NEW DELHI – Tens of thousands of farmers and agricultural workers marchedtowards the Indian parliament Friday demanding debt waivers and higher cropprices, putting pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of 2019elections.
More than 300,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the last twodecades mainly because of poor irrigation, failed crops and being unable topay back loans.
Farmers from across the country flooded by train and bus into Delhi sinceThursday to mass in the capital city’s Ramlila Grounds before marching toparliament.
Organisers said some 80,000 farmers and farm labourers were participatingin the two-day agitation that will culminate with a petition to the Indianpresident after the march was stopped half-a-mile ahead of the parliamenthouse.
Police erected hundreds of steel barricades to stop the marching crowds andkept water cannon on stand-by in case of any disorder.
The gathering was one of the biggest to hit the Indian capital since 2012protests over the gang rape of a student.
Participants marched through central Delhi chanting slogans and holdingplacards emblazoned with “Down With Modi Government” and “Long Live FarmerUnity” as thousands of riot and armed policemen stood guard.
“The farmer crisis has got twice as bad in the last five years,” SadhuSingh, a farmer from northern Punjab state known as India’s rice bowl, toldAFP.
“We are losing money on every grain of rice we produce,” he said.
Some 200 farmer groups backed by left-leaning political parties have setthree main demands for the government, including a nationwide waiver offarm loans, better prices for their produce and a special parliamentsession to discuss their plight.
The mass rally is the latest bid by farmer groups to put pressure on theModi government ahead of the 2019 national elections.
The right-wing nationalist leader has promised to double their income by2022 but farmers say nothing has changed for them.
The issue has also become a political flashpoint as India prepares for theelections expected next April or May, with Modi’s political rivals backingthe farmers, a key voter base.
“The farmers are not asking for a free gift, they’re asking for what is dueto them,” Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s main rival from the opposition Congressparty, told the gathering.
The rally saw dozens of opposition leaders launching scathing attack on theModi government over the agrarian crisis.
Opposition parties have accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ofbeing pro-rich and anti-farmer.
The right-wing nationalist party has rebutted these claims.
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*Farmer distress*——————————
Farmers’ distress has been a cause for worry for several decades, but thecrisis has come to a head in recent months, with farmers spilling on tostreets across the country.
Thousands of farmers crippled Mumbai — capital of Maharashtra state — inMarch. The western state witnessed some 639 farmer suicides in the firstthree months of 2018, according to government.
Some 50,000 marched in the eastern city of Kolkata on Wednesday.
Nearly 55 percent of India’s 1.25 billion population is directly orindirectly dependent on agriculture. The sector accounts for around 15percent of India’s economic output.
India is the global leader in cotton production followed by wheat, rice andsugar.
Each year millions of small farmers suffer due to scant irrigationfacilities that reduce the yield and lead farmers into a deadly cycle ofdebt and suicides.
India lacks a robust irrigation infrastructure and most of the country’sfarmland relies on annual monsoon rains. Excessive rains or floods tooprove devastating.
Labo Banigo from eastern Odisha state said he is under huge debts after hiscrops failed due to back-to-back bad monsoons.
“My farm is a wasteland. There is hardly 10 percent produce,” Banigo toldAFP.
“Modi promised to double our income but we can’t even feed ourselves.” -APP/AFP