Time for an accommodation

SKM should join the govt-appointed panel to shape agri policy

The refusal of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), which spearheaded the year-long protests on Delhi’s borders against the three Central farm laws, to join the 29-member committee formed by the government to make minimum support prices (MSPs) more effective and transparent is wholly unwarranted. Setting up such a panel, apart from repealing the controversial laws, was among the terms agreed to by the SKM for ending its agitation in November last year. Now that the government has, as part of its commitment, announced the panel, the SKM has decided to boycott it. The main reasons cited by it in support of this move are that the proposed committee is packed with government loyalists and supporters of the controversial statutes and that some extraneous issues like crop diversification and natural farming have been added to its agenda. The SKM wanted the committee to concentrate exclusively on making MSP legally binding. These pleas, regardless of their merit, are hard to uphold because any such panel would be incomplete without the representation of viewpoints of all sections of the farmers, including those who differed with the protestors. The stir, it is worth recalling, was sustained primarily by the farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, with little participation from other regions of the country. Many farmers’ bodies of southern states had, in fact, supported the proposed marketing reforms.

A closer look at the composition of the panel would show that it is quite well-represented by different interest groups, stakeholders, subject specialists, economists, agricultural scientists, government officials, and, most importantly, farmers’ leaders belonging to different political parties and non-political farm bodies. The only valid grouse the SKM has is that while persons from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, and Sikkim have found place in the committee, those from the main agricultural states that contribute to grain procurement — Punjab, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh — have been kept out.

An important fact that the SKM seems to be disregarding is that it no longer enjoys the same clout that it once had as a massive conglomerate of over 300 farmers’ groups representing different political hues and interest groups. Fissures had, in fact, started appearing in this organisation during the protracted agitation itself, with many unions opting out because of their diverse political alignments. Some of the factions, especially those from Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh with political ambitions, parted ways with the SKM and formed new organisations. One of the prominent sections of farmers from Punjab formed a political party and fought the recent elections though none of its candidates won the polls and, more notably, most of them lost their deposits. Even the original Punjab wing of the SKM, which used to be the biggest in terms of manpower and resources, has now split into numerous fragments. Similarly, the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), led by Rakesh Tikait, who emerged as the most prominent farm leader during the Delhi stir, is also now a divided house, with one section calling itself as BKU (Apolitical). Nevertheless, the ball is now in the court of the SKM, or whatever is left of it, to re-establish itself as a true mouthpiece of the farmers and name the persons to represent it on the MSP committee. Otherwise, its voice would remain unheard, which should, indeed, not be the case.