Farmers Agitation

Maharashtra sees staggering increase in farmer suicides, almost half of victims' families receive no compensation, shows RTI   https://www.firstpost.com/india/maharashtra-sees-staggering-increase-in-farmer-suicides-almost-half-of-victims-families-receive-no-compensation-shows-rti-6157641.html  February 26, 2019  In a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on 24 April, 2015, the government of Maharashtra disclosed that 6,268 farmer suicides were “noticed in the state” between 2011 and 2014, when the Congress-NCP was in power. From January 2015 to the end of 2018, 11,995 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra, a 91 percent increase over the previous three year period.

In 2014, when the NCRB changed the way farmer suicides are counted, senior journalist P Sainath called it a "slaughter of data". To downplay the crisis, Sainath noted, farmer suicides have been counted under the category of “others”. While pointing out that the rise in suicides by "others" in Maharashtra is a staggering 94 percent, he said authorities are “hiding corpses in other columns”.

The RTI filed by Ghadge further revealed that in many cases in Maharashtra, the authorities did not approve compensation for victims' families. Between 2011 and 2014, 3,284 of 6,268 cases were found eligible: which means 48 percent of victims' families did not get compensation...In the past four years, 6,844 families received ex-gratia payment. In other words, 43 percent of victims' families did not get any compensation. 

References refered to in video -https://scroll.in/article/1003219/nearly-400000-farmers-committed-suicide-in-india-between-1995-and-2018-why   Statistics say nearly 4,00,000 farmers committed suicide in India between 1995 and 2018. Why? An excerpt from ‘Ramrao: The Story of India’s Farm Crisis’, by Jaideep Hardikar. Jaideep Hardikar
Aug 20, 2021 Kalamb was a sensitive man. A Dhangar (shepherd) by caste, a nomadic tribe in Maharashtra, his poems are rooted in the region’s rustic culture and offer invaluable insights into an average Indian farmer’s life. In .. poem titled “Lek” (Daughter), he showcases the worries of a father who is a farmer. While the poem carries deep patriarchal undertones, it explains the structural social problems of Vidarbha, which once was a feudal region; though things have changed or are changing, caste and class animosities still subtly prevail. In “Itihaas” (History) he questions time for preserving only the glorious history of the rich, while wilfully burying the resilient struggles of the poor.
Local farmers’ markets were invaded by global markets, like that of cotton or food. Rapid upward economic mobility of sections of the population was creating newer inequalities, leading to a perception among the peasantry that they were losing out. The fast-changing economic conditions were also altering long-held social equations.
Landed farmers, once among the respected classes in a village economy, were now unable to meet their ever-growing needs, while the non-landed classes, absorbed in the unorganised service economy, migrated out of their villages to urban centres for better wages and work, doing marginally better than they once did as farm labourers.
The prevailing agrarian distress has a context with many factors: a giant interlinked global economy; commercialisation of farming and life itself; a rural population unable to withstand the new economic order in the absence of safety nets; an upwardly mobile and new affluent India disconnected from its villages; and the struggling poor even in the urban spaces.

Link for Viewing: https://youtu.be/YbKafd_TN3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbKafd_TN3c

DÉJÀ VU a documentary by Bedabrata Pain 2024 began with farmers all over Europe demonstratively raising their voices in protest, while farmers in India re-launch a protest march to Delhi alongside other demonstrations, with MSP in the forefront of their demands.

Against the backdrop of the global rise in farmers’ movement, comes the documentary “Déjà vu”.

The documentary began in 2021. Barely two months since the launch of the farm laws in India to promote market reforms. In the middle of Covid-19 and a frigid American winter, four Indians were on a ten- thousand-kilometre drive through the farming heartland of America. Because, as it turns out that four decades ago, similar market reforms were ushered in in America.

A more classic case of “back to the future” perhaps could not be found.

How did the reforms turn out?
Who benefitted?
Who lost out?
Is it the farmers, the consumers, or the corporates?
What impact did loss of MSP or ushering in of contract farming have on farmers?

Through personal experiences and human stories of small farmers in America, Deja Vu is a chronicle of a four decade long history of a much-trumpeted elixir – and a cautionary tale for India.

Déjà Vu is the confluence where past meets future.

LAKHS OF FARMERS TO GATHER AT KISAN MAHAPANCHAYAT OF SAMYUKT KISAN MORCHA AT DELHI ON 20TH MARCH Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) | Press Release – March 19, 2023

The Mahapanchayat shall demand that the Union Govt. fulfil the commitments it had given in writing to SKM on 9th December, 2021 and also take effective steps to mitigate the ever increasing and spiralling crisis being faced by farmers.

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