TCN News
Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group committed to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, has come out in support of tens of thousands of protesting farmers in India, and said that government of India must listen to the farmers, and repeal the three pro-corporate farm laws it recently passed.
Two weeks back thousands of farmers reached Delhi to protest against the farm laws which they say will shrink their income by doing away with the minimum support prices (MSP) fixed by the government, and leave them at the mercy of corporates. Even as the farmers protest has expanded to different parts of the country, at least five farmers have died since the protests began.
“The Indian government claims the laws are part of agriculture reforms that will help farmers dispense with middlemen. But there is a strong merit in the argument of farmers that big corporate firms owned by the likes of Ambani and Adani will take over the role of middlemen, and that there will be no match to their power and grip over farmers,” said Ahsan Khan, the president of Indian American Muslim Council.
“Modi government has allowed big corporations to take over areas which were earlier limited to government control. Farmers’ concern that both prices and demand will be pushed down after corporate firms buy in bulk, and they would be at the mercy of big private conglomerates, is totally understandable” added Mr. Khan.
Modi government has been the most anti-farmer regime in the history of India. Despite promising to ensure “a minimum of 50 per cent profit over the cost of production” in the manifesto, the government went to the Supreme Court to declare it was difficult to fulfil. The Demonetization implemented by the Modi government devastated the farmers badly as it rendered all the cash in hand useless.
Mohammad Jawad, the national general secretary of the Indian American Muslim Council said, “The farmers of India have lost faith in the Modi government. They don’t think that the government will work in their interest. It is important that the laws are rolled back,” added Mr. Jawad.
P. Sainath, a renowned writer and expert on agriculture, said, “the new laws were not only anti-farmer but they contain among the most sweeping exclusions of a citizen’s right to legal recourse in any law outside of the Emergency of 1975-77.”
IAMC is dedicated to promoting the common values of pluralism, tolerance, and respect for human rights that form the basis of the world’s two largest secular democracies – the United States and India.