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How and Why of Farmers' Long March to Mumbai -Subodh Varma
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An explosive farming crisis and sustained protests over the past two years have converged in the historic march by 50,000 farmers to Mumbai.

Over the past six days, India has slowly woken up to farmers’ distress – and their resistance. On 6 March, about 20,000 farmers from various parts of the state mobilized by the CPI (M) affiliated All India Kisan Sabha gathered at Nashik in north-western Maharashtra to begin a 200-km march to Mumbai the state capital. The plan was to indefinitely gherao the Assembly while the Budget session was on and demand immediate resolution of the life-and-death issues facing farmers. By the time the march entered Mumbai on 12 March morning, it had swelled to over 50,000 people, the govt. was scrambling to deal with the red tide sweeping in, political parties were falling over each other to show support and residents of the commercial capital of India were wondering what had they been missing all this while.

Why are the farmers so angry and restless? What is troubling them? How did they organize such a march? And, what will happen now? Here are brief answers to these questions bubbling up in everybody’s minds as the mass media gives widespread coverage of this protest.

What is the farm crisis

Like everywhere else in India, farmers in Maharashtra are reeling under the double whammy of falling incomes and rising indebtedness. In 2017-18, agricultural economy of the state shrank by 8.3%, according to the state’s Economic Survey tabled in the Assembly on 9 March. The Survey predicted that cereal production will dip by 4%, pulses by 46%, oilseeds by 15% and cotton by a whopping 44% in the current year’s kharif season. Cotton is a major crop in the state but a massive infestation of the standing cotton crop by the pink bollworm has destroyed crop worth Rs.15,000 crore affecting nearly 20.36 lakh hectares – that’s 50% of the area under cotton. The Economic Survey also had a dire prediction for the forthcoming rabi crop – acreage is down 31%, and production is expected to fall by 39% for cereals, 6% for pulses and 60% for oilseeds.

All this is just the current calamity. Distress of the farmers has been building up over the years because of rising input prices and falling returns as they fail to get remunerative prices. Indebtedness is another dimension of the same problem. Last year, the BJP govt. had announced a farm debt waiver worth Rs.34,022 crore to supposedly benefit 70 lakh farmers. But the finance minister admitted in his budget speech that just Rs 23,102.19 crore have actually been sanctioned for 46.4 lakh farm households, and further, that Rs 13,782 crore have actually been disbursed to 35.7 lakh farmers’ accounts.

But the core of the farming crisis lies in the fact that farmers’ incomes are not at par with what they are spending to raise their crops. A Niti Aayog paper admitted that according to a govt. committee on agricultural prices, farming output prices have increased by just 6.88% between 2011-12 and 2015-16 while the prices they pay for goods and services have increased by 10.52%.

Another factor is the steady decline in landholding size over the years. In 1971, the average landholding size in Maharashtra was 4.28 hectares owned by 49 lakh landholders. This has slipped to 1.44 hectares owned by 137 lakh landholding farmers. About 78% of these farmers are “small and marginal”, that is, they own less than 2 hectares of land.

Despite it being considered an advanced and rich state, Maharashtra has just 25% of its cultivable area under irrigation. Thus, with three fourths of farmed area dependent on rains, and the increasingly erratic monsoon, farmers are constantly facing a water crisis that destroys their budget. A bizarre feature of this crisis is that sugarcane which covers just 4% of the state’s sown area consumes 71.5% of the water consumed for irrigation.

Another key factor fuelling the farming crisis is the refusal of the state govt. to speedily implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA) that gives tribal farmers land rights over forest lands that they have cultivated for years. Maharashtra is lagging behind several other states in such distribution of land right deeds (pattas). This has angered tribals in the Thane belt in north-west Maharashtra and in Vidarbha region.

Rising farmers’ protests

Faced with this immense crisis, Maharashtra has seen a spate of farmers’ suicides over the years. Just last year, 2414 farmers reportedly committed suicide despite the state govt.’s debt waiver. But, that’s just one way the hapless farmers found escape from harsh life. All over the state, thousands of farmers found new strength and hope in the collective protests organized mainly by Left organisations, led by the AIKS.

Two years ago, on March 29-30, 2016, the AIKS had led an unprecedented one lakh strong peasant siege for two days and two nights at the central CBS square in the heart of Nashik, which had paralysed the city. BJP Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis gave assurances to AIKS but since these were not fulfilled, the AIKS led a 10,000-strong ‘coffin march’ in Thane city in May 2016 to focus on the issue of peasant suicides.

Then, in October 2016, over 50,000 adivasi peasants gheraoed the house of the adivasi development minister at Wada in Palghar district for two days and nights. Written assurances on issues like FRA and malnutrition-related deaths of Adivasi children were given. Meanwhile, AIKS held protest actions at Aurangabad in the Marathwada region in May 2016 and at Khamgaon in the Vidarbha region in May 2017 on issues of drought, loan waiver and remunerative prices.

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