Simple arithmetic shows that these beneficiaries received about Rs.40,000 each when the promised amount had been a cap of Rs.1.5 lakh. Mungantiwar said that about Rs.13,000 crore had been distributed among some 35 lakh beneficiaries. So, in effect more than half the farmers did not get a loan waiver. ![]() During the Budget session of the State Assembly in February, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar admitted that banks had been allowed to grant loan waivers amounting only to Rs.23,102 crore. But the government is yet to deliver on its promise. ![]() About 70 lakh small and marginal farmers were expected to benefit from this. When Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met farmers’ leaders last year, he agreed to a farm loan waiver amounting to Rs.34,000 crore. The main issue of fixing the MSP, however, remained unresolved. After days of protest, which included a rasta roko, the Maharashtra government agreed to an immediate blanket loan waiver for those owning less than two hectares, with the option of immediately applying for fresh loans as well. But the main grouse then was the government’s refusal to set an MSP for tur dal. Swaminathan Commission’s main recommendation of minimum support prices (MSP) for crops at levels “at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production”. The demands raised by the AIKS in 2017 included a total loan waiver and implementation of the M.S. Even if they did manage to get a crop loan, they could not get infrastructural loans. They were unable to borrow from cooperative societies because the banks that lent to them were bankrupt. The worst affected were small and marginal farmers, that is, those who owned less than two hectares of land which was rarely irrigated. In June last year, the Kisan Sabha mobilised farmers who were caught in an unending debt trap. We did not even realise that so many people would support us,” says Savitribai, an elderly participant marvelling at the gigantic event that she was a part of. “People cared for us and believed in us and that made us resolve on a firm course of action. In some villages, people generously offered them food and water. They slept on the wayside, and cooked and ate small meals. The marchers, old and young, men and women, sang songs, played musical instruments and shouted slogans as they marched. He said water tankers were stationed at various points through the journey and an ambulance and doctors travelled with them for the entire six days. Ashok Dhawale, national president of the AIKS, said its Maharashtra unit had planned the logistics of the march right down to the grains, oils and firewood that would be required along the way. The “Long March of farmers”, as it was called, wound over 180 kilometres of highways and village roads from Nashik where it started on March 6. They had come to camp at Azad Maidan and present their demands to the Chief Minister. ![]() They could not miss any demand that was raised or any assurance that was promised. They did not want anything to come in the way of their demands. “If you’d walked for six days, you would understand,” he told the journalist. When a journalist stood up and blocked the view of the audience, a man wearing a red topi tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to sit down. Their sense of commitment was total even though the speakers repeated themselves and sometimes unleashed political rants that the audience did not identify itself with. The participants of the Long March, which began with 25,000 farmers and Adivasis and culminated at Azad Maidan as a 50,000-strong rally, sat stoically in the 31° Celsius afternoon sun, listening to various speakers. As the day broke, it was a sea of red-red topis, red flags of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and here and there red shirts, sarees, bags and so on-in central Mumbai. Farmers, agricultural labourers and Adivasis, fired by a sense of purpose, bolstered by just demands, marched quietly into Mumbai’s Azad Maidan in the wee hours of March 12. These turned out to be the telltale signs of an agrarian resistance. BLISTERED feet, swollen ankles, torn footwear held together with string, dust-lined and dehydrated faces.
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