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Journalism of Courage
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of farmers’ organisations that led the over one-year protest against three central farm laws, on Tuesday said it had no plans to send three representatives to join the Union government’s 29-member panel to make minimum support price (MSP) more “effective and transparent”. The government notified the formation of the committee on Monday in line with the announcement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made on November 19 while announcing the withdrawal of the farm laws.
Krantikari Kisan Union president and SKM coordination committee member Dr Darshan Pal said, “The general feeling of the members of the SKM is not to send any member to this committee. A formal decision will be made at the SKM coordination committee meeting on Tuesday evening or Wednesday. Our fears came true after we read the names of the committee members. Five representatives of farmers’ unions included supported the farm laws while the SKM has been given three spots. Many others are government officials. It seems it will be pro-government members versus three SKM members. Sending members will create more confusion as they will hardly have any say in the committee.”
Pal also pointed out that despite Punjab leading the protests on the matter none of the experts in the 29-member committee were from the state. “We will expose the MSP committee,” said Pal. “Punjab has been ignored completely. All pro-government members are part of the committee. What difference will our three members make? We reject it.”
The MSP panel is headed by former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal and also has representatives of the Central government and state governments, farmers, agricultural scientists and agricultural economists. The five pro-government farm union leaders in the committee are Gunwant Patil, Pramod Kumar Chaudhary, Krishna Veer Chaudhary, Guni Parkash, and Syed Pasha Patel.
According to SKM coordination panel member Yogendra Yadav, Gunwant Patil has links to the Shetkari Sangathan and has always promoted the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement on agriculture. Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), or BKU (Ugrahan), president Joginder Singh Ugrahan, who is also a member of the SKM coordination committee, said, “Pramod Kumar Chaudhary is a national working committee member of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, which is linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Krishna Veer Chaudhary is from the Bharat Krishak Samaj and is in the BJP now.”
Dr Darshan Pal said Guni Parkash, the Haryana president of BKU (Mann), had always spoken in favour of the farm laws in debates. The outfit is led by Punjab-based farmer leader Bhupinder Singh Mann who was made part of a Supreme Court-appointed committee set up to initiate dialogue with those protesting against the farm laws. Mann, a former Rajya Sabha MP, initially accepted the task but later declined, saying he was with the farmers. Pasha Patel is from Maharashtra and a former BJP MLA.
“We have apprehensions that the committee has some clauses to bring back farm laws through a backdoor. At the same time, according to our information, it has no provision to make MSP a legal act. Hence, what is the point of being part of such a committee?” said Pal.
The SKM leader went on to add, “In the past too, the government communicated with Rakesh Tikait regarding the formation of the MSP Committee but the SKM, even at the time, said that till proper terms and conditions remained unknown, we would not become a part of such a committee. This communication was sent to the agriculture secretary in March.”
Pal said the SKM wanted a committee exclusively for framing MSP for crops. “But in this committee, they have included issues such as diversification and natural farming for which separate committees are already there in the agriculture department. Why are they confusing the subject? It seems they will go round and round and will not arrive at any conclusion to give assured MSP on crops.”
Ugrahan said, “In the July 3 meeting of the SKM’s national body in Ghaziabad, we decided that without proper knowledge about this committee there is no point in sending our members. Now, the final decision has to be taken by the coordination committee. However, our personal decision is to expose the motive behind the MSP committee.”
BKU Dakaunda general secretary and SKM member Jagmohan Singh Patiala said, “The formation of the MSP committee was a demand of farmers who were doing agitation against the three farm laws and hence this committee should have our members in a majority. Sad enough they have left just three places for SKM. The chairman is a former agriculture secretary SK Aggarwal who was in service when farm laws were framed. Ramesh Chand from the NITI Aayog again is pro-farm laws. Sad enough there is no representative of the Punjab and Haryana governments from where the agitation began and sad that the Punjab government has been mum about it till now. We reject this committee and will put forth our decision before the coordination committee of SKM.”
