Farmer protest: The long march struck a chord with ordinary Mumbaikars

Once the leaders said they were satisfied with the government's response making their way to catch one of the two trains arranged by the Central Railways to Bhusawal later in the night

This wasn’t the first time that farmers were staging a protest to draw attention to their plight. They have been trying to raise their voice for years now, protesting relentlessly across the length and breadth of the country. Yet, farmer deaths and suicides have remained mere statistics, something to be glossed over rather than felt as actual loss by people.   
 
That changed last week. As over 40,000 farmers began the “long march” from Nashik, walking 170 km to Mumbai, city-dwellers were moved by their suffering. It wasn’t just the blisters and the bleeding feet that tugged at their heart.
 
Such marches have been synonymous with disruption for Mumbaikars. Often, they mean torched buses, broken glasses, downed shutters and the mad scramble to reach work through traffic gridlock. However, as column upon column of farmers wearing red caps walked the flyovers of the city in a blinding red blur, people began to shed their fears and welcome the protesters. They offered them hot meals, bandaged their feet and distributed shoes to those walking barefoot.
 
This transformation in attitude happened quickly, and behind it was the pain the farmers had taken to not disrupt the city. The farmers walked overnight so that the students taking their SSC exams weren’t left stranded in traffic jams. Throughout the six days of the protest not a single stone was thrown or an unruly word spoken by the protesters.
 
Many of those who had taken the arduous journey were marginalised beyond measure, fighting for the right to till less than two acres of land. “It’s easy to quash a violent movement but not a non-violent one. Who can know better than the farmers how much effort it takes to create something?” asks Ajit Nawale, state secretary of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the farmers’ collective of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had organised the march. “This wasn’t a political march but a march for rights and humanity,” he says.
 
The long march began from CBS Chowk in Nashik on 6 March, with around 25,000 protesters, largely Adivasis, demanding ownership of forest land they have been tilling for generations. For many like Hiraman Waghmare the march started much before — he, like other farmers, walked over 30 km from Dindori taluka to reach the chowk. “We have been cultivating the land for generations, yet it still comes under the forest department,” laments Waghmare, explaining how villagers are at the mercy of forest officials, living under the constant threat of displacement and loss of livelihood.
 
As more farmers joined in from Palghar, Thane and Ahmednagar, the “sea of red” swelled further and stories multiplied. Ranging from state apathy to minimum support price — farmers spoke of the anguish to sell their produce for even less than a rupee a kilo — the vagaries of monsoon and how hailstorms push them further into debt. Given the lack of support, for these farmers, among them 65-year-olds, the journey was not as unbearable as the treatment meted out to them by the state governments.
 
The Kisan Sabha’s charter of demands called for a more comprehensive farm loan waiver, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations on farmer suicides, increased pension, compensation for farmers affected by the pink bollworm and hailstorm attack last year, as well as assurances that the government’s river-linking and highway projects won’t displace farmers and ownership rights. “The demands and nature of the march resonated not just with the peasant community but also urban dwellers. The public pressure, in turn, got us support from political parties across the spectrum, and forced the government to heed our demands,” says Ashok Dhawale, national president, AIKS.
 
Of the demands laid out, the state government agreed to expand its loan waiver scheme and assured river-linking won’t displace farmers. “An important decision we have taken is to extend the loan waiver scheme to cover the 2001 to 2009 period, as many farmers (affected during this time) didn’t get any benefit in the waiver announced in 2008,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the media. The government also decided to set up a committee to look into the forest land issue and other demands of the farmers within six months.
 
The success, however, didn’t come at one go, say AIKS leaders. It was the cumulative effect of two years of struggle. “We led a 1,00,000 strong satyagraha (peace march) in Nashik in 2016 for two days till the chief minister called us for a meet. Nothing came of those assurances though,” says Dhawale. So the Kisan Sabha gheraoed the house of the state tribal development minister, Vishnu Savra, in Wada. In June 2017, they joined ranks with several farmers’ groups and leaders to demand a farm loan waiver, culminating in the state government announcing a Rs 340 -billion scheme. “Within 15 days, however, they turned their back on the assurances, adding onerous conditions so that a large number of farmers were left out of its ambit.”
 
The idea of the long march was put forth in the AIKS council meet held on 16 February in Sangli by former state president of Kisan Sabha and MLA J P Gavit. “We had less than 20 days to prepare for the march. The zilla and taluka committees took care of mobilising the farmers while other teams handled logistics and media,” shares Dhawale. A team of AIKS volunteers did a recce of the route, figuring out where they could get access to water, rest for the night and how much distance could be covered on foot daily. Foodgrain and containers, pooled from different talukas, were transported ahead in a truck with a group of volunteers, so the bone-weary farmers could get hot meals the moment they arrived. An ambulance also was made available throughout the march.
 
The farmers walked briskly the first day, covering 25-30 km in roughly five hours to halt at Igatpuri, where the sounds of traditional folk songs reverberated in the night. Keeping the same pace over the next five days, stopping for just meals and water en route, fatigue seized farmers as the days went by, but their spirit remained intact as they started the march with same discipline the next day.
 
Yet, it was only when they reached Thane that the government got in touch. “We had invited them 10 days before the march but there was no official contact till we reached Thane,”  says Nawale. Having learnt from their previous interactions, when promises remained just that, this time the leaders asked for written assurances. “We got the assurances signed by the chief secretary and the demands were tabled in the House on 13 March as promised to become part of government record,” says Dhawale.
 
Earlier, on the sixth day (before their demands were agreed to), the farmers had just had dinner and were about to settle in for the night when they learnt about the SSC exams the next day. “We were in a fix on how to tackle the issue. We initially thought we could start the march at 10 am but there were two papers that day, the second at 3 pm. That would have created problems for the students. On the other hand, the farmers were exhausted. One other alternative was to start at 5 pm after the exams or go on a midnight march,” explains Nawale. Once the latter was decided, the fatigued farmers started trudging towards Azad Maidan, reaching the venue at 5 am. Barring a short break in Vikhroli and a stopover at the Somaiya ground for dinner, the decision meant the farmers walked roughly 14-15 hours that day.
 
This time though, their sacrifices didn’t go unnoticed. Across the city, individuals, welfare associations, Mumbai dabbawalas, religious groups and political parties lined up the roads to welcome and feed them. There were also calls on social media to arrange footwear for the weary farmers, many of whom had been walking barefoot in the blistering sun. “We all know how tough farm life is. In Mumbai, we at least make enough to feed ourselves. For the farmers, sometimes, even that is not possible. Moreover, they walked for over six days in such heat, we had to do something for them,” says Subhash Talekar, the spokesperson of Mumbai Dabbawala Association.
 
At Azad Maidan, the farmers waited quietly for over four hours as Kisan Sabha leaders negotiated with the government. Once the leaders said they were satisfied with the government’s response, just as quietly they started marching back, making their way to catch one of the two trains arranged by the Central Railways to Bhusawal later in the night. Their dignified protest over, they went back to their lands and livelihoods.

With inputs from Parth MN