduce future borrowing risks, creating a positive feedback loop for the state’s agricultural economy.

These promises are particularly important in light of Maharashtra’s history of poor loan recovery, which has often led to distress and contributed to the high rate of farmer suicides. By addressing both the immediate financial burden and incentivising responsible loan repayment, the MVA is taking a significant step toward reducing the root causes of farmer distress.

Support for families affected by farmer suicides

Maharashtra has long struggled with the devastating impact of farmer suicides. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, the state consistently ranks high in terms of farmer suicide rates, a reflection of the profound emotional and financial toll these tragedies take on farming families. In many cases, farmers face not only economic ruin but also the societal stigma associated with failure. The families of those who commit suicide are often left to fend for themselves with little to no support from the government.

The MVA’s promise to review existing schemes and enhance support for widows and children of farmer suicide victims is an essential social welfare intervention. By providing financial support, education scholarships for children, and healthcare benefits, the MVA seeks to ensure that the families of deceased farmers do not fall into further poverty or despair. This initiative will go a long way in alleviating the long-term social and emotional impacts of farm-related suicides, offering a lifeline to those left behind in a community already struggling with poverty and uncertainty.

This promise is particularly relevant to Maharashtra’s rural landscape, where traditional social structures often fail to provide the necessary emotional or financial support for grieving families. It reflects an understanding of the need for not just material but also emotional security in the wake of such tragedies.

Minimum support prices and crop insurance reforms

Maharashtra’s farmers are often at the mercy of fluctuating market prices, which are heavily influenced by both domestic and global factors. Whether it’s cotton, onion, or sugarcane, price volatility has left many farmers struggling to break even. While the Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanism exists to protect farmers from severe losses, it is often inadequate, especially for crops where procurement systems are weak or non-existent. For instance, onion farmers in Maharashtra have frequently faced crises when prices plummet, leaving them with losses as their produce rots in the fields.

The MVA’s commitment to ensuring MSP for farmers is critical in this context. By guaranteeing a minimum price for agricultural produce, the government is providing a safety net that helps protect farmers from market volatility. This policy is particularly relevant in Maharashtra, where crops like onions, tomatoes, and pulses are grown in abundance but often face unpredictable pricing in the open market. Farmers will no longer have to bear the brunt of market forces alone, which can be particularly devastating during periods of bumper harvests or price crashes.

In addition, simplifying the crop insurance scheme will ensure that farmers receive timely compensation for losses due to natural disasters. Maharashtra is no stranger to droughts and floods, and the complexity of the current crop insurance system often discourages farmers from opting into the scheme. By removing burdensome conditions and ensuring greater transparency, the MVA promises to make crop insurance more accessible, especially to smallholder farmers who are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. This reform could significantly reduce the financial risks faced by farmers in the state, enabling them to recover faster from setbacks.

Sustainable farming: The ‘Maharashtra Millet Mission’ and environmental protection

Climate change has already had a visible impact on Maharashtra’s agriculture. Erratic rainfall patterns, long periods of drought, and rising temperatures have made traditional farming increasingly unviable in certain parts of the state. Crops like cotton, sugarcane, and rice, which are water-intensive, have faced lower yields due to these climatic changes, while farmers in drought-prone areas have struggled to make ends meet.

The MVA’s ‘Maharashtra Millet Mission’ is a timely and forward-thinking initiative. Millets, which are drought-resistant and require less water, can be a game-changer for the state’s farmers, particularly those in dryland areas. By promoting the cultivation of millets, the government aims to diversify crop production, reduce dependence on water-intensive crops, and ensure greater resilience to climate fluctuations. This mission also has the potential to boost local food security and create new markets for these nutritious crops, which have been largely neglected in India’s agricultural policies.

This initiative resonates with Maharashtra’s farming community, especially in districts like Marathwada and Vidarbha, which face recurring droughts and water scarcity. It provides farmers with an alternative that is both economically viable and ecologically sustainable, aligning with global trends towards more climate-resilient agriculture.

Milk prices and horticultural support: Securing livelihoods

Dairy farming is a vital part of Maharashtra’s agricultural economy, and milk is one of the state’s largest rural industries. However, dairy farmers have long faced issues such as fluctuating milk prices, poor infrastructure, and inadequate support for processing and marketing. The MVA’s promise to set milk prices annually, taking production costs into account, is a much-needed measure to stabilise this sector. By ensuring fair prices for dairy farmers, the government is addressing the core issue of income instability, which has long plagued this vital sector.

Similarly, the protection of onion and tomato cultivators through the ‘Pink and Saffron Revolutions’ is a targeted response to the challenges faced by farmers in Maharashtra’s horticulture sector. Onions, in particular, have been at the centre of several market crises in recent years, with price drops leading to massive losses for farmers. By ensuring better support for these crops, the MVA is seeking to secure the livelihoods of millions of farmers, particularly those in rural areas who depend on such crops for their income.

Infrastructure development: Connecting farmers to markets

Maharashtra’s rural areas face a significant infrastructure gap. Poor roads, inadequate storage facilities, and insufficient market linkages often result in farmers losing a substantial portion of their produce. The MVA’s promise to invest Rs. 10,000 crore in developing permanent, gravelled roads connecting farms to markets is a transformative policy. Improved road infrastructure will reduce transportation costs, cut down post-harvest losses, and enable farmers to reach distant markets more easily, thus ensuring better prices for their produce.

This promise directly addresses one of the most persistent issues faced by farmers in the state’s rural areas, particularly in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, where road connectivity is often poor, limiting market access and agricultural productivity.

Creating alternative employment opportunities

The promise to reduce the dependency on agriculture by creating alternative employment opportunities is a long-term vision aimed at transforming Maharashtra’s rural economy. Agriculture, though the mainstay of rural Maharashtra, is no longer a sustainable livelihood option for a growing population. With increasing mechanisation and declining profitability in certain sectors, many farmers are forced to abandon their lands in search of better opportunities in cities.

By creating new avenues for employment through skill development, industrial growth, and rural entrepreneurship, the MVA aims to ease the pressure on agriculture. This vision will not only reduce rural-urban migration but also diversify the income sources for rural families, leading to more balanced and equitable development across the state.

Unmet demands and growing discontent: The cotton vs. soybean price dilemma in Maharashtra

Maharashtra’s farmers are in the midst of an ongoing struggle against unfair prices for their produce, and this issue is becoming more prominent as the state heads toward its legislative elections. A particularly contentious point is the discrepancy in the assurances given to soybean farmers compared to cotton farmers.

As Vijay Jawandhiya from the Farmers’ Organization Paik has highlighted the said issue, while pointing out that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress party have promised to buy soybeans at significantly higher prices than the current market rates—₹6000 per quintal from the BJP and ₹7000 per quintal from Congress—the same level of commitment is not being extended to cotton farmers. Cotton, a major crop in Maharashtra, especially in the Vidarbha region, has not seen similar price guarantees, despite the fact that the MSP (Minimum Support Price) for cotton is ₹7520 per quintal. Farmers are being forced to sell their cotton for ₹6000 to ₹6600, far below the MSP, and this disparity has been a source of growing discontent, as per Jawandhiya

As provided by Jawandhiya, “The contradiction becomes more apparent when we see that the BJP has assured a ₹6000 price for soybeans, which is 20% higher than the MSP of ₹4892. However, this same approach is not being extended to cotton, despite cotton’s MSP being ₹7520. Why is the BJP not offering ₹9000 for cotton, which would represent a similar 20% increase over the MSP? Similarly, why isn’t Congress offering ₹10500 per quintal, which would reflect a 40% premium over the MSP, as they have promised for soybeans?”

This stark difference in treatment for cotton and soybean farmers has raised questions about the government’s priorities and its sincerity in addressing the concerns of Maharashtra’s farmers. The government’s promises, while seemingly beneficial for soybean farmers, do not extend the same sense of urgency or commitment to cotton farmers, whose grievances have only intensified over the years. As cotton farmers continue to face price disparity, they are left wondering why the government is unwilling to offer the same level of support for their crop.

The discontent among farmers is palpable, and this growing frustration is starting to manifest in the political sphere. As the elections draw closer, the BJP’s assurances of a ₹6000 price for soybeans and the Congress’ ₹7000 offer are unlikely to satisfy the farmers who are still being forced to sell their cotton and soybeans for a fraction of the MSP. The discontent could become a pivotal factor in determining voter sentiments, as farmers in the state are realizing that the promises made by both parties fail to address the root issues of fair prices and proper market regulation.

In light of these growing concerns, it is clear that a larger movement is brewing in Maharashtra. As Vijay Jawandhiya from the Farmers’ Organization Paik aptly puts it, “After the elections, whichever government comes to power, farmers will have to stand up and create a massive movement; otherwise, this auction will continue.” He further echoes the words of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, urging farmers to “Learn, Organize, and Struggle.” These words can be deemed to be particularly resonant today, as Maharashtra’s farmers are grappling with unfulfilled promises and systemic neglect of their needs.

The imperative of comprehensive support for farmers

As the farmer movements continue to gain momentum, it is clear that the path forward requires not just political promises, but a comprehensive, long-term strategy to ensure that the state’s agricultural community is not left behind.

The MVA’s emphasis on infrastructure development, particularly the creation of gravelled roads connecting farms to markets, would significantly benefit cotton farmers by improving their access to competitive markets. Better road connectivity would reduce transportation costs and ensure that cotton farmers can sell their produce at fair prices, rather than relying on exploitative middlemen. The MVA also promises to invest in sustainable farming practices and crop diversification, helping cotton farmers in the long run by reducing their dependence on a single, vulnerable crop. This holistic approach not only addresses the immediate price concerns but also ensures that cotton farming becomes more resilient and economically viable in the future.

The MVA’s promises are grounded in the realities faced by Maharashtra’s farming community. From debt relief and MSP guarantees to long-term environmental sustainability measures, these promises are a response to the socio-economic struggles that have plagued the state’s agricultural sector. If implemented effectively, they could transform the rural landscape of Maharashtra, offering farmers not just a lifeline but a pathway to prosperity, stability, and dignity. This comprehensive approach, combining immediate relief with long-term reforms, holds the potential to reshape the future of Maharashtra’s agriculture and ensure that its farmers are not just surviving, but thriving.

It is also essential to note that the promises made by the political parties in Maharashtra, particularly the assurance of higher prices for soybeans, underscore the growing recognition of farmers’ struggles. However, the selective nature of these promises—favouring soybeans while overlooking cotton—raises critical questions about the government’s approach to addressing the full spectrum of agrarian distress. The issues faced by cotton farmers in the Vidarbha region are not just economic; they are a reflection of the systemic neglect of one of Maharashtra’s most crucial agricultural sectors.

As the elections approach, it is becoming clear that the promises made to soybean farmers are not enough to quell the growing discontent among the state’s broader agricultural community. The stark contrast between the treatment of soybean and cotton farmers highlights a pressing issue: if the government is willing to guarantee a premium price for one crop, why not do the same for others, particularly cotton, which is equally vital to the state’s economy?

The farmers of Maharashtra, who have long been subjected to exploitation by market forces, are no longer willing to accept empty assurances. The growing unrest and the call for a large-scale movement reflect a deep sense of betrayal, as farmers feel that their livelihoods continue to be undervalued. Whether the BJP, Congress, or any other party comes to power, the farmers’ struggle is unlikely to end until these fundamental issues—fair pricing, market regulation, and sustainable agricultural support—are genuinely addressed.

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Following Mission UP and Mission Uttarakhand, farmers body Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) observed an all-India Rosh (Anger) Diwas on March 21, 2022 to condemn the central government’s failure to come through on its promises.

As the name suggests, protesting farmers in groups, varying in strength from a group of 10 people to a hundred people, gathered to show their anger against the government’s unfulfilled assurances on December 9, 2021. Visuals came in on Monday from Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and many other regions.

In Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of peasants joined the protest at Civil lines dharna sthal (protest site) in Allahabad city. SKM leaders Dr. Ashish Mital, Bharatiya Kisan Union-UP (BKU-UP) Youth President Anuj Singh, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) leader Naseem Ansari, Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) leader Akhil  Vikalp and many other spoke during the event.

Speakers called upon farmers to launch a massive movement between April 11 and April 17 to reiterate farmers’ demand for a legal guarantee to Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all crops based on the Swaminathan Commission formula of C2+50 percent. They also demanded a reduction of diesel, fertilizers and seed prices by half.

“We hail the grand success of the farmers movement which they said led to farmers issues becoming the main election issues during recent elections,” SKM Prayagraj leader Raj Kumar Pathik.

Towards the end of the protest, farmers presented a memorandum of demands addressed to the President demanding immediate declaration of an MSP committee. Further, leaders said the government must answer other pending demands such as the withdrawal of all cases lodged against farmers during the protest, compensation to martyred farmers, removal of Lakhimpur-Kheri violence-accused Ajay Mishra from the Union Cabinet. Farmers also demanded that his son Ashish’s recent bail be cancelled and that the government withdraw cases against Lakhimpur farmers who are charged of murdering assailants on October 3, 2021.

Farmers groups also took out marches in Haryana’s Palwal, Madhya Pradesh’s Alirajpur and Jharkhand’s Rahe.

However, photos of stage protests flooded in from many other areas like Odisha’s Salania Keonjhar, Rohtak, Barnala, Uttarkhand’s Bajpur, Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul, Shimla, Rajkot, etc.

Farmers vacated Delhi borders in December 2021, hoping that the central government will come through on its promises. However, after one month of waiting, farmers observed a Betrayal Day (Vishwasghat Diwas) and resumed wide-scale mobilisations to demand their dues.

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Thousands of farmers from different states of India are getting ready to take part in two important events of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) – the national convention of SKM on August 26-27, 2021 at the Singhu Border and the massive Muzaffarnagar rally to inaugurate Mission Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand on September 5. Over 1500 delegates from all over India will attend the national convention, which is being held to coincide with the completion of nine months of the historic farmers’ struggle.

The delegates will include not only farmers in large numbers, but also leaders of organisations of the working class, agricultural workers, women, youth, students, Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised sections. The national convention will approve a plan of action as per the suggestions which come from participants for intensification and expansion of the movement all over India. This shall be announced on the concluding day.   

Punjab farmers win demands

The big victory of the sugarcane farmers of Punjab this week has set the tone for the SKM’s national convention. In the third round of talks held on August 24 between farmer union leaders and the Punjab government, the Punjab Chief Minister announced that the government will increase the sugarcane price upwards to Rs 360 per quintal. This significant increase of Rs 50 per quintal is a major achievement of the farmers’ collective struggle. Sugarcane farmers of Punjab fought a collective battle over five days in Jalandhar, blocking rail and road traffic from August 20. Farmer leaders thanked all the protestors including the ones running the langars. They also thanked the people who cooperated, despite some inconvenience caused to them. They announced that the protests will end in Jalandhar, and have urged all protesting farmers to get back to the Delhi morchas (marches) and strengthen them.  

Haryana BJP-JJJ regime wages war on its own people

Haryana’s BJP-JJP government was anti-farmer right from the beginning of this historic farmers’ movement. It was the Haryana government which placed numerous obstacles in the path of convoys of protesting farmers who were headed to the national capital in November 2020, to present their woes and demands to the Union Government. Many illegal detentions and arrests were undertaken in Haryana by the government, along with violence through tear gas shells and water cannons unleashed on farmers headed to Delhi.

Subsequently, over the past nine months, the state government has filed cases against approximately 40,000 farmers. It is as if it is waging a war against its own people. The administration has filed 136 different cases, in addition to two cases of sedition, against protesting farmers. In these cases, the government has named 687 protestors by name, and has also filed cases against 38,000 unknown persons as accused. The Haryana government, in its latest move, has even attacked farmers protesting against the Annapurna Utsav promotion gimmicks by slapping more cases on them. And these cases are being slapped for burning empty grain bags on which anti-farmer faces of BJP and JJP leaders Modi, Khattar and Chautala have been printed! The nervousness of the Khattar government is apparent even as the farmers’ movement is gaining greater momentum. It is clear that BJP and JJP leaders in the state are fearful of facing the public and being held accountable for their anti-farmer actions. 

Uttar Pradesh’s BJP government is no less guilty of an anti-people stance. As the farmers’ movement is getting stronger all over the northern Indian state, the Yogi Adityanath government is getting more nervous. Cases have been filed against protesting farmers in UP in the recent past. In Pilibhit, FIRs have been registered against 58 farmers by name, who participated in a peaceful black flag protest against a state minister. Farmer unions in the state are demanding the withdrawal of these cases. This is a violation of the citizens’ basic right to peaceful protest. 

Innumerable peaceful black flag demonstrations by farmers against the ruling BJP’s union(central) and state Ministers, MPs, MLAs and others are continuing unabated in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. They are almost too numerous to recount here.

Supreme Court recognizes the famer’s right to protest

At recent hearings before the Supreme Court, comments during the proceedings before a two-judge bench, the Court recognised once again the farmers’ right to protest peacefully. SKM pointed out that the blockades were not created by the farmers, but by the police and administration of multiple state governments and the Delhi Police under the control of Government of India. Farmers are not living on the streets for nearly nine months out of their wish and desire, but because blockades were put up by governments, when actually, farmers wished to go to enter Delhi to get their grievances heard. It is the government which is both unwilling to resolve the stalemate and trying to curtail the fundamental rights of the farmers to protest! The Supreme Court recently stated that the Union Government should take early steps to resolve the matter. Such a resolution will come from resuming dialogue with the SKM and fulfilling the farmers’ legitimate demands. Nearly 600 farmers have been martyred in this agitation so far, and the BJP government remains unmoved about the hardships of the protestors and is not even willing to acknowledge the deaths so far. 

PM’s ‘lies’ exposed

The SKM last week exposed the Prime Minister’s lies made during his Independence Day address from the Red Fort. Farmers of the country have realised fully that they can never depend on the Prime Minister’s hyped-up claims, false promises, spin-narratives, or his jumlas. The hollow claims around remunerative Minimum Support Prices (MSP) stand exposed fully, in addition to the jumla on ‘doubling farmers’ incomes’. The PM however continued to make a reference to “the important decision of increasing the MSP by 1.5 times” in his Independence Day Speech. MSPs have not at all been increased by 1.5 times. Besides MSPs announced for some crops are not being realised by lakhs of farmers, despite a commitment on the floor of Parliament by the Modi government. 

PM Modi chose to draw the attention of the nation to the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) during his speech. He claimed that small farmers of the country are the treasured constituency for this government and are the nation’s pride. In that context, he sought to showcase PMFBY as an effort to increase the power of the small farmer in the country. The reality of PMFBY is totally different. This reality exposes the hype and false claims being made about this crop insurance scheme, right from the beginning of its launch. The story is as false and cruel as the MSP story, where again the PM made untrue claims standing right under our national flag.  

As far as PMFBY is concerned, latest figures show that private insurance companies collected in 2018-19 and 2019-20 Rs 31905.51 crore as gross premium from farmers, state governments and the Union Government while the claims paid amounted to only Rs 21937.95 crore, with a margin of around 10000 crore rupees left for the private insurance corporations to operate and profiteer, over in just two years. The insurance claims of lakhs of farmers are never settled. States like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Telangana and West Bengal have opted out of PMFBY.

The number of farmers covered under this scheme has been falling significantly year after year. For instance, during the Kharif season, the number of farmers covered stood at 21.66 lakh in 2018, 20.05 lakh in 2019, 16.79 lakh in 2020 and only 12.31 lakh in 2021 (down by 57% over four years). The story of decline in coverage exists in the Rabi season too, year after year. The number of agricultural crops covered in 2018 Kharif was 38, which decreased to 28 crops by 2021 Kharif. In the case of horticultural crops, it fell from 57 crops in 2018 to 45 in 2021. The area insured during Kharif 2018 was 2.78 crore hectares, which saw a significant decline to 1.71 crore hectares in Kharif 2021. These numbers reveal the real story with regard to the failed PMFBY and it is shocking to see the Prime Minister make a mention of this scheme as one that has the potential to increase the power of the small farmer!  

For three years in a row, the Prime Minister has talked about ‘infrastructure’ investments to the tune of 100 lakh crore rupees, in his Independence Day speeches. In 2019, it was about ‘Modern Infrastructure’ and a decision to invest 100 lakh crore rupees on the same. In 2020, it was about ‘National Infrastructure Pipeline Project’, and Modi announced that 110 lakh crore would be spent on this project. In this speech, there was also a reference to the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) announced during the first Covid pandemic lockdown, and he had claimed that the Indian Government had ‘sanctioned’ one lakh crore rupees for this. “This infrastructure will be for the welfare of the farmers and they will be able to get better prices for their produce, and will be able to sell their produce in foreign markets”, Modi had claimed. Now, this year, it is the ‘Gati Shakti’ National Infrastructure Master Plan as a ‘scheme of more than 100 lakh crore rupees.’ 

The statements of the Prime Minister stand exposed when we look at the reality of the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, more than a year after the pompous announcement. AIF is a 13-year scheme incidentally with disbursements till 2023-24. As on August 6, 2021, only 4503 crore have been sanctioned under AIF for 6524 projects including ‘in-principle’ sanctions (4.5% of the so-called ‘sanction’ announced last year itself). As per a Rajya Sabha response on July 23, 2021, only 746 crore rupees have been disbursed (0.75% of the grand announcement)!   

19 Opposition parties back farmers’ struggle

On August 20, 19 opposition parties in India jointly put out a statement announcing nationwide protests from September 20 to 30, on 11 burning demands of the country. One of the demands is to “repeal the three anti-agriculture laws and compulsorily guarantee MSP to farmers”. The statement says, “The historic struggle by our farmers continues into the ninth month now, with the government being obdurate in not repealing the three anti-farmer Laws and compulsorily guaranteeing and giving MSP to the farmers.  We, the undersigned, reiterate our support to the struggle launched by the farmers under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha.”

The Opposition parties’ statement further says, “The destruction of the Indian economy, with deepening recession, is pushing crores of our people into joblessness, escalating the levels of poverty and hunger. The run-away inflation and price rise is adding to people’s woes and destroying livelihoods…..The destruction of the economy is accompanied by a mega loot of our national assets; large-scale privatization of the public sector, including banks and financial services; the privatization of our mineral resources and public utilities to benefit the cronies of Prime Minister.  This will be strongly resisted.”

The statement also demands, “Stop and reverse the unbridled privatisation of the public sector; repeal the labour codes which dilute the rights of the labour and the working class. Restore the rights of the working people to protest and for wage bargaining….. Withdraw unprecedented hikes in central excise duties on petroleum and diesel, reduce prices of cooking gas and essential commodities, particularly cooking oil and control galloping inflation…..Vastly enlarge MGNREGA with increasing guarantee for 200 days with at least doubling of wages. Legislate an urban employment guarantee programme on similar lines.”

After giving the nationwide call for protests from September 20 to 30, the statement ends by saying, “We, the leaders of nineteen Opposition Parties, call upon the people of India to rise to the occasion to defend our secular, democratic Republican order with all our might.  Save India today, so that we can change it for the better tomorrow.”

*The writer is all India president of the All India Kisan Sabha.

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The Press Information Bureau of India (PIB) has issued a statement saying that the wheat procurement by government agencies surpassed last year figures despite a delay due to Covid-19, unseasonal rain and tight labour supply.

The Covid-19 pandemic came as a big hit to farmers who suffered issues with delayed procurement of their crops, leading them to settle for lower prices than they would normally get had the situation been normal. However, the Ministry of Public Affairs, Food and Public Distribution issued a statement that this year’s procurement of wheat touched 341.56 Lakh Metric Tonnes surpassing last year’s supply by 25,000 tonnes which stood at 341.31 Lakh Metric Tonnes.

While now, the Centre rests easy on having surpassed last year’s procurement, the process has been fraught with challenges for both, the agencies and the farmers. Here is a look at some.

Challenges in procurement agencies and farmers

For procurement agencies

The statement by the Food and Public Distribution Ministry said that the national lockdown delayed the procurement of wheat which generally takes week in the first week of April after the harvesting is done in the end of March. Due to this, the procurement only began on April 15, except for Haryana, where procurement began on April 20.

Another challenge was getting farmers to maintain social distancing at the procurement centers to ensure that their health wasn’t affected. For this, the number of procurement centers of increased to make sure that footfalls at centers were distributed and there was no large gathering at just one centre. The Food Ministry said that new centers were made available at the gram panchayat level and the numbers were increased sharply in the major procuring states like Punjab where it went up from 1836 to 3681, 599 to 1800 in Haryana and from 3545 to 4494 in Madhya Pradesh. To avoid overcrowding at procurement centers, farmers were also given specific dates and time slots to bring their produce and only those people involved directly with the process were allowed to be at daily auctions.

The issue of not enough jute bags to carry grains was also once that procurement agencies faced due to jute mills being closed. This they handled by using more plastic bags and bags that had been used before, subject to strict quality conditions.

Unseasonal rains also played a dampener for procurement. The rains in North India hit the standing and harvested wheat crop, thus affecting the quality of grains. KAP Sinha, Punjab’s Principal Secretary (food and civil supplies) had told Hindustan Times, “Moisture more than permissible limits of 12% leads to delay in procurement as the crop has to be dried first. It damages the grain, leading to its discolouration.” However, after demands from farmers and the Opposition demanded that the moisture content specifications be altered from 12 to 18 percent, their ask was considered by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the Government of India (GOI) after conducting a detailed and specific analysis to make sure that the farmers were not distressed and the grains met minimum quality requirement of the consumers.

With a fear of the infection in the masses and labour being in short supply, the Food Ministry ensured that it conducted confidence building measures at the local level by the state administration and also provided workers with adequate safety equipment like masks, gloves, sanitizers, etc.

For farmers

The untimely rains and shortage of labour created a vicious loss cycle for farmers. Grains were rejected due to discolouration before the procurement norms were relaxed and post that, they had to settle for lower prices for their harvest.

Keeping social distancing in mind, only 100 farmers were allowed to bring their farm produce to the state mandis. The Punjab and Haryana guidelines had been issued to all markets that only 50 farmers each would be allowed in a mandi from 8 am to 2 pm and 2:30 pm to 6 pm daily, Hindustan Times had reported in April. In the Rabi season, farmers were only allowed to sell 40 quintal of produce daily, enhancing their woes of storage, thus making them take extra trips and spend more on loading and unloading of materials.

With traders buying from farmers directly, the minimum support prices (MSP) have been hit. Farmers allege they received much lesser than the MSP of Rs. 1,925 per quintal fixed by the government. It was reported by agencies like Cogencis that farmers in Jaipur had to sell wheat at Rs. 1,830 – Rs. 1,880 per quintal.

Speaking of mismanagement by mandis as being another blow to farmer incomes, a farmer from Barha, Jabalpur, explained to The Print as to how under a new system called ‘sauda patrak’, traders decided at what rate they wanted to procure the produce and state governments officials couldn’t intervene in the matter. While the scheme was brought about to reduce the intervention of middlemen, it turned into an exploitation technique.

While challenges still prevail, the Food Ministry stated that with the well-coordinated efforts by the government of India, FCI, state governments and their agencies, the procurement of wheat was done smoothly and farmers too were helped in the bargain.

The press release by PIB may be read below.

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Pyaaz, Mirch, Bhakri, the sustenance of India’s toiling agrarian class. A raw onion, a green chilly and a Bhakri (bhākri, bhakkari) is a round flat unleavened bread often used in the cuisine of the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Goa. But with the unchecked crisis in the agrarian economy, this basic and nutritious vegetable is denied to millions.

September 2019, as the prices of this most essential commodity, an important ingredient of almost every Indian meal, onions touched sky rocketing prices, a bizarre incident of theft of onions worth Rs. 1 lakh in Nashik district of Maharashtra also added a touch of black humour to an unfolding crisis. The retail prices of onion prices have touched as high as Rs. 60-80 per kg mark in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. Even in Chennai the prices are around Rs. 60 per kg.

In the midst of this, onion farmer Rahul Bajirao Pagar approached the Nashik police on Monday and informed that he had kept a ‘summer stock’ of 25 tonne onions in 117 plastic crates at his storehouse in Kalwan taluka, as per police inspector Pramod Wagh.

However, on Sunday evening, to his utter dismay, he found that the entire stock worth nearly Rs. 1 lakh was missing, Pagar said in his complaint. Inspector Wagh said that based on his complaint a case of theft has been registered and search is on.

At the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Nashik, the summer onion stocks are being auctioned for around Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 5,000 per quintal (per 100 kg), as per a source.

Meanwhile in another incident, some unidentified persons allegedly mixed urea (fertiliser) in the onion stock of farmer Vishnu Aher in Bhaur village, an official at Devla police station said. The farmer in his complaint alleged that the mischief resulted in rotting of about 120 tonnes of his onions worth Rs 5 lakh, he said.

Not only has the price rise added to a common person’s burden, but also has shown the gaps in the management of such essential commodities by the government. The government, in order to curtail prices, issued tenders to import onion from Pakistan. This decisions has been opposed by farmers.

Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections are weeks away, just around the corner, even as the states were grappling with other problems such as the floods in Maharashtra, this onion crisis has posed several challenges for masses of our people.

The recent rise in onion prices has been a result of last year’s drought and a delayed monsoon this year. The situation is exacerbated by excessive rainfall in onion-growing areas, which has delayed the harvest period by a week or so.

About 90 percent of India’s onion comes from the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Of this, Maharashtra contributes to nearly one-third of the country’s production of the vegetable.Nashik, Pune, Ahmednagar, and Aurangabad form the onion-growing belt of Maharashtra.

The onion crop is grown in three phases throughout the year, -Kharif (which is sown in May-July and harvested in October-December); late kharif (which is sown in August-September and harvested in January-March); and Rabi (which is sown in October-November and harvested in April).

To prevent the crop form sprouting and getting spoilt, farmers usually store their onion produce in moisture-proof and dust-proof structures, called kanda chawl. They release their produce steadily depending on the price of onion in the market, which enables continuous supply.

This year, the cultivation of onion in the rabi crop cycle decreased in Maharashtra – from 3.54 lakh hectares in 2017-18 to 2.66 lakh hectares in 2018-19.

As if this wasn’t enough, Karnataka received unprecedented and heavy rainfall during the harvest period of the onion grown in kharif season. In addition, the arrival of kharif onions from Karnataka has been delayed after the state was lashed with heavy rains a couple of weeks ago.

While markets saw the arrival of 35,000 quintals per day in September last year, the amount has dropped to 25,000 quintals this year. The new batch of kharif onion crop grown in Maharashtra would not hit the market before the end of October this year. Until then, the stored rabi crop will be supplied to the market.

Currently, the Centre has a buffer stock of 56,000 tonnes of onion, of which 16,000 tonnes has been offloaded so far. In Delhi, 200 tonnes a day is being offloaded, news agency PTI reported.However, most worrying is the fluctuation that this commodity’s prices face in the market. For example, just this February the onion prices kept plummeting to an all time low. This caused a serious distress among farmers, so much so that many committed suicides.

In 2018, Maharashtra faced an oversupply of the kitchen staple due to excessive holding of kharif onions or Gavthi onions, which have a longer shelf-life and usually arrive by March. That year, there was a massive storage of such onions. Farmers retained their stock for over six months in the expectation that prices would rise. But they never did, and by December, panic-stricken farmers literally dumped the onions.

History of onion cultivation

Interestingly, onions are one of the oldest cultivated vegetables in human history. Although most scientists agree that onion cultivation started around 5000 BC in Asia, some believe that it was Central Asia that pioneered this, while other believe that it originated from Iran and West Pakistan. Archeological evidence shows that onions were planted by ancient Egyptians about two thousands year later.

Onions grow easily and are easy to plant! That is the reason why onions were among the first vegetables to be consumed and domesticated.

They can grow in multitude of soils and climates. They are less perishable than other vegetables and can be dried and stored for long periods as well as consumed when food is scarce.

In addition to their culinary use, onions are cherished for their antiseptic and medicinal use. Ancient Egyptians used onions in art and mummification and buried their Pharaohs with onions. Onions were cultivated and used by other civilizations like the Chinese (5000 years ago), the Sumerians (2500 BC), the Babylonians, the Greek, the Romans, and among ancient Indians.
 

The post As Onion prices soar over Apples, Nashik farmer reports theft of his Stock appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Amar Ujala

As reported in Amar Ujala, the gruesome incident took place on Monday morning when the victim, Vinay Kumar Saroj alias Bablu, was sleeping near a pumping set, just 300 meters away from his house, to guard his farm. Reportedly, the accused attacked Vinay, cut his limbs and then tied him to a cot before burning him alive. At around 05.00 pm, the victim’s brother, Omprakash, while on his way to the pumping set, saw flames coming out from a distance and rushed towards the spot and saw his brother’s entirely burnt body.Shocked, he screamed after which all the villagers gathered at the incident spot.

The villagers alleged that despite informing the Patti police, they came in late and informed the seniors after preliminary investigation. After sometime, the Circle Officer, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent of Police reached the place and interrogated the victim’s family members. When the officials tried to take the victim’s body for post-mortem, the furious villagers demanded the District Magistrate (DM) be called, failing which they wouldn’t let them take the body. Only after the DM, Markandey Shahi, reached the spot and assured the family of a compensation of Rs. 9 lakhs, license to hold weapons and police protection, did the family allow the officials to take the victim’s body.

The police has lodged a complaint against unknown persons under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (disappearance of evidence). According to the latest developments, the police has taken Vijendra, the victim’s partner in his piggery business, into custody for interrogation.

It is yet unknown whether the victim was brutally murdered for belonging to the lower caste or due to some internal rivalry. Investigation is underway.

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Ayodhya, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): Ram Tirath, 55, and his wife Mithilesh Kumari, 50, were squabbling over whom to vote for on May 6, 2019. The couple grow sugarcane and mustard on their 2.5-acre farm in the largely upper-caste village of Palia Pratap Shah in the central Uttar Pradesh (UP) district of Faizabad.

Paintings depicting events in the Ramayana line the streets of Ayodhya, the seat of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s temple politics that began in 1991. Nearly three decades later, in the place where it all started, rural distress and stray cattle are making farmers angry.

The husband said there was no question of voting for anyone besides the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Modi gave us Rs 12,000 to build a toilet,” he said, pointing to the toilet labelled izzat ghar (place of pride) in keeping with Modi’s campaign.

It was unused, he admitted soon enough, because there is no water supply to the village. So, it does not make sense to carry buckets of water on one’s head a great distance to flush down a cement toilet far away, he said, when it’s much more sanitary to squat in a field and wash that off with much less water.

Ram Tirath, 55, stands next to the toilet he built with the assistance of the government’s Swachh Bharat scheme, at his home in Palia Pratap Shah in the western Uttar Pradesh district of Faizabad. There is no question of voting for anyone besides the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he says.

He went on to list Modi’s insurance schemes and the money transfers to poor farmers–Rs 6,000 a year or Rs 500 a month. “At least he’s done that,” he said, before admitting that the main problem in the village were the stray cattle that had eaten up all his sugarcane and sarson (mustard), which he could have sold for about Rs 100,000.

How does the math add up then, to have received Rs 6,000 in cash and lost Rs 100,000, he was asked. Ram Tirath exclaimed that he saw no alternative to Modi. Caste and religion, he admitted later, were overriding factors.

Kumari, the domineering wife, interrupted her husband’s hard-sell of the BJP with a one-liner that silenced him: “Hum nangey hain, aapke paas das kapde hain, hamarey paas ek nahi, be pardey khadey hain, ab aap hamarey upar pardah nahi daal saktey hum aapke peechey kyun marein? (If I am naked and you have 10 pieces of clothing and you can’t even give me one to cover my body with, then why should I run after you?)”

She continued. “Vote barabar dete hain, pichli baar diye they, teli ko. Kuch nahi kiya. (I voted for the man from the Teli caste the last time and he did nothing),” she said, referring pejoratively to Modi’s caste. By now, a few people had gathered to watch her take on her husband.

The question of whom to vote for in the election turned into a squabble between Mithilesh Kumari, 50, and her husband Ram Tirath. Kumari is disillusioned with the Narendra Modi government, she says, adding that she will not vote for anyone.

She ended with a critique of the BJP’s Ram mandir campaign. “Masjid toota woh sahi hua. Lekin mandir bana nahi na banega (It was right for the Babri masjid to have been brought down. But the Ram temple has still not been built in its place, nor will it be built),” she said, referring to the December 6, 1992, demolition of the Babri Masjid. “Modi ji bhi kehtey they ki baneyga, hoo haa hoo haa… uske baad khatam ho gaya. Ab phir Modi khadey hain toh ab kya karenge, kuch nahi. Dekhiye (Modiji had made a big hoo-haa about it the last election and nothing happened. And nothing will get done this time either, wait and watch),” she added.

She said she will not vote for anyone this time.

This is the fourth in a six-part series on the Hindu vote in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most hotly contested electoral battleground, which accounts for 80 of a total of 543 Lok Sabha seats (you can read the first part here, the second here and the third here). Awadh has 17 Lok Sabha constituencies, including Faizabad and Lucknow and the Congress party’s bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli. About 32 million voters in the region will vote on May 6, 2019.

Source: District Census Handbook, 2011 census

Ayodhya, the seat of the BJP’s temple politics

A little distance away in the same village, 64-year-old Lallu Singh, member of parliament (MP) from Faizabad constituency, and seeking re-election, had arrived. It was 45 degrees outside. Singh heaved himself out of his SUV. He needed help with getting out, and a party worker rushed to the rescue, bending over so Singh could place his leg on his back to climb out.

Singh spoke with his eyes shut, avoiding the heat and eye contact, feeding the crowd with a dose of the BJP’s main intoxicant–religion and the protection of Hindus.

Lallu Singh, 64, is seeking re-election to the Lok Sabha from Faizabad constituency. Speaking at a gathering in Palia Pratap Shah village, he feeds the crowd with a dose of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s main intoxicant–religion and the protection of Hindus.

He spoke of the campaign to turn Ayodhya into a world-class tourist spot and the BJP’s plans to turn the perimeter and the various temples and heritage sites–141 of them–into `Bada Ayodhya’ or the Greater Ayodhya circuit. More roads, more highways.

In the audience was a sadhu (priest) in saffron robes and shiny, gold reflector glasses. A man peering at him, who did not want to be identified, made a caustic remark: “This guy is the local mafia man here.”
 

Faizabad, recently renamed Ayodhya, is the centre of the BJP’s temple politics that began in 1991, led by then prime ministerial candidate Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party president L K Advani. In the campaign, Advani embarked on a rath yatra in a Toyota bus made to look like a mythical chariot. With this God-like setting, Advani told crowds that a mosque called the Babri Masjid stood at Lord Ram’s birthplace. And that it needed to be replaced by a temple dedicated to Lord Ram.

A year later, on December 6, 1992, thousands of angry Hindu devotees swamped Ayodhya city and brought down the mosque. The site of the Masjid’s demolition is now a mound of mud on top of which sits an idol of Lord Ram, called the Ram Lalla. It is a site that thousands of devotees visit every day, snaking through a long, heavily-armed set of barricades flanked by the army and police in bunkers, armed with automatic rifles.

Devotees weave through five security checks to pray at the shrine, in the hope that the BJP’s promise–to build the Ram temple–will one day come true.

As they made their way to the shrine, a devotee remarked: “Here lies our beloved Lord Ram, in a hut, while we live in air-conditioned apartments. What kind of world is this?” His sentiment was echoed by many as they filed out, shaking their heads, believing that all other political parties save for the BJP were obstructing the construction of a temple–and only Modi (and the BJP) was their protector.

Outside the shrine, hundreds of shops sell articles of worship and pictures of Gods. The most frequent depictions are stills from the television series on the Ramayana, produced by Ramanand Sagar and aired in 1987-88 on state-run Doordarshan TV–the only television network that existed in the late 1980s.

Articles of worship and pictures of Gods–some of them depicting the stills from the television series on the Ramayana that aired in 1987-88 on state-run Doordarshan TV–on display in stores outside the shrine at Ayodhya.

Three years after this television series became a national sensation, Advani and Vajpayee used the iconography from the series in their Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. Now, posters from that serial, re-runs of which are still telecast, are sold as pictures depicting Lord Ram, Sita and Lakshman, in Ayodhya, pop-culture morphed into the politics that has dominated the Awadh region since.

Now, nearly three decades later, the site is the subject of a court dispute, but it continues to be the front and centre of the BJP’s campaign across 17 districts of central UP or the Awadh region–with Ayodhya its emotional register and Lucknow, at the other end of the region, its political centre.

Lucknow, where political aspirations find a home

Rakesh Pandey’s father had to sell a family plot on the highway to pay for his education. Conscious of his father’s sacrifice, Pandey spent his summer breaks finishing the math and science syllabus even before the semester began. His village did not have electricity, and this meant relocating at the age of five–moving 840 km from Kushinagar in the easternmost part of UP where he was from, to the westernmost district of Bulandshahr. This so he could live with his uncle, whose village had electricity.

When Pandey was midway through his engineering degree, his father lost his job at a sugar mill. Pandey had no money to pay his final semester fee and was being stopped from taking the exam. But Pandey’s resolve to study was so strong that he threatened the director of his college that he would jump off the building if he wasn’t allowed to take the exam. The director–out of fear, guilt and admiration–paid Pandey’s fee.

After turning himself into a teacher and an engineering coach, Pandey wanted more. The year was 2011. Pandey was teaching in the Noida region that abuts the national capital, when the city was overtaken by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal’s anti-corruption movement.

Pandey was swept by the tide, turning into a young man who wanted to change the world. He also took the civil services exam, but failed to clear it. “So I asked myself what else can I do, and the answer was politics,” he said.

But the party of aspiration and success Pandey found himself eventually gravitating towards was not the party Arvind Kejriwal created–not the Aam Aadmi Party. He saw, instead, in the BJP a much larger vehicle of aspiration and political success.

So, he returned to UP from Delhi and started frequenting the Lucknow office of the BJP until he made his way into the party’s IT cell. Within two years, by the start of 2019, he had impressed enough people in the state to be moved to the election management team.

Rakesh Pandey (in white) participates in a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar taken out to mark his initiation into the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) IT cell. At age five, Pandey moved 840-km to his uncle’s home to be able to study under a lamp. Moved by Anna Hazare’s 2011 anti-corruption movement, he joined politics: He chose not the Aam Aadmi Party, but the BJP. (Photo courtesy: Rakesh Pandey)

Seated in a comfortable air-conditioned room in Lucknow’s prime real estate zone Hazratganj, Pandey squinted over his glasses as he threw a number up in the air like a challenge: That there are over 4 million volunteers and workers on the ground for the BJP this election in Uttar Pradesh alone.

No other party can possibly beat those numbers, the Modi fan suggested as he stirred his coffee. The 37-year-old leaned back in his chair in the sparsely done flat he was allotted by the party in an apartment complex meant for state assembly legislators. As part of the BJP’s UP election team, poring over numbers and working the phone lines to make sure each electoral booth has people on the ground, Pandey has earned the right to a comfortable home for the first time in his life.

Pandey broke down the BJP figure of 4 million: India’s most populous state, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s population sends about a sixth (80 of 543) of all MPs to the Lok Sabha. The state also has 163,000 election booths. The BJP has a team of 21 people per electoral booth, which adds up to 3.4 million people. In addition, there are farmers’ collectives, women’s collectives and a slew of allied groups that take the total to over 4 million.

Every bit of the party’s manifesto is in Pandey’s bloodstream–from the claim that the temple for Lord Ram must be built in Ayodhya, to the personification of the party in Prime Minister Modi.

A screen mounted on a carrier plays campaign videos of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Lucknow. The constituency has unfailing voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party since 1991.

Looking at the election from his perspective and other urban aspirants in the city of Lucknow, it would appear that the story of BJP’s consolidation in the state is a foregone conclusion. Lucknow, the capital of UP, has voted for the BJP continuously and unfailingly since 1991.
 

But step outside the cities, and the Awadh region’s political picture is far more complex than a surface-level reading of Hindutva or Hindu proselytisation suggests.

The caste mathematics

The BJP candidate for Misrikh constituency, adjoining Lucknow, Ashok Rawat went from village to village. He was aware that with the opposition parties–the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP)–having stitched together an alliance, a lot will depend this time on the caste calculus rather than a saffron one.

The 43-year-old’s politics are also centred on caste. He comes from a scheduled caste called the Pasis. He was with the BSP until the last elections and was invited into the BJP. The party was aware of the political heft of Rawat’s community.

The Pasis are the second-largest scheduled caste group in the region, following only the Jatavs–BSP leader Mayawati’s caste. As Rawat hopped from village to village listing the Modi government’s achievements, he also worked the caste math.

“There are 300,000 Jatavs (who will vote for the BSP), 100,000 Yadavs (who will vote for the SP) and 250,000 Muslims (who will also vote for the SP),” said Rawat. “That’s 650,000 votes in all, of a total voting population of 1.76 million voters.”

“Baaki votes hamarey (The rest will vote for us),” he said. “Or at least 60% of them, of which there are 250,000 Pasis, 250,000 Brahmins, 100,000 Thakurs and Kshatriyas, and 450,000 voters from other backward classes.”

These communities are seen as traditional catchment areas for the BJP. Since they view the BSP as pro-dalit and the SP as pro-Muslim, these groups by default stack up with the `Hindu-leaning’ party.

The British annexation of Awadh, and the modern political rhetoric
In an election season, Prime Minister Modi is re-packaging an old political idea from the region, borrowing as it were a leaf out of the British colonisers’ method of decimating the opposition. Lucknow, or the central region of UP, was once Awadh, or Oudh in British lexicon.

It gets its name from the region that was once a kingdom established in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor Akbar. When it was taken over by British colonisers in 1857, they made out a case of misrule by the previous dynast Wajid Ali Shah: Muslim misrule, the British alleged, as they annexed the kingdom and crushed the revolt. The British made sure they caricatured the king as a wastrel and a debauched ruler. Those paintings and their replicas are found all over cities across the region with Wajid Ali Shah’s bare breast hanging out of his coat.

Two-and-a-half centuries later, Prime Minister Modi and an army of many million are making out a case of misrule by all others. As Rawat entered the large maidan in the town of Hardoi, where Prime Minister Modi was campaigning for the region, the message was clear: It’s Modi versus misrule, Hindu dominance seeking to erase a syncretic medieval past, in a region with a history of people not doing their masters’ bidding.

People watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a screen as he speaks at a gathering of more than 200,000 people in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi town. Two-and-a-half centuries after the British annexed Awadh citing Muslim misrule, Modi makes out a case of opposition misrule in the region.

More than 200,000 gathered to listen to Modi in a large maidan in the town of Hardoi, as the campaign got raised to a fever pitch by party leader Naresh Aggarwal, who started by insulting the SP-BSP alliance. “Jab cycle pe haathi baith jayega toh cycle chaknachoor hoga. (When an elephant sits on a cycle, the cycle gets smashed),” said Aggarwal, referring to the electoral symbols of the BSP (elephant) and the SP (cycle).

Modi took the invective forward. “The same people who once called Ambedkarites ‘the mafia’…” Modi thundered, referring to the followers of BR Ambedkar, the leader of Dalits and lower castes who also wrote the Indian Constitution, “those same people are now talking about the politics of the lower castes”, the Prime Minister said, referring to the SP, once the political enemy of its current alliance partner, the BSP. “It is only the politics of convenience,” said Modi.

Supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party sport the party’s campaign material at a rally in Hardoi town addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party’s candidate for Misrikh constituency Ashok Rawat.

Cow politics worsens farm crisis

About 50 km away from where Modi and Rawat were campaigning, Raj Rani of the Parshuram caste (another word for the Pasis) twisted coir to make a rope. “Modi kuch nahi kiye hain (Modi has done nothing),” the 55-year-old said flatly, looking up from her rope-making, the sun setting behind her, in the village of Jaraha.

“Modi kuch nahi kiye hain (Modi has done nothing),” says 55-year-old Raj Rani.

Suneeta, aged about 50, also from the same caste, joined in: “There is a huge stray-cattle population in the village which has become a menace.”

“There is a huge stray-cattle population in the village which has become a menace,” says Suneeta in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaraha village. Farmer suffer losses as the stray cattle destroy farms in the region.

Others added in the missing pieces of the story. Ever since the BJP’s gau-raksha (cow protection) campaign began and vigilante groups started to take the law into their own hands, threatening and killing people for killing cows, the economy of villages like Jaraha have suffered.

Since 2014, 11 people have been lynched in cow-related hate crimes in UP, 73% of them Muslim, the highest number of such attacks in any Indian state, according to a database run by FactChecker.in.

Earlier, when cows were past the lactating age, farmers sold them. Jaraha had two cattle fairs in the year. Selling a male–the bull–or a non-lactating female cow was the farmers’ insurance against distress. This has become even more crucial in a state like UP where more than half the workforce or 55% is entirely dependent on agriculture, which contributes to less than a third of the state’s economic activity.

The picture sharpens when we look closer at how the state’s economy fares region-wise.

To start with, the gap in the average person’s income in UP (the per capita income–income divided by population of the region) has grown less than in the rest of the country (see below). This means economic distress. Farmers can ill afford to lose additional sources of income, such as, cattle.

In central UP, primarily the Awadh region, agriculture forms the smallest slice of the economy. Although it is what half the state leans on for its income, it yields less than 20% of the region’s income.

Source: International Labour Organization Employment report on Uttar Pradesh, 2017

Ram Kisan Maurya showed this reporter the common grazing area in the village now populated with stray cattle. He was also from a scheduled caste community and angry at the BJP government in the state and the Centre for his predicament.

“Pehle hazaaron me biktey they. Aamdani bhi hoti thi (Earlier, cattle sold in these parts in the thousands),” Maurya said, adding, ”Gai bech diye kuch paise bachey kapdey le liye. Bikega nahi toh palega kaun? (We spent the money we got from the sale on buying clothes and other basics. If we can’t sell them, how are we expected to keep them and keep feeding them?)”

Stray cattle graze in a field in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaraha village. Cow vigilante attacks worsen farmer distress, with stray cattle destroying crops in Awadh region.

While anger from within the BJP candidate’s own community may upset his caste calculation, it wasn’t quite clear if this anger would translate into votes of dissent. In a region already faced with rural distress and urban unemployment, some said it was best to vote for whoever the village headman advised them to.

In Jaraha village, the man in charge is upper caste: Amit Kumar Singh. It is actually his wife who is the village pradhan (head), but in a patriarchal set-up, the man controls the village in the name of his wife.

Singh is a local leader from the SP. However, he said, he liked Rawat, the BJP candidate from Misrikh, and has been loyal to him for over a decade. So, he was asking everyone to vote for the BJP, despite being from the opposition.

Singh went with Ashok Rawat to Hardoi, to the Modi rally. At a party office in the region, one of his supporters who did not want to be named bragged about adding essential fuel to the campaign to ensure large crowds for the rally: Whisky.

“Two bottles of Black Dog per house or 5,000 bottles,” the man claimed. Later, this reporter found a drunk man at the head of Jaraha village who claimed to be a beneficiary of this largesse.

If in Misrikh region, abutting Lucknow, a leader from the opposition party is canvassing for the BJP whilst in Ayodhya, the seat of the party’s temple politics, an upper caste woman speaks openly against the party, it is possible that the math on either side may not add up exactly the way the BJP has planned–even with a possible army of 4 million people at work.

This is the fourth in a six-part series on the Hindu vote in Uttar Pradesh. You can read the first part here, the second here and the third here.

(Revati Laul is an independent journalist and film-maker and the author of `The Anatomy of Hate,’ published by Westland/Context in December 2018. She tweets @revatilaul)

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

Courtesy: India spend

The post Religion, Caste Politics In The Face Of Widespread Distress In Awadh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

About 15,000 people, mostly migrants from rural districts, swarm platform number two of a Kolkata suburban train station, desperate for any work in a depressed economy. The daily wagers, mostly unskilled and semi-skilled, find it increasingly hard to find work.

Sometimes, his wife and he survive on fena bhaat, a watery, boiled rice. His two children get a more nutritious lunch at the local government-run anganwadi or creche here in India’s 7th most populous city. “I and my wife, somehow we manage,” said Das, as he anxiously scanned platform number two at Dhakuria railway station in southern Kolkata, waiting for a labour contractor to offer him a job for the day.

Tapan Das and his wife sometimes survive on watery, boiled rice. When farming failed, the illiterate son of a farmer left home 20 years ago. Today, he earns Rs 4,000 a month as a casual labourer.

There are about 15,000 others like Das on Dhakuria’s packed platform two, mostly men of  “working age”–as demographers call them–aged between 20 and 59, and some women older than that. Their common desperation for any kind of work represents the drop in opportunities after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation in November 2016. It also lays bare the closing of an opportunity for West Bengal and five other states to cash in on India’s demographic dividend, the economic growth that accrues from a large working-age population.

India’s demographic opportunity stretches longer than any other country, from 2005-06 to 2055-56, but falling fertility rates mean the window of opportunity for two states (Kerala and Tamil Nadu) is closed. For West Bengal, Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab, it is “closing now”–2021 being the outer date–according to a 2018 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report.

The jobs crisis is one of India’s leading election issues as the country heads into general elections during the summer of 2019, as IndiaSpend reported on March 26, 2019.

Although West Bengal created most jobs among Indian states over seven years to 2012, according to a 2018 World Bank report, this was not enough to provide livelihoods for millions of unskilled or semi-skilled workers pouring out of the state’s rural areas and from the poorer neighbouring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

This is the fifth of an 11-part series (you can read the first part here, second here, third here and fourth here), reported from nationwide labour hubs–places where unskilled and semi-skilled workers gather to seek contract jobs–to track employment in India’s informal sector. This sector, which absorbs the country’s mass of illiterate, semi-educated and qualified-but-jobless people, employs 92% of India’s workforce, according to a 2016 International Labour Organization study that used government data.

By delving into the lives and hopes of informal workers, this series provides a reported perspective to the election issue of employment and ongoing national controversies over job losses after demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The number of jobs declined by a third over four years to 2018, according to a survey by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation, which polled 34,700 of its 300,000 member-units. In 2018 alone, 11 million jobs were lost, mostly in the unorganised rural sector, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a business information service.

West Bengal’s unemployment rate in November 2016–a month after demonetisation–was 7.3%, rising to 8.8% in February 2018 and recovering to 6.1% in February 2019, according to CMIE data.

These data do not adequately capture the daily search for work. Despite visiting Dhakuria station every day, Das managed to find work for only 11 days in January 2019 at Rs 350 per day. The crowd around him was a mix of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers, most of them–like Das–from South 24 Paraganas, more than 60 km south of Kolkata.

Growth but not enough jobs

While some skilled labourers at Dhakuria station found employment through connections with other workers and labour contractors, others adopted a different route: displaying their tools on the platform, publicising their expertise as craftspersons and masons.
 

Daily wage workers display their tools, publicising their expertise as craftspersons and masons on platform number two of Kolkata’s Dhakuria suburban train station.

On average, unskilled workers earn between Rs 350-Rs 400 per day, whereas skilled workers such as masons and welders earn between Rs 500 and Rs 600. While wages have not changed much since demonetisation, thanks to trade unions–weaker than they once were but still functional–the number of jobs have reduced, said experts.

West Bengal is India’s sixth-largest state in terms of economic size, with a gross state domestic product of Rs 11 lakh crore in 2017-18, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), a commerce industry trust that promotes the government’s Make in India programme.

The state would seem to be reasonably placed to exploit its demographic dividend–its 17.8 million young people aged 15-24, and growing as more workers join from poorer, neighbouring states.

However, an increase in gross domestic product does not always lead to job growth, explained Saikat Maitra, assistant professor of public policy and management at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM). Indeed, real wages in India grew only 1% annually over 30 years to 2013, as India failed to create “decent jobs” and increase income, said a March 2019 report from Oxfam, an advocacy.

In West Bengal, it does not help that industrialisation has withered, even as swarms of young men flood labour markets.

The exit of industry

As of 2017, West Bengal had 15 million unorganised-sector workers, mainly in labour-intensive industries, with construction at the forefront. With a slowdown in construction following demonetisation and new real-estate regulations, the working-age population with basic skills is the first to suffer.

“The housing market in Kolkata has declined,” said Maitra of IIM Calcutta. “At present, the demand from the [real estate/construction] sector translates to 10-15 days a month, which is a huge loss for daily wage labourers,” he said, adding, “Missing even a day’s wage can have very serious repercussions for them.”

Without unions to intercede for them, thousands of informal workers–many illiterate like Das–are at the mercy of the market.
“The unions can put pressure on the government to revise the rates based on the CPI [Consumer Price Index] and WPI [Wholesale Price Index] movements,” said K Rangarajan, professor of strategy at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Kolkata. “If the unions are not active, the governments generally do not bother to do this.”

Unions in fact played a role in the departure of industries from West Bengal. Industrialisation has also been “dismal” in the state, said Rangarajan. Until a few decades ago, Bengal had a variety of industries, such as manufacturing of engineering parts, textiles and chemicals. However, the “big companies” have since exited Bengal owing to “Naxalism, industrial unrest of the ‘80s and ‘90s and bandh [shutdown] culture”, said Rangarajan. Some of the companies that left were Brooke Bond India, ICI India, Shaw Wallace, JK Tyre and Philips India.

It is left then to the informal, small-scale sector, where wages are lower and jobs more uncertain, to pick up the slack. West Bengal had 5.2 million medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) in 2017, the highest nationwide.

The government realises the importance of MSMEs, but its efforts do not match the scale of the employment problem.

The Trinamool Congress has been ruling West Bengal since 2011, after unseating the Left Front whose rule lasted 34 years. Before winning the state elections, the Trinamool in its 2011 manifesto promised to revive West Bengal’s economy by focusing on the development of MSMEs, restarting and remodelling closed PSUs (public-sector units or enterprises) and attracting large investments in manufacturing, textiles and other sectors.

In 2016, the state government launched Startup Bengal to encourage and fund MSMEs. But between January 2016 and April 2018, the state provided financial incentives to no more than 15 start-ups.

“In the informal sector, real estate and infrastructure have shown signs of development,” said Mousumi Dutta, head of the Department of Economics at Kolkata’s Presidency University. “But they are in no way adequate for the huge population of semi-skilled and unskilled labourers.”

The situation is made worse by the slump in construction, which absorbs the largest number of workers who are illiterate, unskilled or come off farms, in West Bengal.

Real estate growth in West Bengal has not picked up after demonetisation, according to a 2018 report by Knight Frank, a realtor.

Residential sales in Kolkata were at an all-time low in 2018, and buildings in southern Kolkata, which were once favourites among home buyers, are now empty due to a lack of buyers.

The general consensus among the crowd at Dhakuria station is that the job market has been slow for between six months and two years. By 10 am, the platform is nearly empty. “If we don’t get work by 9 am, we go back home,” said one. That means a day of lost wages and wasted expense on public transport. Most job seekers have railway passes, which cost Rs 100 to Rs 300 per month depending on the distance they travel.

Ageing workforce

The picture that emerges is of a vast, largely unskilled–and ageing–workforce that lives on a razor’s edge. West Bengal’s fertility rate is 1.6 children per woman–among India’s lowest, lower than Kerala’s 1.8 and below the replacement rate of 2.2–which means the state is not producing enough children to keep the population stable. Migrants may fill in the gaps, but they, as we said, tend to be from poorer states, so West Bengal’s economic growth is likely to be unsustainable.

Monara Bibi, in her early 60s, was one of the few women at Dhakuria. Her saree, earlier white, was covered with patches of grey due to prolonged use. Her husband was no more, and she has three sons and a daughter.

To support her family, Bibi has visited platform two for the last 20 years. She lives in Joynagar, about 50 km from the railway station, in a mud house and commutes by train about thrice a week, paying Rs 200 for a monthly pass.

While her sons pitch in with the household finances, Bibi still visits Dhakuria looking for work. “I do it to financially support my daughter,” said Bibi. Her son-in-law is unemployed.

Bibi was unsure how long she might be able to continue working–maybe another year and a half, she said. As a skilled painter and mason, she earned Rs 500-Rs 600 a day, but there is no assured work.

“Many times, the labour contractors don’t engage me thinking I am old and frail,” said Bibi. From 25 days a month of work, she gets 10-12 days now, earning about Rs 5,000-Rs 6,000 per month.

Next to Bibi was Jharibala Mondal, also a painter and mason, also in her sixties, also here for the last 20 years and also reporting that she found jobs 10 days a month, down from 25. The only wage earner in her family, she talked about her handicapped husband and son and how she feels the responsibility to “work as long as she can”.

Politics stands in for market forces

In an effort to survive, some workers have established contact with various syndicates operating within the city. These syndicates are usually run by local strongmen with connections to the ruling party and administration, according to Biswanath Chakraborty, a psephologist and political science professor at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata.

In the 1990s, various farmers and landowners were left without a source of income when the Left Front government acquired land for the Rajarhat Township on the northeastern fringe of the city. To placate them, in addition to compensation, the government offered them employment in the form of a syndicate, Chakraborty explained. These syndicates were designed as informal cooperatives that supplied construction material to real-estate developers.

When the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011, the syndicate system was usurped by goons and cooperative norms, which in any case were informal arrangements between the newly landless farmers and the government, were discarded altogether, Chakraborty said. Typically, realtors bought materials from the local syndicate and employed labourers supplied by them. “If they do not, they have to pay a commission per square foot,” he said. “A part of the money goes to the party fund.”

A local painter and plaster contractor from the syndicate, on condition of anonymity, said he owed his livelihood to the Trinamool Congress government due to the syndicate system. All his labourers–about five to 15 men–come from Dhakuria station and are each paid Rs 400 per day.

“In the informal sector, it is very important to have a network with political or powerful persons,” said Maitra of IIM. “It means a large percentage of vulnerable workers are excluded. Those who do find employment, still remain vulnerable as they have no bargaining power. This kind of patron-client relationship is pervasive in the construction sector.”

Nirmal Maji, West Bengal’s minister of state for labour, dismissed the allegations against the syndicate system’s corruption by goons were “bogus”. He said the Trinamool government’s Samajik Suraksha Yojana, introduced in 2017 to provide social security to workers in the unorganised sector, was “a historic legislation.” This scheme provides various benefits, including provident fund, health coverage for workers and their immediate dependents, compensation in case of disability or death, education for workers’ children, and training in safety and skill development for all registered labourers in the unorganised sector. The number of beneficiaries is not clear.

Mason Amit Singh is one of the lucky ones. He travels 20 km from Howrah to a labour hub near the Ruby Hospital bus stand to find work with one of the local syndicates, whom he met four years ago. Although he finds regular work, travel and food consume Rs 100–a quarter of his daily earnings–and there is little left to make a fresh start in life.

The son of a van driver with an unstable income, Singh is 32, at the prime of his working life, but with few prospects of a better life. As workers like him dominate the working-age population, and industries stay away, some market forces in West Bengal, said experts, are being substituted by political organisations.

At Dhakuria station, Madan Goldar, secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), proudly declared that his AITUC unit had 5,000 members and cared for “each worker” on the platform by offering assistance during health emergencies, crimes and more.

The workers contested this and said memberships were forced. “We have to make regular monetary contributions to the union treasury,” said one worker on condition of anonymity. “They ask for Rs 50, but how can we pay if we don’t get work?” Others said they register to avail small benefits and remain in the union’s “good books”. The first labourer said the union refused to let anyone stand at the station if they did not contribute.

In its 2014 Lok Sabha election manifesto, the ruling Trinamool Congress had talked of the National Yuva Vista, a plan for rural and urban youth across India. It had promised housing, education, health, skill development and employment programmes for the poor.

It is 2019, and as West Bengal prepares for general elections on April 17, 24 and 30, and May 7 and 12, there appears to be no attempt to reclaim the demographic dividend.

“In West Bengal, muscle power is more important than economic prosperity,” said Chakraborty, the psephologist. Without prosperity, there are only unrealised dreams.

At Dhakuria station, most labourers said they yearned to send their children to good schools, eat two square meals a day and have a place to stay. Das said his dreams were simple: if he could ever afford it, he would like to buy his own piece of land and build a small house for his family. Asked whom he would vote for in the upcoming general elections, he shrugged and said: “Whoever pays for transport and gives me a meal.”

This is the fifth of 11 reports. The previous stories from: Indore, Jaipur, Perumbavoor and Ahmedabad.

(Bhattacharjee is a Kolkata-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

Courtesy: India spend

The post How West Bengal Is About To Lose Its Demographic Opportunity appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As you drive just around 10 km out of Delhi towards Chandigarh, you can see one edge of Anurag’s 24-hectare farm from the highway. And if you take the right turn, you can soon see water gushing through irrigation channels.

Does he need to flood his wheat farm with that much water? No, Anurag replies. In fact, the plants would rot if the water were not drained out after a while. So he has channels going out of his farm to the drain, he explains.

Anurag could surely afford to lay pipes where his irrigation channels are, and to use drip irrigation. Has he ever thought of it? Yes, but what’s the point, he responds. Every other farmer around will still pump up water for flood irrigation, and the water table will keep going down, irrespective of what he does alone.

Tragedy of commons

This classic tragedy of the commons bedevils groundwater all over India. No one conserves water because everyone feels if he does so, the neighbours will simply take a larger share. In the absence of any law regulating groundwater extraction, India has become the world’s largest user, mainly for agriculture. The larger the farm, the more the water wasted, the more wells dry out nearby, the more suffering for the poor who cannot afford to dig deep.

It goes directly against the idea of “leaving no one behind” – this year’s theme on World Water Day, March 22. But given the powerful farmers’ vote bank, not a single politician is talking about regulating groundwater use as they campaign for India’s general elections scheduled over seven phases in April and May.

But as large parts of peninsular India and Gujarat stare at drought this year, the politicians cannot help talking about water. Candidates are going around promising more and deeper wells if they are elected. None seems to care about the dropping water table, especially below the hard rocks of peninsular India, where it takes thousands of years for water to percolate underground.

Anurag Verma is fortunate that his farm is in the relatively alluvial Indo-Gangetic plains, with its perennial rivers and easier percolation underground. Even there, the drop is serious, and worsened by water-hungry crops such as sugarcane and rice in areas where nature did not intend them to be grown.

Disastrous drop

When it comes to the Deccan Plateau, the drop in the water table is disastrous, and it is worsened by far in just the same way – by growing sugarcane and with equally water-hungry vineyards coming up by the dozen. Maharashtra regularly comes up with new brands of wine, much beloved by the country’s chattering classes who neither know nor care about how much water the grapes drink and what it does to the poor people who have to depend on the wells around the vineyards.

In India, the law says if you own a piece of land, you may dig below it as deep as you can, install a pump, and pull up an unlimited amount of water. Add to this the fact that farmers do not have to pay for electricity. No political party is even thinking of confronting these two elephants in the room. When leaders are asked, they mutter about the farmers’ vote bank and shrug helplessly.

The solution thought up by some policymakers and embraced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – among others – is a mega-disaster in the making. This is the interlinking of rivers grand plan, which has already started in various parts of the country. Ignoring basic hydrology, this is a plan to transfer water from one river basin to another, culminating in the mega transfer of water from the Brahmaputra basin in north-eastern India to western India.

Construction dreams

Through pumping, it plans to get over the basic nature of water to flow downwards. It pays almost no attention to the future of basins from which the water will be taken away, or to the areas on the way. The plan is a golden dream for construction firms and a nightmare for everyone else. But the outgoing government is determined to go ahead with it if it comes back to power.

The meteorology of South Asia dictates prudent water use and water conservation – most of the rainfall is between June and September, and the subcontinent has to live with that for the whole year. It has done so for thousands of years through highly sophisticated water harvesting systems that change from place to place depending on rainfall, temperature and soil type – from ponds to wells to stepwells to minimise evaporation to underground stores below sand dunes that were locked against theft to ensuring tree cover at the top of every hill stream to maximise percolation and keep the springs alive.

The arrogance brought by modern technology in the last two centuries has disrupted these systems almost everywhere. But they are by no means lost; they will have to be mainstreamed and modern technology will have to be used for them instead of the other way around if India is to have enough water for survival.

Courtesy: Counter View

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Senior Journalist Abhisar Sharma reports about the distress of potato farmers from the ground zero at Mathura.

The post Don’t Play Politics Over Martyrdom, Give Us Fair Price for Potatoes appeared first on SabrangIndia.