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AP farmers storm Delhi

Hundreds of farmers from Andhra Pradesh today marched to Jantar Mantar demanding Lok Sabha Speaker Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi's personal attention towards the pathetic condition of farmers, which was driving them to suicides in the state.

The protestors, who started their march from the New Delhi railway station, carried placards and raised slogans which included 'Suicides are nothing but governmental killings' and 'Mitigate the sufferings of cotton growers'.

"The farmers need a crop insurance scheme, quality seeds, strong measures to tackle fake dealers, simplified procedure to disburse loans and immediate action against the money lenders," asserts Rapolu Ananda Bhaskar, a state Congress official who claims that 3,000 AP farmers have reached Delhi to shake the central government out of its slumber.

Among them is Sukru from Aliathanda village in Khammam district. "What else can the farmers do except die when the crops fail, landing him in debt?'' he asks. ''The money lenders let loose their hooligans, ruining the farmers's homes and tarnishing self-respect."

Strengthening the hands of the farmers in their Delhi march are several Opposition parties from the state, which sent a 12-member delegation to the Lok Sabha Speaker.

Addressing the protestors, who organised a sit-in at Jantar Mantar, leaders of various political parties and farmers's organisations lamented that over 325 peasants had committed suicides in the state during the last six months, an unprecedented incident since the country's Independence.

The speakers included Janata Dal MP S Jaipal Reddy, Congress leaders Balram Jakhar, P Shiv Shankar and P Upendra, Communist Party of India's all-India farmers's wing president Bhogender Jha, Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninst's New Democracy president Yatinder Kumar, Dr B N Reddy, MP and environmentalist Vandana Shiva.

The speakers said the main cause of suicides was that the banks in the state met only 10 per cent of the loan requirements of the peasantry. The latter were forced to take private loans paying 60 per cent to 200 per cent interest.

Loopholes in the law are a boon for traders in spurious seeds and pesticides, they added.

Besides, the suicides had already spread to Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab, they added.

They said if the Centre was really serious about preventing the suicides, it must give the state government Rs 5 billion from the National Calamity Fund.

They demanded that institutional crop loans for small and marginal farmers be waived and that advances be made available to save the farmers from the clutches of private money lenders.

The Private Money Lending Act should be regulated and strictly implemented and the guilty punished, they said adding that subsidy on agricultural inputs like fertilisers should be enhanced.

The protestors said a comprehensive crop insurance scheme should be enacted and implemented from the next kharif season to ensure direct compensation to the farmers.

In a memorandum submitted to the Lok Sabha Speaker, the farmers, under the banner of 'Platform for United Struggle to Prevent the Suicide Deaths of Farmers', pointed out that the suicides were also 'the consequential result of the new economic and agricultural polices being pursued by the Centre for the last seven years as the state government had created a situation in which prices of agricultural inputs had increased to an alarming level while the prices of agricultural produce was not on the increase at par with them, particularly the prices of cotton.'

The Speaker, according to Bhaskar, has assured the farmers that all efforts will be made to set up a joint parliamentary committee to probe the suicide deaths. He has also promised to discuss the matter with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Minister of State for Agriculture Minister Som Pal.

"Another major problem that confronts most farmers is lack of irrigation facilities,'' says 75-year-old Sanjiva Reddy from Jaffargarh Mandal in Warangal district. ''For the last three years, we have been getting only a week's rain."

Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninst activist Sudigali Venkanna is more forthright. "We want our land to be irrigated. Borewells to be dug up..."

If the cry gets lost in the thunder of nuclear explosions, more farmers may commit suicide. And many more would turn to the justice of violence.

Additional reportage: UNI

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