Be A Gandhian, Stand By Farmers

There is uneasiness among crores of farmers in India with the seal of three agricultural bills by the Rajya Sabha on Sunday last. The official claim is that the producers will be empowered by selling their products outside the mandis, but the design of these bills is such that will eventually make the farmers a slave to private buyers. This attitude and step of the Indian government is directly against crores of farmers of the country. The government says that these farmers will be prosperous, but the farmers themselves, agricultural experts and experts are calling them destructive. People have a clear view that the central government will benefit the corporate world through this. The attitude of the central government is the same as that of the British. The Central Government neither consulted political parties nor farmers organizations to take these decisions. He did not even divide the vote in the Rajya Sabha to pass it, which many opposition parties were demanding. Through this, the Narendra Modi government has proved that it believes in the corporatization of agriculture and now it has become clear to the public and farmers that before independence, the way the farmers had to fight for their liberation, the struggle was like Time has come again.

 In his visit to India after his return from South Africa, Gandhiji had seen the lives of villages and the people living in them closely. They were distressed by his poverty. In the slums of Kolkata, he saw the plight of the farmers who became laborers in the jute mills after their lands were sold. On the Phoenix and Tolstoy farms, they not only worked like farmers, but it was an imperative to work for all occupants. This was the beginning of his thinking of self-sufficient villages with agriculture at the center. He used to say that there should be no need to look at the villages. During the Non-Cooperation Movement, Gandhiji tried the strength of the farmers for the first time in which the villagers and the farmers came true. In 1920, when Gandhi waged his first major nationwide movement in the country, millions of farmers of the country along with educated citizens were with him. Due to the exploitative policies and oppressive programs of the British, the farmers accepted Gandhiji's leadership also because they themselves had adopted the patron and lifestyle of the poor farmer. He became united with them. During the Quit India Movement of 1942, millions of farmers across the country had bravely faced the British lathi-bullets in the non-violent movement on the call of Mahatma. During the British rule, Gandhi had led many peasant satyagrahs and movements throughout the country or had given support and guidance. His first such peasant movement (1917) was in Champaran, Bihar, in which he emerged as a superstar in India's political space. Gandhiji went there on the request of the farmers who were devastated by the forced indigo cultivation by the British.

 The British had told them the orders not to enter and return to Champaran and Motihari districts, which they refused. He was sentenced but later released. In Kheda district of Gujarat, the crop was badly ruined - even Chaithai was not there, but the British officials were not ready to leave the rent. The Merta brothers (Kalyanji and Kunwarji) were agitating against it in 1918. Gandhiji sent Vallabhbhai Patel to help him, who abandoned his moving advocacy. They wandered from village to village and signed the pledge, yet the lands of many farmers were attached. Gandhi asked the farmers to cut crops from their confiscated fields. First of all, Mohanlal Pandya harvested his onion crop. Many villagers followed this, due to which many farmers were arrested but they did not bow down. Finally, the revenue collection was stopped and the farmers won. Kisan Satyagraha was run in Bardoli in Gujarat in 1928 under the leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel as Lagaan was increased by 22%. Many attempts were made to crush the movement, but the farmers did not bow down. Eventually, a judicial committee comprising Broomfield and Maxwell reduced the increase to 6.03 percent, considering it to be wrong. The farmers won and Vallabhbhai became the Sardar. In 1920, farmers in Kandel in Dhamtari district, 70 km from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, ran a canal satyagraha under the leadership of Pt. Sunderlal Sharma, Narayanrao Meghawale and Babu Chhotalal Srivastava. Gandhiji supported him by reaching there. This movement was about irrigation tax. Bapu was sent by Jawaharlal Nehru to support the Shika agitation (1919) against the increase in rent in Hardoi, Bahraich and Sitapur in the northern province. The Satyagraha (1920) was performed by the farmers of Mopala in the Malabar region of Kerala, supported by the support and guidance of Shaukat Ali and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad besides Bapu. Farmers have always been at the center of Bapu's concern. That is why, in parallel to the political struggle during the freedom struggle, he fought many battles throughout the country for the farmers. If they used to run to lead and support them, the reason for this was the presence of farmers at the center of their economic, social, political and cultural discourse. He favored a happy and prosperous rural life. They knew that only rich villages can maintain organic social fabric. Only then will they become politically powerful and preserve Indian culture. Bapu's original mantra was the self-reliance of farmers, but the paradox is that the recent agriculture bill will make the producers completely slaves of the cities. No matter how many kilometers farmers have to go about their crops, they have to go to the places where corporates will buy them. The study of the bills brought by the central government has shown that this whole scheme is completely out of Mahatma Gandhi's concept of agriculture and farmers' development. Is the opposite. Already, industrialization and urbanization are reducing agricultural acreages, while chemical fertilizers, pesticides, expensive wages, expensive diesel, etc. are increasing costs on farming. In such a situation, they will gradually get out of this profession and agriculture will also be under corporate control. Due to the intrusion of corporates into villages and forests, agricultural land is already losing its ownership. On the one hand, industrialists and businessmen have not returned billions of loans from banks, while on the other hand thousands of farmers have committed suicide due to non-repayment of small amounts. Modi's business is well known from the world. Agriculture is not in his preference. His special industrialists and businessmen are venturing into the retail business. Since the government mandi scheme will be gradually eliminated through these bills, farmers will have no choice but to sell their products in private hands. It is feared that this scheme will deprive farmers of good prices of their products and make them indebted. This is a conspiracy to make agricultural laborers on their own land by buying agricultural land in a small price. Our agricultural lands have already deteriorated due to pollution of industry, business, urbanization etc. The Green Revolution increased production, but excessive use of chemicals has made the land inaccessible and indebted to farmers. This government had announced five years ago that it would double the income of farmers by 2022. These steps do not seem to fulfill this goal anywhere. Conversely, the corporate world has prospered through the plight of farmers. In some of the early five-year plans of independent India, there was an emphasis on agriculture, which can be called the impact of Gandhi's vision on our policies and programs. In the following years he kept going. The BJP-led central and state governments have proved to be anti-farmer. Today, more and more of our budget goes to corporates and all the facilities are left to them. The new bill is a document of the destruction of the farmers, to protest against which we should stand with the farmers like Gandhi.