People's Democracy

KERALA 

Farmers Form Platform For Resistance 

P Krishna Prasad 

THE severe agrarian crisis resulting from the speedy implementation of neo-colonial economic reforms in our country are compelling the farmers to take to the path of resistance. In a unique initiative in the direction of mobilising the farming community in this fight, a south Indian farmers meet was organised by the All India Kisan Sabha at Kalpetta, the headquarters of Wayanad district in Kerala on August 8, 2004.

The meeting, which was attended by representatives of cash crop growers’ organisations from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, decided to form a platform called SIFCO (South Indian Farmers Co-ordination). This coming together of various farmers organisations from the three southern states will infuse confidence among the distressed peasant community, felt many speakers in the meeting.

The farmers who attended the convention were from the coffee belt region of our country –Coorg, Chikmangloor and Hassan districts of Karnataka, Wayanad district of Kerala and Neelagiri district of Tamil Nadu. They mainly grow coffee, tea and pepper thus contributing huge amounts of foreign exchange to the national exchequer through exports.

For example, the foreign exchange income of the union government on an average from the export of coffee from this region alone amounts to Rs 1,600 crore per year. In the total amount of coffee produced in our country, Karnataka farmers contribute 74 per cent while Kerala farmers contribute 24 per cent.  The foreign exchange earnings through the export of tea, pepper, cardamom, areca nut, ginger, vanilla and other spices from the region amount to thousands of crores of rupees. In view of this crucial contribution, the government should have protected and promoted the cash crop growers of this region with paramount care as its responsibility. But the reality is just the opposite. The Indian State leaves these cash crop growers to the cruel exploitation of the foreign and domestic monopoly houses that run big agro industries like Tata Tea, Brooke Bond and Nestle India.

NEO-IMPERIALIST OFFENSIVE

The big traders and industrial houses have formed cartels to haul out the agro produces for a pittance from the growers. They are largely helped in their endeavours by the implementation of neo-liberal policies under the guise of globalisation.

Let us evaluate the consequence of the lifting of the quantitative restrictions on import of agriculture produces in April 2000 by the erstwhile NDA dispensation headed by Vajpayee on cash crop growers. The price of pepper per quintal was Rs 27,000 in 2000 and it collapsed to as low as Rs 7,000 in 2001 due to the liberal import of pepper at 0 per cent tax from Vietnam. Likewise, the price of coffee beans was Rs 11,000 per quintal in 1997 and by 2001 it had dropped to Rs 2,800. The same was the fate of green tea leaves. The price of it had shrunk to Rs 400 in 2001 from Rs1,800 during 1996-1997 periods.

Obviously, the huge loss to farmers due to this price crash was alarming in nature. According to a review, by keeping the 1999 price level as the base, the coffee and pepper growers of the tiny Wayanad district of Kerala alone suffered a loss of Rs 2,556 crore in four years since 2000. The loss to the farmers due to the price crash is nearly Rs 1,16,200 crore per year, as per a recent study.  This shows the magnitude of the exploitation the farmers are subjected to by the neo-imperialist offensive.

This sort of severe crash of prices has drained the farmers of their earnings. On the other side, the steep hike in the input costs due to withdrawal of subsidies, hike in the price of fertilisers, electricity, water, diesel, seeds and plants etc. has made agriculture too expensive. The farmers are unable to get even the production expenditure from selling their produce.

Apart from this, the continuous drought and widespread crop diseases have affected the production drastically. All these hostile reasons have led farmers into grave indebtedness and misery. They failed to pay back their loans from public and private lending agencies. This has brought social, economical and psychological problems in their life, indescribable in words. This is the background of the critical phenomena of peasant suicides looming at large in this region of coffee belt.

AGITATIONS

With farmers committing suicide becoming the order of the day, the unit of All India Kisan Sabha in Wayanad along with Agricultural Workers Union (KSKTU), Adivasi Kshema Samithi, CITU, and DYFI has taken up a series of agitations. The main demands were: write off the loans of farmers; provide them interest free long term credit facilities; reverse the import policy and put adequate tax on imports to safe guard the price of agricultural produces in the domestic market; procure produces by declaring minimum support price (MSP); institute agro-industries in the government and co-operative sectors; provide free land to landless adivasis etc. One of the demands of the agitation was payment of compensation to the bereaved families of farmers who committed suicide.

An indefinite hunger strike in front of the Collectorate lasted 11 days in the month of March-April, 2004. In the background of mounting suicides this agitation actually shook the entire state of Kerala. The media also had played a positive role and helped to create awareness among the public about the gravity of the agrarian crisis. These circumstances compelled the then A K Antony government to negotiate with the agitators and pay compensation of Rs 50,000 to the bereaved families of the victims. The government declared one-year moratorium for all agriculture loans and waived interest for one year. It was also forced to provide free ration to all adivasi and poor families.

After the Lok Sabha election, the AIKS decided to further advance the agitation in order to force the central and state governments to find a solution to the agrarian crisis. Conventions of farmers suffering from indebtedness were organised at district and village level in which thousands of farmers participated. A joint delegation visited the prime minister and agriculture minister at New Delhi and submitted memorandum in the first week of July (See People’s Democracy, July 18, 2004). A march of 562 persons travelled more than 500 kms from Wayanad  to Thiruvananthapuram and staged a public meeting in front of the state assembly on July 19. 

NEEDED A UNITED MOVEMENT

In the background of continuous failure of the central and state governments in finding a solution to the agrarian crisis, the AIKS decided to hold this South Indian farmers meeting to evolve a common strategy to counter the common problems facing the farmers. According to the peasant leaders of Nilgiri, around 95 farmers and agricultural labourers have committed suicide in the Gudaloor taluk alone during last year. The Karnataka farmers described how the agrarian crisis has affected the daily life of growers and labourers in the coffee belt. Everybody was unanimous on the need to widen the agitation till the governments act to overcome the grave agrarian crisis.

S Ramachandran Pillai, AIKS president remarked that the liberalisation policy had removed all government control over the market and hurled the farmers and labourers into deep distress. The price crash is a direct fall out of the government’s policy and it should compensate the losses of the peasantry. He said that the multinational companies and domestic monopolies that package the cash crop produces are making huge profits and have not passed on the reduced prices to consumers. Neither the cash crop growers nor the consumers are getting benefit from the high prices of consumer products. He called for a united movement of the peasantry to fight the neo-liberal imperialist offensive looming large all over the country.

The meeting decided to form SIFCO as a platform to facilitate united actions of the likeminded farmer’s organisations and elected M P Veerendra Kumar, MP as the chairman and P A Muhammad from Wayanad as the convener of the platform. All democratic farmers organisations will be invited to be part of SIFCO in order to make it a truly representative body of the farmers in their struggle to come out of the agrarian crisis. The meeting also decided to organise a convention of coffee growers at Bangalore on August 27 and a convention of tea growers at Gudaloor on September 19-20. S Ramachandran Pillai and K Varadarajan, AIKS general secretary, will participate in both the meetings.

This initiative of the AIKS has helped the peasantry realise the necessity of launching strong, widespread agitations to make the governments act to overcome the agrarian crisis. There was an illusion among the farmers in general that the new UPA government will provide immediate relief to them and solve the agrarian crisis. The first budget presented by Chidambaram has helped them to come out of such illusions. Pressure needs to be brought on the Manmohan Singh government to reverse the anti-farmer economic policies being followed. The formation of SIFCO and the effective leadership provided by the AIKS in this effort are unique in nature and will definitely help the farmers and agricultural labourers to emerge as a massive movement beyond their political affiliations on their path of resistance against the imperialist offensive.