From Heartland to Battleground: How Punjab and Haryana Led the Farmers’ Revolt Against Modi!

Farmers’ Revolt: The farmers had announced to protest from February 13 regarding their various demands. On this day, lakhs of farmers from Punjab and Haryana reached Delhi border. This movement has been named ‘Delhi Chalo’ and today is its fourth day. 

Three years before the latest agitation, in the year 2020 also, farmers had conducted a similar agitation regarding some of their demands. Even at that time, most of the farmers who took to the streets were from Punjab and Haryana. In such a situation, a question might be coming in your mind that why only farmers from Punjab and Haryana participate in this movement? 

Punjab-Haryana connection of the movement

In fact, bread, rice and vegetables are the most common food in India. No matter how rich a person is or how poor he is. In their house, only roti and rice are served in the plate from breakfast to dinner. Now Punjab and Haryana are the two states where paddy is cultivated the most.

People of different parts of India eat the paddy grown by the farmers of these two states and the farmers of these two states are the main source of food grains for India’s food security. 

Apart from this, farming is also the source of income for most of the people in Punjab and Haryana. In such a situation, due to the cultivation of paddy and wheat, their products are sold at the government rate (MSP). Now, when in the year 2020, it was said that three new laws will be brought by the Central Government, then these two states started seeing the crisis looming on the system which has been in place for many years. Therefore, these farmers are demanding to make a law regarding MSP.

What experts say

In response to this question in a report by Gaon Connection, India’s renowned food and export policy expert Devinder Sharma Mohali says, “According to the government report, 6 percent in India gets MSP, 94 percent do not. And among those 6 percent farmers, most of them are from Punjab and Haryana.

He told in the report that about 97 percent of paddy and about 75-80 percent of wheat grown in Punjab is purchased by the government. On the other hand, government procurement of paddy and wheat is less than 1 percent in Bihar and 7 percent in UP. 

Talking about Rajasthan, here around 4 percent wheat is purchased by the government. While holding the post of Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar had once said in the House that 71 percent of the people of India do not have any information about MSP and because they are not aware about it, they are not even getting its benefit. . In such a situation, why would those farmers fight for MSP? 

He further said that farmers of different states of India are still at the mercy of the open market. If the government had spread the market, they too would have got the benefit of MSP.”

How large a population of both the states depends on agriculture.

In the month of December 2020, the country’s Consumer Affairs and Food and Public Distribution (Government of India) Minister Piyush Goyal had said in a tweet on his social media platform Paddy worth lakh metric tonnes was purchased. This year’s paddy procurement is 22 percent more than last year i.e. 2019’s 282.66 lakh metric tons.  

Now in exchange for this 344.86 lakh metric tonnes of paddy, the government paid Rs 65.111 crore to about 35 lakh farmers of different states. Of these 35 lakh farmers, Punjab’s contribution was 59 percent. 

Only 5 percent of the farmers are able to sell their produce at the minimum price

In 2014, when the NDA government came to power in India, a high level committee was formed under the leadership of MP Shanta Kumar. This committee had submitted a report to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the government regarding MSP after one year i.e. in 2015, according to which there were 90.2 million (9 crore 2 lakh) farmers selling wheat and paddy in the year 2012-13. , but only 5 percent of those farmers sold their produce to the government at the Minimum Support Price (MSP).  

Apart from this, according to the report on MSP released by the think tank Niti Aayog in the year 2016, 81 percent of the farmers were not even aware that the government gives MSP on many crops, but before the sowing season they do not get the right price. Only 10 percent farmers were aware.