March began at Nashik; crop failures and BJP govt’s inability to deliver on its promise of a farm loan waiver are at the heart of the discontent.
Nashik/Mumbai: The last one year has been tough on Ankush Raotovar, a 55-year-old farmer from Marathwada’s Parbhani district. His usual soybean produce of 12 quintals a season plunged to two quintals due to delayed rainfall; more than 50 per cent of his cotton crop was ravaged by the pink bollworm, and the one possibility of solace that he had in the form of a farm loan waiver did not materialise.
As a last hope, Raotovar travelled 790 km from Parbhani to Nashik to join a protest of farmers from across the state organised by the Left-leaning All India Kisan Sabha. With thousands of distressed farmers, he set out on a long march from Nashik to Mumbai, covering 165 km, with the idea of reaching the doorstep of the state government at Vidhan Bhavan while the budget session is underway, and refusing to budge until their demands are met.
Traveling by foot for nearly a week, eating, bathing and sleeping at open grounds or on river banks along the way, the farmers are scheduled to reach Vidhan Bhavan Monday. Their demands primarily include proper implementation of a farm loan waiver, adequate compensation for all farmers whose crops were destroyed by the pink bollworm, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, and pension for poor farmers.
The protests come at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government has been facing flak from the opposition and ally Shiv Sena for being ‘anti-farmer’ ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha and assembly polls. Moreover, one round of farmers’ protests had already taken place in June last year, culminating in the announcement of a loan waiver, and with recent figures indicating an 8.3 per cent drop in the agriculture sector, the fresh protests are likely to put the BJP in a further bind.
Ashok Dhawale, president of the All India Kisan Sabha, said: “Our protests are not political. But this government is taking an anti-farmer stand and siding with capitalist billionaires like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya. All this is sending a strong message that this government is for the rich, not for the common poor, the farmers, and this will definitely have an impact on the polls.”
Growing discontent
On Friday, as the farmers reached Vasind, about 63 km from Mumbai, their numbers had swelled, and so had their discontent against the Devendra Fadnavis government.
“I applied online for a farm loan waiver and got a message that my loan of Rs 1.5 lakh has been waived. But the bank says it doesn’t know anything about it, and I should go ask the person who sent me the message. I want my loan waiver,” Raotovar said.
“Even when the pink bollworm destroyed my cotton crop, government officials came and conducted a panchnama, but ultimately the revenue circle that my village belongs to was excluded from the villages where farmers were given compensation.”
The state government’s much-hyped scheme of building farm ponds on demand is also a farce, said Raotovar, as while farmers get these ponds sanctioned, the budget is never released on time.
“I joined this rally with the hope that at least this will get me somewhere,” said Raotovar, who lives in Parbhani’s Indewadi village.
A significant number of the protesting farmers are from tribal areas of Nashik, Thane and Palghar, who have joined the march with a primary demand of getting the lands that they have been cultivating for years transferred in their names under the Forest Rights Act.
Tarabai Chaudhari, a 50-year-old farmer from Vani village in the Dindori taluka of the Nashik district, said: “We have been raising this demand for years, but nobody pays any heed to us. I have been cultivating that land since the past 25 years, growing corn and soybean. I cannot even take a crop loan, because there’s no land in my name. This is our last attempt now. In any case, we don’t have much money, and we can’t keep missing work days to stage demonstrations.”
Ambadas Sonawne from Nashik also faces the same problem. Moreover, his farm income in the monsoon season last year plummeted to Rs 10,000 from the expected Rs 40,000 as lower-than-expected rainfall hit his cultivation of cereals and pulses on a small 1.5-acre plot.
“It is unfortunate that we have been walking for almost five days. Our feet have become sore. Many have fainted and required medical help along the way, but the government hasn’t taken any notice of the protest march. All this will definitely have an impact on the elections next year,” Sonawne said.
“The land that the farmer was using to feed his family is being taken away for the government’s ‘Samruddhi project’ (the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway). The BJP government is trying to turn farmers into beggars.”
Govt’s (lack of) response
State agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar said the marching farmers hadn’t reached out to the government.
“I haven’t had any discussions with any of the leaders of the protest march. None of them have reached out to the government. I only read about the protests in the newspapers,” he said.
Fundkar added that he will decide how to handle the protest, and approach the farmers after discussions with the chief minister.
Things will improve once the twelve trillion investment committed under Magnetic Maharashtra fructifies.