Accusing the BJP-led NDA government of being the “most anti-farmer government’ in independent India, the Jai Kisan Andolan (Swaraj Abhiyan) in association with Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) and other like-minded organisations have decided to join forces to launch a ‘MSP Satyagraha’ throughout the country starting with Yadgir agriculture market in Karnataka.
In the next few days, MSP Satyagraha will be taken to agriculture markets in Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), Suryapet and Kodad (Telangana), before moving to other markets in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in the first phase, to highlight farmers’ woes and the agrarian distress in the country.
Announcing the programme here on Tuesday, Jai Kisan Andolan president Yogendra Yadav said farmers of the country were inspired by the recent ‘historic long march’ taken up in Maharastra, and the current programme of going from ‘mandi to mandi’ was meant to raise the demand for the legal entitlement of a fair MSP since it was in the ‘heart of existing system to ensure fair and remunerative returns’. It will also help in making the farmers aware of the multiple ways in which they are looted, check what really happens in the agriculture markets and whether they really get the MSP being assured by the Central government.
“This is a truth mission on the lines of the spirit of Gandhian Satyagraha and we invite everyone to participate to find out the MSP reality,” he said.
Arguing that MSP is the ‘solemn guarantee’ by the government to the farmers to ensure a floor price, Mr. Yadav pointed out the reality is that the farmer is forced to sell for much less — Bengal gram (chana) selling for ₹800 to ₹1000 less than MSP of ₹4,400, lentils at ₹3,200-₹3,800 as against ₹4,250, rapeseed at ₹3,500 as against ₹4,000, etc. He contested the government’s claims of ensuring income of 1/1.5 times the production cost.
Prof. M. Kodandaram, whose TJAC is among the several organisations supporting the programme, demanded fair MSP for all crops and alleged that the infrastructure facilities at markets are inadequate with middlemen and traders ruling the roost.
Even in recent red gram procurement by Markfed, the farmers’ arrears were to the tune of ₹220 crore.
“Farmers want to give up and cannot continue without the government coming to their rescue,” he said. He also criticised the TRS government’s farmers committees, stating they were meant to strengthen the party stranglehold and wondered what the newly-formed farmers’ corporation mandate was about. Farmer cooperatives on the lines of co-op banks and self-help groups were a better alternative, he said, and wanted tenant farmers to be included in every subsidy programme.
