 After Dalits and after women, I think the farmers and I mean when I say farmers, I mean the agricultural workers very much so because that's also a part of what we call the peasantry and They have been I think the worst hit as a class In these last several years, I would say right since independence But much more so as a result of the onslaught of the neoliberal policies that began in 1991 Just take two figures The video showed us twelve thousand five hundred farmers committing suicide every year very right How much does that come from? 1995 to 2015 20 years the official statistics show 310,000 farmers in India were forced to commit suicide Mostly due to indebtedness These are the official figures of the Union Home Ministry Under which the National Crime Records Bureau comes and that is what gave these figures in The very first year of this current government 2014-15 There was a 42 percent spike In the number of suicides of farmers only in the first one year of this current government And what was the response of the government? To just stop publishing figures of farmer suicides altogether Exactly what they did regarding unemployment. We saw the NSSO data Which said that unemployment is now at the highest in 45 years just as they totally Suppressed that data. They just stopped publishing data about farmer suicides But the second very important thing which is often neglected and that is all of you are all of us have heard about that very very pitiable case of Santoshi 11-year-goer girl from Jharkhand Who died because she had no food? And She died with the last words on her lips ma bhaat bhaat Mummy give me rice. Give me rice. She's not the only case. She's a Dalit girl by the way Santoshi was a Dalit girl from Jharkhand But there are Lacks of Adivasi and Dalit children in our country today Who are dying every year due to starvation and malnutrition? In the state from which I come Maharashtra last year the figure was 17,000 deaths of children due to malnutrition and starvation The same thing is there in Odisha. It's in Chattisgarh. It's in Jharkhand It's in Madhya Pradesh. It's in Bihar. It's in many other states of the country So these are the two absolutely very very important aspects of the agrarian crisis today Farmer suicides and the deaths of small children due to starvation and malnutrition Why has this happened? The farmers movement Has been demanding four of five very very vital things number one a Loan waiver one-time loan waiver for all the farmers especially the small and the middle farmers and the agricultural workers Why is Hawaii demanding? purely because for the last 70 years and especially for the last 27 28 years Lacks and lakhs of farmers have been looted by the market by the neoliberal policies So what we are demanding is actually compensation for that loot and That is why the loan waiver But a government which had promised that In my mobile I have a clip of the present prime minister in his public speeches in 2014 before the election saying that The moment we come to power in the very first cabinet meeting We shall waive the loans of all the farmers of India What did they do for the last five years? Not a single Naya Paisa waived of the loans of farmers by the central government And whom did they wave? Many of us do not realize 15 lakh crore rupees of loans one five lakh crore rupees of loans of a handful of Corporates have been either waived or have not been paid attention to what we call is the NPAs Non-performing assets of the banks This comes to 15 lakh crores Agricultural economists have come to conclusion 15 lakh crore rupees would be enough To be able to wave the loans of almost all these small and middle farmers and agricultural workers of India But they'll not do that The second demand we talk about the the dr. Swaminathan Commission one of our top Agricultural scientists the father of the Green Revolution and In his report he said one of the first recommendations he said was if you want to Tackle this agrarian crisis if you want to stop farmers you sites What is most important is that? 50% above the cost of production must be the minimum support price for all crops for all farmers And not only that He also added The government must set up a procurement machinery By which we will be able to farmers can actually sell at that price Nothing of this has been done in the last five years Even before that nothing has been done and therefore the third important thing about which Sainath has made a wonderful contribution the whole question of the bogus Prime Minister's fossil Bhima Yojana When you have drought half your country today is under drought Kerala was under a Catastrophic flood a few months ago Bihar and Assam are always under floods What does one do with these natural calamities? Unless you have a shield unless you have a genuinely comprehensive crop insurance scheme, which is meant not for the insurance companies, but meant for the farmers in distress One cannot really go anywhere in a country where you have drought and floods Hailstorms etc. Almost every season large parts of the country are covered The fourth important thing The whole question of Manurega for agricultural workers Because this was the thing that was as a result of left pressure that act came into force Today in the last five years The entire Manurega scheme they have been conspiring to undermine it totally The fifth important is the last thing I would like to say In this book we have a Gita very nice. I have a section. I read bullet train to nowhere Gujarat and Maharashtra are at the receiving end of the prime minister's very great dream of the bullet train and therefore this whole question of land acquisition Industrial corridors freight corridors Different different kinds of green corridors bullet trains etc. Where you are actually trying to Snatch away the land of the farmers themselves Once you lose your land you lose your agriculture you lose your livelihood you lose every damn thing So this is the question of land acquisition Which has come to the fore I? remember at the independent struggle time the slogan of the entire freedom movement of The Kisan movement was land to the tiller Today the slogan has become under the present government much more. So it is now land to the Corporates it's no longer land to the tiller it is now land to the corporates and therefore These are I'm not talking about the more radical thing. That's the last thing. I would just like to mention These are all defensive operations. What we are doing, but the real thing is that Nobody talks about land reforms any longer What the three left-legged governments did in Kerala Bengal and Tripura? No other government except maybe Jammu and Kashmir has done it for various different historical reasons But no other government in India has done radical land reforms and today the world itself Has become anathema to the rulers that are there and the last most important point I would like to say is this For the last four or five years Prabir very correctly pointed out Earlier when farmers or working-class demonstrations take place in Delhi Bombay, etc. The headline was this How many traffic snarls they caused that was the how the press the whole mainstream press is to do but now after the Rajasthan Kisan struggle after the Maharashtra Kisan Long March After the nationwide jail borough on the 9th of August quit India day in which six lakh farmers and workers Came out on the streets and quoted a rest after the two huge Delhi rallies 5th September worker present rally after the 29 30th farmer 200 farmer organizations rally now even the mainstream media Has had to take sit-up and take notice of the farmers issues in the first long March After walking for nearly three or four days you saw those women without chapels Seared by the heat and Absolutely bruised the whole things bleeding their feet, etc One of those women and a diva see woman was walking along with that March without shoes She was walking some glass piece of glass went into her Foot we saw that we immediately took her on one of the temples We gave her first aid, etc. And then we said that now We say tie in Marathi. I said tie at the bus I sit over here now don't walk You know what her answer was she said I will not sit in this temple All of you are walking Thousands of farmers are walking all my brothers and sisters are walking. I shall not walk I came from my home Because I wanted to go walking up to Mumbai and Then we asked her Why are you doing this your whole foot has got injured you've got a glass We took it out, etc. All that and then she gave a classic answer, which I'll never forget She only said this I am walking all the distance So that my children and grandchildren Don't have to walk like this in the future Today there is a huge danger to everybody's livelihood not only farmers It's also workers as Tejal said it is also TIFI scientists It's every single section of society which is being attacked and Therefore the livelihood issues must come to the fore in the coming few weeks The defense of democracy the defense of secularism the defense of social justice All this must come to the fore in the coming few weeks for this. I would just like to Recite a small poem by Shelly all of us know that he had said rise like lions after slumber Rise like lions after slumber in un vanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you? For you are many and they are few. I think that is the motto We have to carry forward a with this I conclude Jai Hind Jai Pheem in Kilaab Zindabad