P. Sainath: Farmers win on many fronts, media fails on all / रवि आजाद BKU HARYANA | Kisan Ekta Morcha

By Dilip -

The edits invariably ended on the appeal: but do not withdraw these laws, they’re really good. Did any of these publications once tell their readers - on the standoff between farmers and corporates - that Mukesh Ambani’s personal wealth of 84.5 billion dollars was closing in fast on the GSDP of the state of Punjab (about 85.5 billion)? Did they tell you that the wealth of Ambani and Adani (who clocked $50.5 billion) together was greater than the GSDP of either Punjab or Haryana? Well, there are extenuating circumstances. Ambani is the biggest owner of media in India. And in those media that he does not own, probably the greatest advertiser. The wealth of these two corporate barons can be and is often written about – generally in a celebratory tone. This is the journalism of corpo-crawl…

This is not at all the end of the agrarian crisis. It is the beginning of a new phase of the battle on the larger issues of that crisis. Farmer protests have been on for a long time now... particularly since 2018, when the Adivasi farmers of Maharashtra electrified the nation with their astonishing 182-km march on foot from Nashik to Mumbai. Then too, it began with their being dismissed as ‘urban naxals’, as not real farmers, and the rest of the blah. Their march routed their vilifiers....

What the media can never openly admit is that the largest peaceful democratic protest the world has seen in years – certainly the greatest organised at the height of the pandemic – has won a mighty victory. A victory that carries forward a legacy. Farmers of all kinds, men and women – including from Adivasi and Dalit communities – played a crucial role in this country’s struggle for freedom. And in the 75th year of our Independence, the farmers at Delhi’s gates reiterated the spirit of that great struggle.

रवि आजाद BKU HARYANA (Video) Kisan Ekta Morcha

Prime Minister Modi has announced he is backing off and repealing the farm laws in the upcoming winter session of Parliament starting on the 29th of this month. He says he is doing so after failing to persuade ‘a section of farmers despite best efforts’.  Just a section, mind you, that he could not convince to accept that the three discredited farm laws were really good for them. Not a word on, or for, the over 600 farmers who have died in the course of this historic struggle. His failure, he makes it clear, is only in his skills of persuasion, in not getting that ‘section of farmers’ to see the light. No failure attaches to the laws themselves or to how his government rammed them through right in the middle of a pandemic.

Well, the Khalistanis, anti-nationals, bogus activists masquerading as farmers, have graduated to being ‘a section of farmers’ who declined to be persuaded by Mr. Modi’s chilling charms. Refused to be persuaded? What was the manner and method of persuasion? By denying them entry to the capital city to explain their grievances? By blocking them with trenches and barbed wire? By hitting them with water cannons? By converting their camps into little gulags? By having crony media vilify the farmers every day? By running them over with vehicles – allegedly owned by a union minister or his son? That’s this government’s idea of persuasion? If those were its ‘best efforts’ we’d hate to see its worst ones….

https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/farmers-win-on-many-fronts-media-fails-on-all/


Huge victory for India's agricultural population after a year-long non-violent struggle, and hundreds of lives lost


Why India PM Narendra Modi rolled back vexed reforms


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