All India Kisan Sabha
8.02.2021, New Delhi
AIKS Condemns PM’s Statements Insulting Farmers, Demands their Withdrawal with Apology
The PM is Solely Responsible for the Ongoing Farmers Struggle
PM must Withdraw the Farm Acts and Electricity Bill and Implement his 2014 Election Promise of MSP@C2+50%
The AIKS strongly condemns the statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has insulted the protesting farmers as ‘Andolan Jeevis’, and demands its immediate withdrawal and apology for his derogatory remarks in Parliament.
This insult comes from a ‘Corporate Jeevi’ Prime Minister whose RSS was never a part of the glorious ‘andolan’ of the people of India against the slavery of British rule. And his talk of ‘Foreign Destructive Ideology’ (FDI) perfectly fits fascism, which his own RSS has taken from the likes of its mentors Hitler and Mussolini.
Each farmer as a citizen has the right to protest as per the Constitution of India, and the Prime Minister abusing his power to malign the farmers struggling to protect their livelihood is highly condemnable. The AIKS appeals to all democratic sections, political parties and mass and class movements to come forward to condemn this insult of farmers by the PM.
The PM has said the farmers organisations are unable to point out the reason for their struggle.This is part of his game plan to malign the farmers struggle. The agrarian crisis is rampant and two farmers are forced to commit suicide every hour in India. The reason is that cultivation is economically unviable due to the lack of remunerative price and resultant indebtednes. 86% of farm households have less than 2 hectares of land and they are undergoing severe exploitation in the market and are forced to quit agriculture to join the rank of migrant workers.
We want to remind the Prime Minister that he and the BJP in its election manifesto of 2014 had promised to implement MSP @ C2+50%. Instead of implementing his own promise, the Modi government has surrendered Indian agriculture and the food security of the nation to the corporates.
The farmers are struggling for the demand of legally guaranteed MSP with procurement for all crops across the country.
The PM who has violated this promise during the last 7 years is solely responsible for the ongoing farmers struggle.
The speech of the PM today in Parliament exposes the compulsions of his government that is under the grip of foreign and domestic corporate capital.
The PM rammed through the pro-corporate, anti-farmer and anti-people 3 Farm Laws in Parliament without consulting a single farmers organisation or a single state government, and even Parliament itself.
The farmers will not step back till all their genuine demands are met, including repeal of the 3 Farm Acts, legally guaranteed MSP @C2+50%, withdrawal of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 and dropping of the anti-farmer clauses of the Pollution Ordinance.
AIKS calls upon all its units and all the farmers of India to organise massive protests all over the country against the insult of the farming community by the Prime Minister and prepare for more determined mass struggles across the country.
Hannan Mollah
General Secretary
Dr. Ashok Dhawale
President