A massive
statewide convention of over 10,000 peasants was held at Jalgaon on September
26, 2017 under the banner of the Coordination Committee of Farmers’
Organisations of Maharashtra. This was the next step in the ongoing struggle
for loan waiver and remunerative prices, directed against the BJP-led
government in the state and at the centre. The last major joint action on
August 14 had seen over two lakh peasants blocking all the national highways
and state highways (Chakka Jaam) in more than 200 centres in 31 districts of
Maharashtra.
Although the
state government, under intense pressure of the joint peasant struggle, was
forced to announce a Rs 34,000 crore loan waiver upto Rs 1.5 lakh per farmer,
this was riddled with all kinds of conditions, which made a mockery of the
promise of a complete loan waiver that it gave on June 11.
Further, in a
move that was completely unnecessary and meant precisely to kill time, the
state government asked for online individual applications from farmers to avail
of the loan waiver scheme. The situation in this regard is shocking. The number
of farmers who made online registrations for loan waiver is 1 crore 4 lakh. Of
this, only 58 lakh actual applications for loan waiver were made online till
September 22, which was the last date. 46 lakh farmers who had made the
registrations could not submit the actual loan waiver applications. This was because
of a host of reasons, viz. the government laying down the criterion of family
(there are a large number of joint families in rural areas) instead of
individual land holdings or bank accounts; the large number of deactivated
Aadhaar cards and non-matching of thumb impressions; the time frame prescribed
for loan waiver which leaves a large number of sugarcane growers and others out
of the net; innumerable difficulties in making online applications in the
villages and so on.
But that is
not all. Realising that there are several inaccuracies in the application
forms, the government has now asked the banks to fill in a 66-column
questionnaire as regards each bank account holder farmer, the number of these
being around 90 lakh. This will obviously take months to complete. The simplest
thing would have been, as happened in the implementation of the 2008 central
government loan waiver scheme, to directly tell the banks to give the minimum
loan details per farmer and then waive those loans by reimbursing the banks
from the government. There is deep unrest and discontent all over the state
about the current nonsensical procedure, which will increase manifold as soon
as lakhs of applications are rejected due to the onerous conditions.
It is in this
background that the Jalgaon convention was held and it flayed the state
government on its crass betrayal of the loan waiver assurance and on other
issues like implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendation
ensuring remunerative prices, pension at Rs 5000 per month for poor peasants
and agricultural workers, arbitrary and unjust land acquisition and so on.
Prominent
among the peasant leaders who addressed this convention were Raju Shetty MP,
Bachchu Kadu, MLA, Raghunathdada Patil, Baba Adhav, Dr Ashok Dhawale, Dr Ajit
Nawale, Namdev Gavde, Pratibha Shinde, Kishor Dhamale, Sushila Morale and
others.
The
convention passed a resolution expressing its full support to the 15-day old
joint statewide strike of two lakh Anganwadi workers that is now being
valiantly fought for their just demands.
The Jalgaon
convention gave a clarion call to hold massive peasant (Baliraja) rallies at
every district and tehsil centre in Maharashtra on October 20, which is
Balipratipada day in Diwali. These statewide rallies of thousands of peasants
each will demand that since the policies of the BJP government are directly
responsible for the rising spate of suicides of debt-ridden peasants, cases
under IPC section 302 (murder), 306 (abetment to suicide) and 420 (cheating)
must be instituted against it. This call was welcomed by thousands of peasants
amidst resounding cheers and slogans.
The Jalgaon
unit of the Coordination Committee, led by Pratibha Shinde of the Lok Sangharsh
Morcha, had made excellent arrangements for the success of this convention.
-Ashok Dhawale
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