Being a citizen of India, I am inclined to compare our economy with a coin which has 102 billionaires as it’s “Heads” who are getting busy everyday in living their sumptuous lives and 0.9 billion people as it’s “Tails” who chiefly struggles to fulfill their daily necessary requirements. Sadly the story of that “Tails”, never got emphasized in Modi’s speeches in USA, UK or even in India.
On November 26th, the world saw the largest trade union strike called by leftist trade unions in India. As per the reporting of the national and international mainstream media “200 million people had participated in this general strike”. Perhaps the largest farmers strike the world has seen in recent times. And now, the whole country is witnessing world’s largest farmer’s protest but the question is – What are the reasons behind these large scaled protests?
It’s not that the conditions of farmers in this country have deteriorated only today. The news of Farmers committing suicide are quite common in India since 1990 and it has increased by 40% under the Modi regime. More than 70000 farmers have committed suicide in last 7 years and millions are in distress due to having debt from private loan providers and the unacceptable truth is that once union agricultural minister of BJP led government Mr. Radha Mohon Singh had indicated sexual dissatisfaction as a reason of Farmer suicides.
On the other hand statistical reports show that maximum farmers in India are living below poverty line. As the final nail on the coffin few agricultural bills were passed in parliament on September, 2020 which will eventually turn the government regulated agricultural market into a corporate dominated open market. Government publicized this bill by the tagline “One Nation, One market” but there was no mention of the Minimum Support Price (MSP – A minimum price of the corps which had to be provided to the farmers in Government Regulated Markets) in the bill for these corporate markets. Despite of many protest rallies by the farmers Government never listened to the farmers. As a result more than 1 million farmers from more than 500 organizations took over the streets of New Delhi.
This indefinite strike called by the leftist organizations is do or die struggle for the farmers. But there are two more things which is very much required to be discussed here. Then only we all get to know the real scenario of the largest democracy.
The actions made by the government to stop the farmers march
Government used tear gas and water cannons to stop the farmers who feed the whole country. National highway was ripped apart intentionally to prevent the farmers march. Section 144(The law which authorizes the Executive Magistrate of any state or territory to issue an order to prohibit the assembly of four or more people in an area. According to law, every member of such ‘unlawful assembly’ can be booked for engaging in rioting) was imposed in the state of Haryana, bus services were cancelled.
Farmers strike and the role of Indian media
Majority of the main stream media owner of the country are very close to ruling BJP. As a result, out of 10 mainstream news channels 7 tried to portray this farmer march as a separatist movement and a Naxalite movement. No doubt that the majority of the mainstream media are trying to manipulate people’s mind and convert the irresistible farmers protest to a political game.
But the fourth pillar of Indian democracy never highlighted this unity of working class. They will never tell us the story that the farmers who joined the meeting with government to settle the issue did not take the lunch provided by the government just because their friends are on the street. Media is promoting the wage given by the Modi government to the farmers but never highlighted the exact amount which is just 6000 INR per year which is equivalent to 80 US Dollars per year.
By observing this kind of incident we the left can easily understand that the state is now simply following the crony capitalist model where peoples love military, military is used to protect the government. Government will sell everything to corporate and corporate gives the fund to media but one thing is also for sure, the way farmers and workers have taken the highway of the country, It means no matter how much modi and his corporate friends pretend to run the country, the real driving force can stop the country anytime. It is already proved that the working class doesn’t have any interest in religious politics, they simply want to live with bread and butter. So it is our duty to unite this working class to break this crony capitalist cycle with a goal of socialism.
The good news is, the myth of becoming super power is now being exposed to the outside world. we recently saw a tweet from Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau who himself is a representative of pro capitalism has shown his consciousness on recent incidents happening in India. People of India should also accept the fact that India is neither a rich country nor a developed one but a very poor country which ranks 112 in global hunger index.
