Farmers Movement Archive

West Bengal agri protest belts hail repeal of farm laws

SINGUR/BURDWAN/NANDIGRAM: PM Narendra Modi’s promise to repeal farm laws came as a fulfilment to Singur farmer Krishna Ghosh who had been organizing Khaser Bheri farmers against the farm laws. It had been a long battle for Ghosh — an organiser of the Kisan Morcha campaigns at Singur. For the past 15 months, along with a few more farmers, Ghosh had been campaigning against the farm laws in the nearby villages. “There cannot be any bigger achievement than this for the farmers in the country. Had the laws been enforced, millions of farmers would have been pushed to sheer desperation leading to massacre,” said Ghosh. As he continued to speak, villagers at Khaser Bheri started to come out with sweets. “When the Kisan Morcha held a rally here, we were not sure of the outcome. But we had faith in the movement that continued to gain strength each passing day,” said Manik Das, another farmer at Khaser Bheri. Farmers at Singur also demanded a law guaranteeing minimum support price for their produce. “We could not get a good price for the potato this year. We can at least recover the cost of farming if there is a guaranteed MSP,” said Sukumar Ghosh of Beraberi village. At Burdwan, the rice bowl of the state, farmers cheered the decision to repeal farm laws. Kartik Ghosh, a farmer at the Simlon village in East Burdwan said: “I have 50 acres where we sow paddy, lentils and potatoes. I was scared of losing my income if the laws were put into force.” Small and marginal farmers were also happy with the announcement. Shyamal Mandal, a small farmer at Daminya village under Raina II has been growing Gobindobhog rice for decades. “We struggle to make a decent margin for the produce each year. We would have been at the losing end had they allowed multinationals to step in,” he said. At Nandigram, another epicentre of farmers’ movement in Bengal, celebrated the day. Bhabani Das, a farmer who had taken an active part in the Nandigram movement, said, “We had fought against the state government for nearly a year. Many were killed yet we did not get swayed. Farmers in Delhi have shown the same grit.” Nanda Patra, another farmer, said: “History repeated itself once again.”

The Times of India

2021-11-20

Kolkata