Farmers protest: Centre surrendering to corporates, doing cosmetic changes, say activists

NEW DELHI: The farm laws, which the Centre expedited to liberalise India’s agrarian sector, were in reality an onslaught on democratic rights, said activists on Friday. Authoritarian governments across the globe are using the pandemic as a tool to crack down on dissent, they said. While the government is only aiming at cosmetic changes through amendments, the stakeholders said, the ‘anti-farmer laws’ would affect the entire agricultural fraternity.

“The Centre which expected the farm laws to be passed without any resistance has now been proven wrong. It actually surrenders self-reliance and food grains to MNCs. It means you go back to slavery and colonial servitude that we have escaped from,” said political activist Aruna Roy.

Hannan Mollah, general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha, said farmers were struggling for reforms in India for the past 15 years. “But the question is reforms in whose interest? We want that reforms should be made in the interest of the farmers. They are not getting remunerative price, they are committing suicide due to loan burdens...they are exploited.

The WTO agreement imposes burden on them. What they want for survival should be taken into account. But Modi (government) is trying to further the rights of the corporates,” Mollah said. Lakshman Singh Sewewala of Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union said it was not a struggle of farmers alone. “Food security issue would be a worse crisis.

This is why people are in solidarity on this issue,” the farmer labour leader asserted. The corporates are interfering in the process of policymaking and lawmaking, claimed social activist Medha Patkar. “Our politicians are more dependent on the corporate funding and that helps them to exploit votebanks through manipulation.

It is the assault on agriculture which is being countered with a strong people’s movement by farmers across the country.” Surinder S Jhodka, a professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, lauded the way the movement was shaping up. “I am impressed by the kind of political and intellectual clarity they have, and the moral strength this movement has,” said Jhodka.