Page 66 - March EW PDF 24

Special Report

INDIA'S COLONISATION OF BHARAT

— LIBERATING RURAL INDIA

Rural India has been shortchanged from reaping the gains of freedom
and national development by way of continuously adverse terms of trade
between town and country. A visitor from another planet is likely to
identify rural Bharat as a totally different country from urban India with
its swish motorcars, glitzy shopping malls and big weddings

Dilip Thakore

T HE LATEST STAND-OFF BETWEEN and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) to halt the farm-

ers’ march to Delhi. Four rounds of talks between repre-
rural and urban India on the Pun-
sentatives of the BJP government at the Centre and farmer
jab-Haryana border is yet another
leaders to negotiate a compromise have proved unsuccess-
confrontation between Bharat’s
impoverished rural majority and
ful at the time of writing.
relatively wealthy urban India. Cur-
It’s pertinent to note that this movement follows massive
rently, thousands of farmers mainly
under the banner of the Punjab-based Samyukta Kisan
from rural Punjab grouped under the protests of farmers three years ago in 2020, when grouped
banners of the SKM (non-political), Morcha, All India Kisan Sangharsh Committee and over a
BKU (Dallewal), Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and 17 other farm- dozen other unions and associations, farmers congregated
ers’ organisations are on the march to New Delhi to press on the borders of the national capital to protest three Bills
for legally guaranteed minimum support prices (MSP) 50 passed by Parliament. These Bills permitted the purchase
percent above the weighted average cost of production for and sale of agriculture produce beyond officially designated
wheat, rice and 21 other crops. Other demands include bet- Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee premises (aka
ter sugarcane prices, pension of Rs.10,000 per month for mandis); electronic trading of farm produce to create a na-
every farmer and farm labour above 60 years of age, and tional market; contract farming and empowered the Cen-
India’s withdrawal from the WTO (World Trade Organisa- tral government to regulate farm produce prices only in the
tion). event of extraordinary emergencies such as war and famine.
To prevent the entry of droves of farm protestors with Essentially these Bills were enacted to apply the logic of
tractors into the national capital disrupting administration the highly successful deregulation and liberalisation of In-
and business, the Central and (BJP) government of Hary- dian industry in 1991, to the farming sector. However, they
ana have strongly barricaded the border with Punjab and were fiercely opposed by the farmers’ unions who continued
large contingents of the police, RAF (Rapid Action Force) their protest on the Delhi border for over a year — during

66 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2024