New Delhi: Amid raging farmer protests in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, a conglomeration of 62 farmer organisations have decided to perform the yogic posture of 'Shavasana' on the International Yoga Day on June 21 to drive home the point of agrarian distress in the country.
As part of the plans, hoardings with slogans of ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ would be put up with photographs of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri along with the photograph of a farmer handing himself. And one farmer would be performing the ‘Shavasana’ besides this poster. ‘Shavasana’ is a pose usually done at the end of a yoga practice in which practitioners lay flat on their backs with the heels spread as wide as the yoga mat and the arms at the sides of the body, palms facing upward.
Sources in the farm organisations said the symbolic protest would be held across the country.
The 62 farmers organisations, which includes the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh, are also planning to block highways on June 16. These decisions were taken at a meeting held on June 10.
Another major protest is being planned at Rajghat in the capital on June 14 by ‘Ekta Parishad’-led organisations, which will also be attended by Narmada Bachao activist Medha Patkar as well as Yogendra Yadav.
Patkar and Yadav have already visited Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, where six farmers were killed in police farming.
Meanwhile, the Congress, which has been at the forefront of the protests in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, asked the BJP government to fulfil its promise of providing Minimum Support Price plus 50 per cent cost of production as promised in its manifesto for the 2014 general elections. “We demand the government fulfil its promises and not keep shifting goalposts like promising to double farmers income,” Congress leader C.P. Joshi said.
He posed a range of questions for the BJP like why has the finance minister said that state governments will have to bear the costs of loan waiver and why the import duty on farm produce was reduced from 25 per cent to zero percent.
Joshi linked the current agrarian distress directly to the demonetisation process carried out by the government in last year in November.
Foot your bills, Jaitley to states after waivers
Amid growing demand for a farm loan waiver in many states, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday made it clear that states will have to give it from their own resources and Centre cant pitch in.
“I have already made the position clear that states which want to go in for these kind of schemes (farm loan waivers) will have to generate them from their own resources. Beyond that the central government has nothing more to say,” Jaitley said.
Earlier this month Jaitley had clarified that beyond what has been recommended by the 14th Finance Commission to be the share of states in the central revenue, Centre cant give any more money.
Modi government had accepted 14th Finance Commission recommendations to increase states share in the central taxes by a record 10 per cent to 42 per cent.
Under pressure from farmer groups, Maharashtra government on Sunday announced a farm debt waiver in the state. Madhya Pradesh is seeing violet protests in last few days from farmers demanding a waiver on agriculture loans. Similar demands are being raised in Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Karnataka among others.
Uttar Pradesh has already announced a Rs 36,359 crore farm debt waiver for small and marginal farmers after a new BJP government came into power in the state this year. Reserve Bank Governor Urjit Patel has warned of a likely fiscal situation to be going out of hands if states keep on doling out loan waivers in such a manner, which may also stoke inflationary expectations.
