Farmers’ groups under the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) have announced a major nationwide protest. They plan to organise an ‘all-India march’, called the Kisan Yatra. This journey will start in Kanyakumari in the south and end in Kashmir in the north. The march is planned for February and March.
The main goals of this protest are clear. Farmers want the Union Government to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) a legal right. MSP is the price at which the government buys crops from farmers. They also want the government to follow the suggestions made by the Swaminathan Commission. This commission suggested that MSP should be 50% higher than the cost of growing the crops. Lastly, farmers are demanding complete relief from their debts.
Jagjit Singh Dallewal, a national coordinator for the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), explained the plan. The Kisan Yatra will begin in the first week of February from Kanyakumari. It will finish in Srinagar, Kashmir. During their journey, the farmers will hold ‘Kisan Panchayats’ in villages across the country. These are village meetings where farmers can discuss their issues. The aim is to get support from people at the grassroots level. They plan to collect millions of resolutions from villages supporting their demands. These will be presented to the Prime Minister. A large gathering called a ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ is scheduled for March 19 at the Ramlila Ground in New Delhi. This event will present the collected village resolutions.
Mr. Dallewal himself recently completed a 132-day fast in Punjab. His fast was also to demand a legal guarantee for MSP.
Meanwhile, a group from SKM is scheduled to meet a High-Powered Committee appointed by the Supreme Court. This meeting will take place in Panchkula tomorrow, January 9. They will discuss important agricultural issues. After this meeting, the farmer leaders will also meet with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture. These meetings show that farmers are using multiple ways to get their voices heard.
Farmers’ leaders have reacted strongly to a recent statement by the Union Agriculture Minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan. He said that increased crop yields show that Indian farmers are prosperous. The SKM leaders collectively disagreed. They stated that farmers are caught in a difficult cycle of debt. They also face rising costs for farming inputs like seeds and fertilisers. At the same time, the prices they get for their crops are falling. Because of this pressure, farmers are forced to use more fertilisers and advanced farming methods. They do this just to produce as much as possible to try and make ends meet. This is a sign of financial trouble, not prosperity.
According to the SKM (Non-Political), higher production is not a sign of farmers being happy or wealthy. Instead, it shows they are struggling to survive and are under financial stress.