People's Democracy

THE Kerala Karshaka Sangham, a mass organisation of peasants, has collected signatures from one crore peasants from all over Kerala against the WTO-dictated anti-peasant policies of the BJP-led government, allowing the developed world to play havoc with the life of Indian peasantry. These signatures were handed over to the prime minister with the demand that the anti-national, anti-people and anti-farmer policies be scrapped forthwith.

In a symbolic gesture, the resolution containing the signatures from one village were handed over to the All India Kisan Sabha president S R Pillai and Kerala Karshaka Sangham general secretary at a rally at Parliament Street, New Delhi, on December 13.

The rally by about 500 members of the Sangham/Kisan Sabha, local Malayalees and MPs marched to the Parliament Street from Kerala House. Here they were addressed by CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, S R Pillai, A Vijayaraghvan and V Mattathil, among others.

In his address, Surjeet said the peasants of Kerala had suffered because of the negative policies of the central government which had resulted in a fall in the prices of coconut, rubber, coffee, arecanut, etc. Already 33 peasants have committed suicide in Kerala. He said peasants all over the country are suffering the same fate. But this will be tolerated no more. Surjeet further said that the developed nations have raised subsidy for their farmers while the Indian government is being forced to cut any form of help to our peasants, making agriculture economically unviable. It is indeed a sad state of affairs in India, where the bulk of population is dependent on agriculture, that the government is making this very sector uneconomical. It is removing all subsidies and allowing the developed nations to export to India their heavily subsidised agricultural products, the subsidy being as high as 35 per cent in some cases.

While symbolically accepting the signatures, S R Pillai said he would see that the representation of one crore Kerala peasants was handed over to the prime minister. He said the import restrictions that have been withdrawn must be re-imposed and protection given to our peasants so that they may make both ends meet.

Others who also addressed the rally were N N Krishnandas, N K Shukla and Varakala Radhakrishan.

Giving details of the worsening plight of Kerala peasants because of the ongoing globalisation and liberalisation of agriculture, the memorandum given to the prime minister later on the day demanded the following immediate measures:

1. Declaration of the minimum support prices for all the important crops and opening of a sufficient number of centres for their purchase;
2. Increase in duty on imports of agricultural commodities in order to curb the indiscriminate imports of agricultural crops;
3. Re-imposition of quantitative restrictions on imports if there is a steep fall in prices due to these imports;
4. Debt relief measures such as waiver of loan amounts and interest.
5. Steps to provide subsidies to agriculture in order to increase productivity and production.
6. Provision of more infrastructure facilities such as cooling facilities, storage facilities, etc. (INN)