The issue of minimum support price or MSP for various crops grown by farmers has seldom attracted the kind of intense debate as has taken place in recent times, due to the ongoing farmers’ movement. There is wide agreement that government should provide  MSP based purchase for various crops, as this helps to ensure and stabilize a fair price for[Read More…]

In the darkness of nights, the Hindutva fascists and their trained henchmen are trying to attack farmer’s protests and provoke violence with the help of police. The objective of the BJP government is to discredit the peaceful and democratic movements of the Indian farmers. All slanderous campaign by the ruling classes against farmers movements have failed. But the days of[Read More…]

There has been a lot of interest in the farmers’ movement and many people in distant parts of the India, and even outside India, feel a strong emotional connect with the movement. Recently this movement has been passing through a critical phase . It is useful to see what some well-informed persons in important positions have said in this context.[Read More…]

Written by Amit Bhaduri and Chaman Lal The script of collaboration is in two parts. The first part was written long ago when the once revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was released after long years from prison in the Andamans. He collaborated with the British as he had promised in several petitions for mercy he had written to the British authorities[Read More…]

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT AND SUPREME COMMANDER OF THE ARMED FORCES OF INDIA Shri Ramnath Kovind President of India and Supreme Commander Rashtrapathi Bhavan New Delhi 110001                                        Dear President and Supreme Commander, Shri Kovind ji, I am writing to you, as my Supreme Commander, to inform you that I am deeply concerned and saddened by the turn of[Read More…]

CDRO strongly condemns the continuing targeting and intimidation of the farmers’ protests/ foisting false cases against farmers’ leaders and arrest of protesting farmers 26th January 2021 will go down in history as a landmark day in the history of independent India. It is not yet another Republic Day because farmers decided to celebrate the adoption of the Constitution of India[Read More…]

Peaceful protest movements by various sections of people are an essential part of a democracy. A government in a democracy should respond to smaller movements at  an initial stage at a decentralized level so that the issues are tackled at an early stage and there is no need for protests to become too big and overwhelming. Systems should be in[Read More…]

Attempt to vilify and intimidate the farmers movement will fail. The modus operandi of those guiding the north block is amply known to all who have followed their actions since 2002. First try to intimidate a protest followed by efforts to prolong it deliberately, then create disturbance among them by infiltrating anti social elements in these movements. The shameless loudspeakers[Read More…]

There are several indicators of a hardening attitude of the government towards the farmers’ movement. Therefore it needs to be emphasized at this juncture that a policy of repression will be very harmful for the nation and those who are committed to peace, democracy and justice within and outside government should do all they can to prevent this. There is[Read More…]

Samyukta Kisan Morcha has released a Press Statement late night on 28th January, after observing the latest actions by Modi and Yogi Government at Ghazipur Border. The Statement has been produced here in full: Samyukt Kisan Morcha condemns the action by Uttar Pradesh police in cutting off basic facilities for the protesting farmers at Ghazipur Border and its attempts to[Read More…]

On 1 August 1920,  Asahyog Andolan or a Non-cooperation Movement, the first of the three major Satyagrah in the course of the country’s freedom movement, was launched by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. As part of this, the people would stop cooperating in the functioning of the government – give up their government jobs, titles[Read More…]

Nearly 40 leaders of unions of farmers have been negotiating with the government regarding important demands of farmers for over 8 weeks. In the course of negotiations the representatives of the government including the Agriculture Minister have expressed their appreciation of the disciplined and peaceful nature of the protest. Others in the national and international media also appreciated this. The [Read More…]

Conspiracy of  neo-fascist state to give an anti-national tilt to one of India’s most genuine revolutionary democratic agitations of all time in Delhi on Republic day  Tragically a historic peaceful march in the Capital of over 20 lakh peasants has been foisted as  a conspiracy against the nation. By the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.The sinister act of hoisting the Sikh[Read More…]

The tractor rally on Republic Day in Delhi allegedly turned violent at several places as the protesters clashed with the police and tried to remove the barricade but these incidents could be termed as stray as given the nature of it things could have gone out of control. Ofcourse, the attempt to run through a tractor trolley in and around[Read More…]

Since the time of Pandemic led lockdown different sectors of Indian economy were experiencing the heat and stress. Particularly significant is the case of agriculture. Agriculture constitutes a very important aspect of people’s social and economic life and not merely of the farmers and traders. Annual growth rate of agriculture in real terms has been constantly low in past several[Read More…]

India’s historic farmers’ tractor parade breached police barriers and briefly took control of the historic Red Fort. The agitating farmers climbed on a pole and foisted a flag sacred to Sikh religion. There were violent clashes between farmers and the police. One farmer died in the commotion in ITO. Police used tear gas on groups of farmers and resorted to[Read More…]

At a time when the farmers’ movement is in the middle of a courageous and much needed struggle for preventing the farming and food movement from falling further into the stranglehold of big business interests, it is of great importance that many leading social activists and public-spirited intellectuals got together to organize a kisan sansad ( farmers’ parliament ) with[Read More…]

“Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet….” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sang in 1968. I was reminded of this song, the moment I reached Singhu border of Delhi. Although the sounds were not of marching and charging feet, but the song resonated with what I saw. As is common knowledge now, the country is witnessing a mass[Read More…]

The Republic Day is the time of the year when feelings of national unity and working together to create a better India are at their highest level among all the citizens of India. This may be just the right time for the Government of India, and more particularly for the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, to reach out to the[Read More…]

The farmers’ peaceful protest demanding repeal of the farm laws began on 26 November 2020, Constitution Day, non-violently overcoming physical and political obstacles, to encamp at the gates of Delhi. The repeal-the-farm-laws “ball” served to government by the farmers, was tossed into the Supreme Court by government. Without hearing pending petitions questioning the constitutional validity of the farm laws, the[Read More…]

January 11 remains a great day in the current history of the Supreme Court when it strongly stood by the agitating farmers. Chief Justice of India Mr Justice Sharad A Bobde was humane, highly reasonable and was in right form in questioning the political executive’s complete failure in dealing with the farmers agitation against its unconstitutional laws. But the interim[Read More…]

The farmers and the Govt’s rallies will run parallel on Republic Day. Which one makes the point? From first being noticed to gathering worldwide recognition to now cruising at a steady momentum the farmer’s protest has been going strong since it emerged from Punjab and Haryana, joined later by the other states of India. Amongst everyone but mainstream news outlets[Read More…]

Sometimes when a very powerful person in the family has become unreasonably adamant and is not listening to the good advice coming from several sides, then it is the duty of family members  themselves to come forward and convince the powerful member of the family to stop being adamant  and accept the good advice that is coming from many well-intentioned[Read More…]

These days it has become a common invective to denounce particular popular actions as ‘political’ or ‘politicized’ in order to delegitimize them. This is a tactic that has traditionally been employed by all ruling parties in India’s political history, but has become an especially handy tool for the Bharatiya Janta Party and its supporters within the media and public. The[Read More…]

The Three Farm Laws passed by the Central Government will be burdensome for the agricultural labourers, city poor and other marginal sections of the society along with the farmers. Presently, Punjab Government under the Public Distribution System, distributes 420 million, 69 thousand and 500 quintals of wheat on 3.6 million and 57 thousand ration cards, and it covers nearly 14[Read More…]

After several rounds of talks between the representatives of Kisan organisations and a group of ministers the deadlock continues. There is no further progress towards settling the issues/demands raised by the Kisan movement. This Impasse is causing a lot of hardship for the participants in the cold and harsh winter weather. It has already taken life of several farmers, more[Read More…]

With over 800 million people, rural India is arguably the most interesting and complex place on the planet but is plagued by farmer suicides, child malnourishment, growing unemployment, increased informalisation, indebtedness and an overall collapse of agriculture. Given that India is still an agrarian-based society, renowned journalist P Sainath says what is taking place can be described as a crisis of civilisation[Read More…]

It is a very important part of the quest to create a better and safer world that just as we should know what to adopt, similarly we should know what to avoid. All ideologies based on a mix of inter-faith hostility ( called communalism in India), fundamentalism and sectarianism should be avoided like plague. Whether ideologies based on sectarianism, communalism,[Read More…]

Written by Sandeep Pandey, Simran Kaur and Harleen Sandhu The Bhartiya Janata Party and its historical ideological parent Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh have used religion in manipulating the sentiments of the masses to gain political mileage, strengthening its grassroots presence as well as skyrocketing its electoral mandate. A mosque was demolished a few decades ago to mobilize the Hindu votes in[Read More…]

The farm laws will lead to the corporatisation of agriculture and its control by foreign agribusiness corporations. Our very food sovereignty and thus the sovereignty of the country itself is at stake. As we write this, lakhs of peasants – men, women, youth and children – are camping at entry points to the country’s capital, demanding the scrapping of the[Read More…]

Devraj Singh Kalsi gives a unique perspective on the Farmer’s Protest in India The nation knows them as truck-drivers, transporters, dhaba-owners (eatery-owners), soldiers, and farmers who made the nation green with revolution (and envy) half a century ago. They perform these jobs so well that nobody in India wants them to do anything else. It would be a waste of time and resources[Read More…]

Governments in many countries grapple with the challenge of retaining the support of farmers who are considered important in electoral politics. At the same time several of these governments work under the impact of powerful business interests. From the narrow point of view of these governments the skill is in somehow managing to keep both business interests and farmers happy.[Read More…]

1 Each system has its own underlying dynamics which propel it forwards and also aid in its preservation and perpetuation. In India, the advancement of neo-liberalist/finance capitalist system through privatization/corporatization, which is being linked to the phenomenon of neo-imperialism, is also no exception. Since 1991, the neo-liberalist/finance capitalist system has been at the heart of the country’s policies in open[Read More…]

Women Farmer Day is being celebrated at leading protest site Kundli as well as some other protest sites of the courageous farmers’ movement today on January 18. A large number of women arrived from several villages of Haryana and Punjab as well as other places on Sunday. They are taking over many duties today and will be participating even more[Read More…]

The following excerpt is taken from Bhagat Singh’s “Letter to Young Political Workers” (The Bhagat Singh Reader, pp. 224-245), written on February 2, 1931: The real revolutionary armies are in the villages and in factories, the peasantry and the labourers. But our bourgeois leaders do not and cannot dare to tackle them. The sleeping lion once awakened from its slumber[Read More…]

In the murky netherworld of the mafia the Godfather is the one who speaks softly, but whose words carry the deadliest intent. On 15 January as yet another round of talks between agitating farmers and the Indian government failed the International Monetary Fund, an institution that heads the Mafiosi of global finance, put out a bland and very measured statement.[Read More…]

Stepping back to November 2020, farmers marched peacefully on Delhi on Constitution Day with the aim of reaching Ramlila Maidan to hold a rally objecting to the three new farm laws. Government flexed its muscle military-style to stop them, by digging up the national highway and installing heavy obstacles and razor-wire concertinas. When farmers breached the obstacles, police used tear-gas[Read More…]

Parliament, despite its Constituent power under Article 368 to amend the Constitution, cannot legislate on state subjects, even if two-thirds of its members and half of states agree. Leaving agriculture to States is substantive part of federal character which is basic feature of the Constitution. The doctrine of basic structure laid down by Supreme Court in 1973 prevents Parliament to[Read More…]

On the night of Friday, January 15, the members of Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI) came together to reject controversial Indian laws . To mark the 92nd birth anniversary of the towering US civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr., they burnt copies of the contentious Indian farming law, besides Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the draconian Unlawful[Read More…]

In a short video on the empirediaries.com YouTube channel, a protesting farmer camped near Delhi says that during lockdown and times of crisis farmers are treated like “gods”, but when they ask for their rights, they are smeared and labelled as “terrorists”. He, along with thousands of other farmers, are mobilising against three important pieces of farm legislation that were[Read More…]

The ninth round of talks between the farmers’ movement and government representatives on January 15 again did not yield any breakthrough, but kept some hopes alive by scheduling a next round of discussions—the tenth one—for January 19. In the meanwhile the farmers’ unions and organizations will be deliberating on the course of actions during the next few days. As they[Read More…]

On 5 January, British MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi wrote a letter to Boris Johnson urging him to convey to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the “heartfelt anxieties” of MPs’ constituents (many emanating from Punjab) regarding the treatment of protesting farmers in India. The letter was signed by more than 100 MPs and Lords and had cross-party support. Dhesi stated that[Read More…]

The stalemate in resolving key issues relating to farmers’ movement continues, even though millions and millions of people in the country want the prolonged stalemate to end on a note of satisfaction for farmers. Although attempts are being made repeatedly to depict the farmers as being unreasonable and obstinate, in fact they have displayed remarkable maturity as well as foresight[Read More…]

The Supreme Court has been unusually aggressive with the government on the three farm bills. The Chief Justice of India made tough talking about this and said that he is going to form the ‘expert’ committee and will stay the implementation of the bill. And today, the court decided that a four member panel will speak to the farmers and[Read More…]

South Asian activists came together on Sunday, January 10 in Surrey, to remember more than 60 farmers, who have laid down their lives during the ongoing agitation in India. Organized by Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI), the vigil was in protest against the recent deaths of farmers who have been holding a demonstration near New Delhi to press upon[Read More…]

The ongoing farmers’ movement in India has evoked strong feelings on both sides. This has been praised to an awesome extent; on the other hand very unfair criticism has been inflicted  on it repeatedly. It will be useful at this stage to attempt an unbiased appraisal of this movement. Strengths of Movement The most persistent demand of this movement for[Read More…]

Tempo building up for spark to turn into a prairie fire on January 26th  tractors March in Delhi  to protest laws representing  neo-fascism of Narandra Modi led BJP A protracted war of resistance is being waged by the peasant organizations on the border of Delhi protesting the three agricultural laws. In the manner of preparing for a great war a[Read More…]

The ongoing farmers’ movement has led to the coming together of many farmers’ organizations and this unity has been sustained despite several efforts to divide them. As many farmer representatives have stated repeatedly, the mobilization of farmers on Delhi borders would have seen even greater participation from various parts of the country but for the fact that travel conditions in[Read More…]

Disappointing the very large number of people who had high hopes that the stand-off with farmers’ organizations will be resolved soon, the government has not accepted this main demand after even 44 days of peaceful and disciplined protests by farmers at five places on Delhi border. The talks today on January 8 were particularly dismal as the farmer representatives, judging[Read More…]

Almost all social movements set a lot of emphasis on their immediate demands. These are obviously very important and often the success or otherwise of a movement is almost entirely judged in terms of the realization of these demands. Such a view, although very common, is not entirely correct. The achievements of social movements can also be very important, sometimes[Read More…]

It is easy to have  very wide agreement on the obvious fact that food and farming sector is one of the most important sectors, perhaps the most important  sector, of human efforts and needs. But while the realization of this importance should lead to very caring and careful attitudes, the realization of the importance is actually being interpreted by very[Read More…]

High hopes reposed in the talks between the representatives of farmers’  organizations and the government on January 4 were not fulfilled and the entire issue got postponed to the next round of talks scheduled for January 8. This is very disappointing. Why is the stalemate persisting? The statements made by both sides after this round may help us to understand[Read More…]

  The last week too, the mainstream media published a large number of articles and opinion pieces, dismissing the farmers’ protests (2020-21). While arguments have been offered in support of the farm laws, the opposition parties have been slammed for indulging in petty politics. From attacking subsidies on agriculture and MSP (Minimum Support Price) to praising the technology, completion and[Read More…]

As India debates the repeal of three controversial farm laws and critical negotiations for this are scheduled to take place today on January 4, it  needs to be asserted that in democracy when a government take a decision to repeal unpopular laws, its true respect and honor  among people are likely to increase, not decrease. However this is true only[Read More…]

With fresh bouts of farmer protest gaining momentum, currently the Modi government is riding the high Horse of arrogance and the farmers are equally determined to conduct the ‘Ashwameda,’ the Vedic Yag of horse sacrifice. The current farmers protest is much deeper than the repealing of the three farm laws and fixing MSP prices. The bottom line is that the[Read More…]

The last round of talks between farmer and government representatives had ended on a note of partial optimism, with some negotiators from farmers side saying that they expected a  clincher agreement in the next round of talks in the new year on January 4 Monday. Even ministers on the government side voiced expressed high hopes of final agreement, one Minister[Read More…]

The last five weeks of 2020 were dominated by a re-assertion of social movements in India. Can the country build further on this strength in the new year 2021? To answer this question we must look first at the overall situation in the country. The foremost concerns of people appear to be economic ones. A very large number of people[Read More…]