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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | New crop of leaders -Rasheed Kidwai

New crop of leaders -Rasheed Kidwai

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published Published on Jun 12, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 12, 2017
-The Telegraph

Bhopal: The turbaned, white-haired, kurta-dhoti-wearing "Tauji" figures are there too, but one outstanding feature of the current farmer agitation in Madhya Pradesh are its jeans-clad, smartphone-wielding spearheads.

If the veteran "Kakkaji" Shiv Kumar Sharma is the public face of the movement, which lacks a central leadership, much of the spadework is being done by a band of young, bilingual, stats-savvy and largely apolitical agriculture graduates.

Their leader Kedar Sirohi, who is in his early 30s, is an MSc in agricultural economics and farm management from the Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi University in Jabalpur.

Fiercely opposed to both the BJP and the Congress, the Aam Kisan Union chief mobilised the agitating farmers in Malwa and Nimar regions of western Madhya Pradesh, and has emerged as a key figure in the movement.

He has built his own network of graduates from the state's many agriculture universities, whose degrees have failed to provide them employment.

Senior officers estimate that large numbers of 16 to 30-year-olds coordinated the protests in Mandsaur, where police firing killed five farmers on Tuesday, through their constant tweets, WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts.

They said this was a key reason the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration had quickly blocked Internet services in the trouble spots of Mandsaur, Ujjain, Ratlam, Neemuch and Dhar.

Sirohi told The Telegraph that never before had a farmers' agitation in Madhya Pradesh been organised through Internet tools.

Sirohi said: "We had appealed to our people to reach out to the masses using such platforms."

"We want our farmers to keep one hand on the steering wheel (of their tractor, a not uncommon sight in Madhya Pradesh) and the other on their phone to send tweets."

Sirohi was among those who had met a fasting Chouhan yesterday when the chief minister interacted with 251 farmers in 240 minutes.

Anand Rai, the Indore-based doctor who helped expose the Vyapam scam --- involving bribery over a state exam for professional college seats and government recruitments --- worked behind the scenes for the farmers' agitation.

"Those agriculture students who have graduated in the past 10 years but have not found suitable employment are the backbone of the current agitation," Rai told this newspaper.

"While Kakkaji remained the movement's public face, these foot soldiers worked on the ground."

One thing that Sirohi has done better than the older farmer leaders could have is broad-base the agitation.

He has joined hands with Paras Saklecha, Prashant Pandey, Anil Dubey and other anti-corruption activists in Madhya Pradesh.

Rai's pressure group, Vichar MP, brought together many activists working in diverse fields such as malnutrition, health, the drive against the sand mafia and the Right to Information.

They exchanged notes and sifted through data to prepare a rejoinder to Chouhan's claim of the state witnessing an agricultural growth rate of 9.7 per cent against a national average of 3.6 per cent.

Although both the UPA and NDA governments at the Centre have acknowledged Madhya Pradesh's growth story, these activists point to Chouhan's own admission of droughts in many districts.

They also cite how the state is third behind Maharashtra and Telangana in farmer suicides.

Like his farm sector expert Devinder Sharma, Sirohi is seeking fundamental changes to the way agriculture is done and governed in the country.

One of his demands is that the government must pay every farmer a monthly salary of at least Rs 18,000 --- the minimum pay for a government employee --- in exchange for a part of his crop.

His other demands include an increase in the number of mandis, a sharp rise in the minimum support prices for crops, and a one-off loan waiver.

Sirohi wondered why economists tended to frown on the idea of loan waivers for farmers while keeping quiet when huge corporate loans were written off.

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The Telegraph, 12 June, 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170612/jsp/frontpage/story_156411.jsp#.WT4EZZxz28I.twitter


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