Why in news?

• In the last few months, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), has been mobilising farmers for a march towards Delhi (Dilli Chalo).

• The AIKSCC’s main agenda is the demand for a special session of Parliament in order to discuss the agrarian crisis in the country.

What are the reasons for the current agrarian crisis?

• The farmers want this Parliament session to be devoted to discussions on the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission, implementation and regulation of the policy of MSP.

• They are also concerned about the problematic privatisation of the crop insurance policy, the government’s faulty methods in categorising drought-prone areas, and the discriminatory approach that the banks have adopted towards farmers who have taken loans from different banks.

• The farmers are sceptical about the viability of the MSP working in their favour.

• Similarly, they also have good reason to believe that the expanding stranglehold of corporate insurance companies over cash crops would benefit the companies rather than the farmers.

• They doubt the accuracy of the remote sensing method, which, according to them, does not give an accurate picture of water reservoirs.

• All these factors have led to the agrarian crisis that manifests its devastating nature in the tragic suicides of more than three lakh farmers.

What is the significance of the mobilization?

• The mobilisation is aimed at forcing a democratic dialogue on the government, which seems to be least concerned about solving the crisis.

• This mobilisation is multi-class in nature in as much as its supporters come from across sections like students, urban middle class, artists, film-makers, techies and professionals in the information technology sector, and bank employees.

• This multi-class support was evident in the historic and successful farmers’ march from Nashik to Mumbai in March 2018. • Second, the farmers’ efforts to force the government to call a special session of Parliament also involve an element of fairness.

• Finally, the farmers seek to suggest to the government and the people of this country that the nation belongs to them only in a symbolic sense, while it belongs to the corporate interests in the real material sense.

What should be done?

• This march is aimed at making the governing classes aware of the fact that farmers do matter, that they matter equally in the shaping of their own lives.

• Their demand for a special session of Parliament is suggestive of a government that has failed to take responsibility for addressing the agrarian crisis, and the debates in Parliament, if allowed, will fix responsibility on this government.