 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. This program is on three years of the Modi government and its impact on agrarian situation in the country. To discuss the issue we have with us, Viju Krishnan, Joint Secretary of All India, Kishan Sabha. Welcome to NewsClick, Viju. So, how do you assess these three years of the Modi government vis-à-vis its policies regarding agriculture, sector and the agrarian situation in the country? Narendra Modi and the BJP had come to power promising a lot of things for the farmers. In fact, the entire wish list of farmers was there on their manifesto. And the Achyedin that they have promised is still nowhere in sight. And they had also said that it would put an end to farmer suicides and they would be making agriculture remunerative by following the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of giving at least 50% more than the cost of production as the minimum support price. None of these have happened. In fact, it has been betrayal of each of the promises that they have made in their electoral speeches as well as in the manifesto. What were the main promises that they had made and they have not fulfilled? One, the other thing is the Rural Employment Guarantee Act. What is the situation of that act and the work provided under that act right? Actually, as far as the promises are concerned, firstly putting an end to the farmer suicides, it is continuing unabated. And the maximum suicides are in BJP Rural States. Maharashtra last year had around 4291 or so suicides. If you take the BJP Rural States and states ruled by its allies, then it is more than 60% of all farm suicides are in these states. This itself involves a lot of fudging of the actual figures and it is not a real picture. The suicides have continued. There is nothing being done to put an end to the suicides. Secondly, on the issue of the prices, the promise of giving at least 50% above cost of production that is nowhere in sight. They rather, they went to the Supreme Court, filed an affidavit saying that it was impossible to give the prices according to the Swaminathan Commission recommendations. It is more than 10 years after Swaminathan Commission made these recommendations. It is just gathering dust. And as far as the NREGA is concerned, for farmers who are facing the worst agrarian crisis, this was providing at least a guarantee of 100 days of work. But under this government, there has been drastic cuts in the allocation and the average that nationwide days of work they are providing is only around 34 days. And huge arrears that are mounting, wherever we are going into the rural areas, the biggest complaint made by agriculture workers and the poor peasants is that they worked more than, even at times more than six months back, but they had to get their wages. If we look at the current crisis going on in the Indian polity, it seems like cow is the only issue for the current regime. How do you look at that because the government has been continuously talking about cow slaughter, sale on, ban on sale of cattle? How do you look at, because it will have a deep impact on the agrarian situation and situation of farmers? Ever since the BJP has come to power, we see that they have been bringing the issue of cow slaughter into the agenda. And on the pretext of cow slaughter, there have been attacks on farmers. There have been attacks on people, cattle breeders, on also traders, as well as people who are skinning dead carcasses of cattle. So this has been continuing, they have been trying to communally polarized the society. But the actual intent has been to attack the basic livelihood. It is a direct attack on the livelihood of the peasantry. Today in our country, there are more than according to the livestock statistics, more than 5 million stray cattle. This has emerged as a major problem in the entire country. They are reason for crop losses, they are destroying the crops in many parts of India. And also the farmers depend on the sale of the infirm cattle or whatever cattle that they have to tide over the crisis that they are facing. Now that is put under question. And also in areas where for instance in drought hit regions, the farmers are finding it difficult even to feed their own families. And there is no fodder for the cattle. You are putting restrictions on sale of these cattle. But there is a bigger agenda I feel. This government has been going in a big way towards corporatization of agriculture. We found FDI in agriculture coming in. We found now a model contract farming act they are trying to bring in. And now Narendra Modi has just visited Europe to Germany and there is talk about the European Union Free Trade Agreement. The EU wants India to open up its market for dairy products. This is the poor farmers here are being attacked and their livelihood is being robbed. And the corporates have been profiteering and also countries like from Europe and other places where there is a glut in milk production, they are eyeing our markets. They are opening our markets for them. So we do this insurance scheme also the flagship program of the India government that they had promised they will be giving insurances to the farmers. What is the situation of that program right now? When the government was discussing about the farm insurance crop insurance scheme, they had called us to discuss about our opinion on the issue. And we had mentioned that what is required is there is need for an insurance from crop loss as well as income loss. And the unit should be a village or even if there is a loss on a farm that has to be covered. But what we see and when the government came with the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana, it opened the gates for private sector the multinational companies to come in a big way into the insurance agricultural insurance. We had pointed out that it will lead to these companies raking in profits at the expense of the farmers. Today if you see the according to a question in the parliament, the premium collected by these about 11 companies is close to 21,500 crores. The last year the claims made by the farmers were something like 4,200 crores but what has been disbursed is just 712 crores. The huge you can see the huge profits that the insurance come in effect the farmers have not benefited. They are claiming that cover has been wider coverage has happened. But that is also there is no benefit. You see the drought in Tamil Nadu, farmers are not getting anything. Even the compensation which farmers earlier used to get that is not reaching them. This is the situation. So, Viju this would be my last question. AIKS had a massive jatha covering the entire country last year, November. You had a set of demands. Have those demands been made by the government? Has government responded to that? And if no then what is the way ahead? The government has just maintained its insensitive stance. We have seen how farmers from Tamil Nadu were here for a long time protesting. The government refused to even meet them. But we have taken it that we are going to unite the peasantry, unite the rural poor and continue with our struggles in much more intensify our struggles. On the coming 9th, there is a meeting with different groups of the farming community farmers. Also, we have been trying to build other classes. The agriculture workers, the working class, also Dalit and Adivasi organizations. So, coming days are going to be days of intense struggles coming to the issue of the cattle trade restrictions which are there. That is also an attack on the livelihood of the peasantry. We are also going to take it up building an issue-based unity to protect the livelihoods of the peasantry and other dependence on cattle raring. Thanks a lot Viju for giving us your time. And as these things proceed, we will be coming back to you on such issues. Thanks a lot. Thank you for watching NewsClick.