Unions to protest disinvestment drive, Farmers plan stir for loan waiver

Protests to culminate at Parliament during winter session, major political parties told to keep off

Disinvestment and farmer issues could soon spark a protest melee across the country. 

 

On Tuesday, 10 central trade unions will meet in the capital to finalise their nationwide protests against the Narendra Modi government’s disinvestment policies. A day later, over 60 farmer organisations will hold protests in several districts to demand the government implement the M S Swaminathan commission’s report, deliver on its poll promise of farmers getting one-and-a-half times’ price for their produce and announce a countrywide farm debt waiver.

 

Trade unions and farmer organisations plan to launch protests that would culminate at Parliament during its winter session in the second half of November.

 

The protests might not bring cheer to the Opposition either, which has been dispirited after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to side with the National Democratic Alliance. The farmer organisations as well as trade unions have asked mainstream political parties to keep away from their protests. “The farmer unions represent all hues of political ideologies and we do not want party politics to weaken our movement,” a farmer leader said.

 

Leaders of 10 central trade unions, with the exception of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, are slated to meet at Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium on Tuesday. “The objective is to forge a cohesiveness unity among trade unions to protest the government’s disinvestment policies. Lots of protests are taking place across the country but we want to put up a show of strength that should make the government sit up and take notice of our demands. We are opposed to disinvestment in the railways, ports and docks, defence and other sectors,” Hind Mazdoor Sabha’s General Secretary Harbhajan Singh Sidhu said.

 

The 10 trade unions are likely to finalise their declaration, which would include a 12-point charter of demands. They will also finalise their protests, including plans to hold a nationwide industrial strike in February 2018.

 

The 60 farmer organisations, which includes those earlier affiliated to the RSS as well as the Communist Party of India (M)-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), plan to hold protests across the country. “We have come together on two principal demands, that of loan waiver and farmers be paid one-and-a-half times the price of the cost of their produce,” AIKS’s Hannan Mollah said.

 

Since the police firing in Mandsaur, in Madhya Pradesh, that killed six farmers, farmer organisations have come together for sustained protests in Delhi and elsewhere. These will continue until November, when these organisations plan to protest outside Parliament during its winter session. Farmer leaders like Lok Sabha member Raju Shetti, Sunilam, Shiv Kumar 'Kakkaji', Yogendra Yadav, among others, will take part in the protests.

 

While the farmer protests would raise the issue of the harmful impact of demonetisation on the farm sector, the trade unions would highlight the adverse fallout of the Modi government's demonetisation on small and medium sector enterprises.