✍️Subin suresh
Last few days we heard lot of news about massive farmers movement in Delhi border against the three controversial bill that passed by Indian parliament. This is a spectacular example for so-called non political movement.
This not the first time in the history our independence our farmers are protesting against the government. If we search our history way back to 70’s we can find lot of such massive agitations against the government. Bhart kisan union founded by the Chaudary charan singh was the one of the non political organisation standing for the welfare of the farmers which conducted such massive movements against the congress led government.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) was a popular movement that was very popular among farmers in India in the 1970s. Although they received in part the benefits of the development troop, they had numerous complaints against the government and political parties. They staged protests in the 1980s against government policies. It was the economically better off peasants who joined the protest in these peasant struggles. In January 1988, about 20,000 farmers gathered in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. Their aim was to protest against the government’s decision to increase electricity tariffs, and farmers stayed outside the district collector’s office for three weeks until their demand was accepted. The peasant agitation in Meerut was quite disciplined. Villagers in the vicinity of the protesters had been delivering food on time until the end of the strike. The Meerut agitation also demonstrated the strength of the rural peasantry. The farmers in the Meerut agitation were members of the Indian Kisan Union (BKU). The Indian Kisan Union is an organization of farmers from western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The organization played a key role in the peasant movements of the 1980s. Farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh benefited greatly from the government’s ‘green revolution’ policies, and sugarcane and wheat became the major cash crops in the region. But by the mid-1980s, the marketing of e-cash crops was in crisis. The crisis was caused by the process of liberalization of the Indian economy. . Other farmers ‘organizations in the country have put forward similar demands, including that the government should fix higher floor prices for sugarcane and wheat, lift restrictions on inter-state movement of agricultural produce, guarantee electricity supply at reasonable rates, write off arrears on agricultural loans and introduce farmers’ pensions. The ‘Shetkari sanghatana’ in Maharashtra has declared that the farmers’ movement is a war waged by the rural agrarian sector against the urban industrial sector. ‘The old controversy over the importance of industry or agriculture in India’s development model was once again active in the 1980s, when liberalization threatened the economic and agricultural sectors and revived the old controversy. Characteristics The working methods of the Indian Kisan Union had certain features.
The Mockingbird 