Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) – a consortium of farmers’ organisations – observed ‘Day of Betrayal’ on January 31, with scores of farmers holding demonstrations in hundreds of districts and blocks across India. Gujarat Khedut Samaj held protests in Surat and submitted memorandum to the President of India through district government officials.
The memorandum addressed to the President talks of Union Government’s reneging of promise, following which the year-and-half long farmers’ protest was called off.
“It should be noted that, of the written assurances made by the Government of India in the letter to Samyukta Kisan Morcha on December 9, 2021, not one of the promises has been fulfilled. The SKM warns the BJP government against challenging the farmers’ patience, and declares that if the promises are not fulfilled at the earliest, the farmers would be left with no option but to resume the agitation,” the memorandum states.
The SKM informed that if the promises made by the Centre were not fulfilled at the earliest, the coalition of farmers’ union will resume their agitation under ‘Mission Uttar Pradesh’ and “campaign across the state to punish and defeat BJP”.
The SKM will announce the new phase of the mission February 3, 2022.
“The Government of India continues with its falsehoods related to the current MSP (announcement) regime, and the cost concept being used for announcing such MSPs with the Economic Survey report 2021-22. The cost concept being used continues to be A2+Family Labour, ignoring C2 cost of production, denying farmers their true entitlement. It is also a false claim that crop diversification has happened with the empty promises of meager MSPs (minimum support price) being declared, however, farmers do know that such a diversification is indeed possible if MSP is legally guaranteed as an entitlement for all crops including oil-seeds, millet and pulses. That is one of the key reasons that SKM also demands a legally guaranteed MSP,” the SKM members stated through a pressnote.
