The New Delhi Declaration of the All-India Convention of Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) and the Joint Declaration of the National Convention of Workers and Farmers held on July 28 and 29, respectively, at New Delhi will be marked in modern India's history as a decisive strategic action plan to demand a shift in development policy to protect the interests of the working people. The joint declaration has been endorsed by SKM, the largest umbrella platform of kisan organisations, and the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and Independent Federations/Associations, the largest united forum representing crores of workers across India. 

Both documents aim to rally all the anti-corporate, anti-communal sections of society and advance massive struggles based on a concrete action plan. This plan seeks to reach working people in farms, factories and workplaces, and demands alternative policies that protect their interests and the democratic, secular, federal Constitution of India. 

The SKM declaration described the deep agrarian, economic and social distress confronting the farmers and the working people under the Modi regime.  It expressed anger over the Union Government's non-implementation of the written assurance of December 9, 2021, regarding MSP, loan waiver, electricity privatisation, and withdrawal of cases against farmers following the historic farmers struggle which forced the repeal of three Farm Acts on November 19, 2021. Despite ruling for 12 years, the Modi regime has failed to implement the promises made in BJP’s 2014 Election Manifesto - legal guarantee for remunerative Minimum Support Price (MSP) @ C2+50 per cent, cutting input costs in farming and a complete central loan waiver to poor and middle peasants, tenant farmers and agricultural workers.

GROWING CORPORATE ONSLAUGHT

The Modi regime has accelerated power privatisation through the Electricity Amendment Bill and smart meters and introduced a dangerous Seed Bill. It has implemented the most regressive anti-worker four Labour Codes that enslave workers to the capitalist class. It repealed the historic MGNREG Act of 2005. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2026, and the National Co-operative Development Corporation Bill, 2026, adopted in the Monsoon session of Parliament are the latest examples of attacks on the federal rights of the states. 

The onslaught includes the duopoly of Adani and Leap India in the FCI silos, where 77.5 per cent of grain will be controlled by them, and the curtailment of monthly supply of foodgrain from 35 kg per household to 7 kg per person under the Food Security Act.

The regime has imposed the anti-national US-India Free Trade Deal and other FTAs succumbing to US imperialist pressure. These FTAs will allow import of cheap crops and agro-products, further eroding agricultural viability, capturing food processing markets and changing cropping patterns to damage food self-reliance. The FTAs are also a grave assault on lakhs of small and medium enterprises. Instead of advancing to “Viksit Bharat 2047” as claimed by RSS-BJP, it will convert India into a “Banana Republic under Global Corporate Trade Order”.

MSP AND LOOT OF PEOPLE

Instead of the C2+50% formula recommended in 2006 by the Swaminathan Commission, the government imposed the A2+FL+50% formula, which is around 30 per cent less. One study has estimated that between 2016 and 2025, farmers lost Rs 27 lakh crore in 20 major crops. National loss for paddy farmers in the 2026-27 season alone will be Rs 3,07,597 crore. An average 5-acre paddy farmer will suffer a devastating net loss of Rs 1,50,064 in this season. A farmer household receives a mere Rs 6,000 per year under the PM Samman Nidhi. If the MSP @C2+50% recommendation was implemented, a farmer can save Rs 24,013 per acre per season (as per the 2026-27 rate), even after donating back Rs 6,000 to the Prime Minister’s Nidhi. 

AGRARIAN DESPAIR

Given the unchecked increase in input prices and unremunerative prices for farm produce, indebtedness and farm suicides are rising. Agrarian distress has forced many rural people to migrate to urban areas to join the ranks of unorganised workers struggling for minimum wage. As per reports, 173 workers (comprising daily wage earners, agricultural labourers and cultivators) died by suicide every day in India in 2024 compared to 77 deaths per day in 2014.

The agrarian distress causes decline of purchasing power of the people thus impacting the industrial sector. Over 2 lakh private companies have closed in India over between 2021 to 2025. The “Make in India” project has failed to achieve the target of 25 per cent share of GDP for the manufacturing sector by 2022. Instead, the share declined from 16.2 per cent in 2014 to 12.6 per cent in 2025-26.

WIDENING INEQUALITY

Under these corporate policies, India has witnessed widening inequality between the minuscule rich sections and the vast majority of working people. According to the Oxfam report 2026, the richest 1 per cent own 40 per cent of the wealth, and the top 10 per cent earn 60 per cent of the national income. The bottom 50 per cent survive on 15 per cent of the national income. In 2019, the combined wealth of India’s billionaires was approximately Rs 31 lakh crore. By 2025, it has increased to Rs 88 lakh crore.

FEDERAL RIGHTS NEEDED FOR MSP & MINIMUM WAGE

The BJP-led Modi regime and the “double engine” state governments actively support the slogan “One Nation One Market” - the slogan of the corporate class that goes against farmers, workers, traders and entrepreneurs. By imposing the Goods and Services Taxes (GST) regime in 2017, the BJP stole the taxation rights of the states. The Modi regime reduced corporate tax from 30 per cent to 22 per cent, and then 18 per cent, and increased indirect taxes on the working people.

Financial autonomy is necessary for state governments to prevent corporate entry into agriculture. Strengthening the taxation power of the states and increasing the share of the divisible pool for the states from 41 per cent (including cess and surcharges) to 50 per cent will help in this.

NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE POLICY

Transcending petty production to large-scale production by promoting farmer cooperatives and collectives, extensive support of science and technology to increase production and productivity and large-scale agro-based industrialisation is the only alternative policy to end the agrarian crisis, generate productive employment and save agriculture, industry and India. Agriculture is in the state list, and state governments have the responsibility to resolve the prolonged agrarian crisis, resultant acute unemployment and sufferings of the farmers as well as farm and rural workers.

The SKM declaration demands that the government tax the super-rich – the top 1 per cent of the population owning 40 per cent of the wealth - to fetch 11 per cent of the GDP, which is adequate to ensure six basic rights: employment, education, health, housing, drinking water and pension for all citizens.  

DEFEND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS AND SECULARISM

Both the declarations have highlighted the persistent attack on democratic rights, including the right to protest. In the current situation of growing authoritarianism and the failure of judiciary including the Supreme Court to protect the Constitutional rights of the people, what is required is to build a massive people’s resistance against state repression on democratic rights. No more illegal “house arrest” of activists by police; repeal of repressive laws like UAPA and PMLA; release of all the victims forced to remain in prison for years without trial.  Such a united movement can rally all sections of people to demand a law to end the politics of division, hatred and crime based on religion, and to defend the secular character of the Indian Constitution.

WORKER-FARMERS UNITY LEADING TO PEOPLE’S UNITY

On January 16, 2026, farmers across the country had taken the pledge to unleash massive struggles until all the crucial demands are achieved. The successful general strike on February 12, 2026, was a major joint effort to cement worker-peasant unity to resist these policy onslaughts. The recent period has witnessed massive protests, largely by contract workers and unorganised sector workers in different industrial regions of North India. The great victory of the students' struggles against high-level corruption and paper leaks, which forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan is another milestone achievement in snatching back the democratic rights of people.

On August 10, 2026, more than ten lakh farmers, workers, agricultural workers and other sections including students, youth and women organised a massive Jail Bharo struggle demanding an end to anti-working people policies and a change in pro-corporate policies.

The declarations have called for making each village, factory, workplace the epicentre of massive mobilisation. SKM has announced that it will restart continuous mass struggle from November 26, 2026 – the 6^th anniversary of the historic farmers’ struggle -- until all the long-pending genuine demands are met. Rallying the working people on the path of struggle to force the Modi regime to change the pro-corporate policies, safeguard livelihoods, ensure social justice and protect the constitutional rights of the people is the need of the hour.