"Drunken rally" raises a toast to drought-hit farmers’ cause

Furious with the Government for “making a mockery of the hard times” they were going through, the farmers decided to take to the streets, and to drink all the way to the district collectorate. However, this novel idea of protest was not well-received by the residents of the New Monda area, not to speak of the revenue officials, who were reportedly very much bemused.

But the police handled the crisis-like situation quite skillfully and saved the government officials from embarrassment. In fact, they were on their toes from Friday morning, with senior police officials trying to dissuade sanghatana leaders from taking out the `drunken rally’. Besides, the superintendent of police, Vikram Boke — who has a reputation of being a strict no-nonsense policemen — issued notices for promulgation of Section 144 on Thursday. His order came soon after Proshottum Lahoti, president of the district unit of the sanghatana, appealed to farmers to “bring along your own drink” for the rally.

However, knowingwhat a hard taskmaster Boke is, most farmers realised that there would a little opportunity to get drunk during the rally. So not many bottles were uncorked during the protest, with a posse of policemen standing guard around. Nevertheless, nearly half the farmers managed to land themselves in an intoxicated state. Some of them even went onto deliver fiery speeches, making use of the choicest of abuses in rustic Marathi to condemn the Sena-BJP Government, which they said, was ignoring their plight.

“What are we asking of the Government? Mercy? Money? No, we don’t want any of their sympathies. All we are demanding is the price of our sweat,” thundered Lahoti. He also demanded that the Government immediately pay the family of Dinaji Sawant, the farmer who reportedly committed suicide, Rs 50,000 from the Rs 1.5 lakh that he had submitted to the Cotton Monopoly Purchase Federation Office in the form of a deposit during the the last twenty years. Govind Joshi, another senior leader of the Shetkari Sanghatana,added that the rest of the amount could be paid in instalments over a period of time.

The leaders also took a serious note of the way recovery officers from banks barged into the houses of farmers and took away essential items like beds, utensils, radio sets and on occasions, even the tin sheets covering the roofs. They cited an instance where recovery officials who had come to collect their dues from one Shankarrao Sawankar of Hapsapur village walked away with all the dowry that came his way when he got married.

All said and done, Lahoti said he was not very happy with the way the rally turned out. But his spirits aren’t down after the rather low-key demonstration. “It has set the tone for some very aggressive agitations in the future,” he says.