ON December 4, 2021, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) held a crucial meeting to discuss the pending demands of the farmers' movement and the lack of a formal response from the government of India. It was decided unanimously that the farmers' agitation will continue as it is, until formal and satisfactory responses are obtained from the government of India.

It will be recalled that the SKM had sent a letter to the prime minister of India on November 21, two days after the prime minister's address to the nation to announce the repeal of the three farm laws on November 19. As recounted in this column last week, both houses of parliament repealed all the three farm laws on November 29. On December 2, the president of India gave his assent to the Farm Laws Repeal Bill. A gazette notification has been issued to give effect to the repeal. With this, one crucial battle has ended, with the protesting farmers scoring a major first victory against the BJP-RSS central government and its crony corporate lobby.

SKM FIRM ON PENDING DEMANDS 

The government of India has however chosen to work informally and in a piecemeal fashion in responding to some of the other issues being raised by the protesting farmers. "Farm unions of India have a bitter experience from the past of securing only oral assurances and ending their agitation and finding that governments renege on the meagre oral assurances too. We will not end this agitation without formal responses on each of the pending issues being raised by us. We want to see all the cases foisted against farmers as well as their supporters as part of this movement to be withdrawn and such an assurance coming formally", said the SKM. 

In the December 4 meeting, as per the SKM press release issued that day, “SKM also formed a five-member committee consisting of Ashok Dhawale, Balbir Singh Rajewal, Gurnam Singh Chaduni, Shiv Kumar Kakkaji and Yudhvir Singh to negotiate with the government of India for resolving the pending issues. There are six pending demands of the farmers – legal entitlement for all farmers to realise remunerative MSP for any agricultural produce that they sell; withdrawal of Electricity Amendments Bill 2020/2021; deletion of Section 15 in the law related to setting up of a Commission for Delhi Air Quality regulation, and three issues that have arisen as part of the ongoing struggle – withdrawal of thousands of cases foisted on protesting farmers and their supporters in various states including Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chandigarh, Rajasthan etc; rehabilitation for the kin of the martyrs of the movement whose number is now around 708, and land allotment for a memorial to be built for them; and, arrest and sacking of Ajay Mishra Teni for justice in the Lakhimpur Kheri farmers' massacre.”

The next meeting of SKM was fixed for December 7, with two days kept for the government of India to respond to the SKM and work along with the five-member committee to resolve this agitation to its logical conclusion.  On December 7, for the very first time in this year-long struggle, the SKM received a written draft proposal from the government of India. The proposal was constructively discussed by the farm leaders at the SKM meeting the same day at the Singhu Border. The five member committee presided over this meeting. It was decided that the morcha will seek further clarifications on a few points of the government’s proposal, and will reconvene at 2 pm on December 8 for further discussion. An urgent meeting of the five-member committee has been fixed at the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) office in Delhi on December 8 morning. Some important developments are expected in the course of the day.

Meanwhile, the first round of talks of the Haryana SKM with the Haryana government regarding the withdrawal of thousands of fake police cases and compensation to the martyrs was held on December 3 and some progress was made. The Punjab government has also given concrete assurances in this direction. Response from the other states is awaited.

HOMAGE TO DR BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR

At the call of the SKM, on December 6, farm organisations across the country celebrated the Mahaparinirvana Diwas of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution of India and a staunch opponent of caste and gender oppression, and took the oath to protect the Constitution of India which, drafted under the leadership of Dr Ambedkar, has given every citizen the right to live a life with dignity, which the SKM is fighting to ensure.

December 3 was the 37th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster, caused by MNCs. The SKM press release that day said, “The subsequent contamination from the factory chemicals continues to poison many more people even to this day, even as corporations like Dow Chemicals have been able to get away without being liable for the poisoning caused. The then Union Carbide factory was manufacturing deadly pesticides, as is known, when the gas leak happened, and this disaster has a clear link to farmers, and corporatisation of farming. SKM acknowledges the pending justice issues in Bhopal, and reiterates that common citizens' interests should prevail over corporate interests in public policy making. SKM stands in solidarity with the victims and survivors of the Bhopal corporate disaster.”