Civil disobedience in Kashmir over withdrawal of civil liberties
Betwa Sharma: Angry Farmers Won’t Sell Apples To NAFED Addled, Govt Takes Mandi Keys
The Narendra
Modi government has tasked the National Agricultural Cooperative
Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) with the task of procuring this
season’s apple crop in a belated attempt to contain the fallout of the Indian
government’s continued siege of the valley. But officials concede
that the scheme has few takers at present. “Of course, this is
not normal,” a government official said. “We are reaching out, but farmers are
not responding.”
The largest fruit and
vegetable wholesale market, or mandi, in Srinagar stands deserted, with
Kashmiri growers saying they would not bring their fruit to the mandi to
protest the government’s de facto suspension of civil rights in the
region. The administration has
responded by putting pressure on traders to open the market, to the extent of
confiscating the keys to the mandi.
The administration had
taken the keys, Bashir Ahmad Basheer, who is the chairman of the Kashmir Valley
Fruit Growers And Traders Union, said, “To show to outsiders, look, the market
has opened,” he said. When this reporter
visited the market in Srinagar this week, the only people at the registration
centre for NAFED’s apple procurement scheme were the two officials manning the
desk. The large grounds where farmers unload their produce is empty. The row of
shops lining the mandi are shuttered. Only police vans and a few government
officials were spotted on site.
Government officials
said 57 farmers had registered for the NAFED scheme since it was announced on
September 11, 2019. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
pointed out that registration does not mean participation. The government
has been at pains to paint a patina of normalcy in Kashmir a
month and a half after cutting off all communication lines and flooding the
valley with hundreds of thousands of heavily armed troopers. Thousands of
politicians, lawyers, rights activists and civilians including children have been detained by the police,
prompting outrage.
A successful
procurement of this year’s apple produce, in this context, is being seen as a
benchmark for the return to normal economic activity in a region that
accounts for three quarters of apple production in India, and a
validation of the government’s claim that a majority of Kashmiris tacitly
support the decision to nullify the state’s constitutionally-guaranteed
autonomy....read more
