Global War on Food and Dissent
Renewed Farmer Agitation in India Amid Crackdown on Media Freedom
Colin Todhunter
The BJP-led government in India is seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat it suffered at the hands of farmers whose one-year agitation led to the repeal of three farm laws in late 2021.
This claim was made during a recent press conference in Delhi held by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) (United Farmers Front).
The SKM was formed in November 2020 as a coalition of more than 40 Indian farmers’ unions to coordinate non-violent resistance against three farm acts initiated two months before.
Asserting that the laws violated the constitution and were anti-farmer and pro big business, the SKM announced renewed agitation and expressed grave concern about a crackdown by the government against the online media platform NewsClick, which supported the farmers throughout their one-year struggle.
Those present heard that there has been “baseless dishonest and false allegations in the Newsclick FIR against the historic farmers’ struggle” and that the “FIR accuses the farmers’ movement as anti-national, funded by foreign and terrorist forces”.
An FIR is a ‘first information report’: a document prepared by police in India when they receive information about the commission of a “cognisable” (serious) offence.
Delhi Police issued an FIR against NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the human resources head Amit Chakravarty, which infers that the farmers’ movement was aimed at stopping the supply of essential goods for citizens and creating law and order issues.
An article on The Hindu newspaper’s Frontline portal describes the nature of the FIR, which goes far beyond the farmers’ issue, and concludes police actions along with the FIR marks a major low point for media freedom in India.
According to Frontline, the police raids on the offices of NewsClick and the residences of virtually anyone associated with it; the indiscriminate seizure of the electronic devices of journalists and other employees; the sealing of the news portal’s main office; the arrest of its founder-editor and its administrative officer on terrorism-related charges; and the searches conducted at the premises of NewsClick and the home of its founder-editor mark the lowest point for media freedom in India since the Emergency of 1975-1977.
The withdrawal of the FIR against Newsclick was called for during the press conference. There was also a demand for the immediate release of NewsClick journalists.
The SKM said that farmers across the country will burn copies of the FIR on 6 November after a sustained campaign at village level against the government’s pro-corporate policies from 1-5 November.
The farmers’ coalition also pledged to campaign in five poll-going states with the slogan “Oppose Corporate, Punish BJP, Save Country.”
And a 72-hour sit-in will take place in front of the Raj Bhawans (official residences of state governors) in state capitals between 26 and 28 November.
The SKM states that the farmers’ movement was committed and patriotic and saw through the “nefarious plan” of the three farm laws to withdraw government support from agriculture and hand over farming, mandis (state-run wholesale agricultural markets) and public food distribution to corporations led by Adani, Ambani, Tata, Cargill, Pepsi, Walmart, Bayer, Amazon and others.
It added that the farmers exposed the corporate-backed plan of depriving the people of India of food security, pauperising farmers, changing cropping patterns to suit corporations and allowing the free penetration of foreign corporations into India’s food processing market.
Those in attendance also heard about the hardships experienced by farmers during the one-year agitation:
“In the process, the farmers braved water cannons, teargas shelling, roadblocks with huge containers, deep road cuts, lathi charge, cold and hot weather. Over 13 months, they sacrificed 732 martyrs … This was a patriotic movement of the highest quality in the face of repression by a fascist government serving interests of Imperialist exploiters.”
State investment in agriculture infrastructure was called for, along with the promotion of profitable farming, the facilitation and securing of modern food processing, marketing and consumer networks under the collective ownership and control of peasant-worker cooperatives.
Accusing the government of acting on behalf of corporate interests, one speaker said that it had targeted Newsclick because it only did what a genuine news media should have been doing — reporting on the truth, the problems of farmers and the nature of the struggle.
It was claimed that:
The BJP Government is using the farcical FIR to spread a canard that the farmers’ movement was anti-people, anti-national and backed by terrorist funding routed through Newsclick. This is factually wrong and mischievously inserted to portray the movement in bad light and seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat they suffered at the hands of the farmers of our country.”
The farmers’ coalition argued that the government is moving to falsely charge the farmers movement of being foreign funded and sponsored by terrorist forces, while it is “promoting FDI, Foreign MNCs, big corporations into agriculture”.
The coalition says it remains committed to saving the rural economy, preventing foreign looting and rejuvenating the village economy in order to build a strong India.
The author’s e-book includes insight into the farm laws and farmers’ struggle mentioned above and can be accessed below.
Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture and is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal. You can read his “mini e-book”, Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Cultivating Resistance, here.
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Indigenous GM mustard meant to make edible oil cheaper, reduce import: Centre to Supreme Court January 18, 2024
“Mustard is the most used edible oil. GM oil has been used in India for decades now… What we are trying to do is make edible oil cheaper for the common man by growing oil seeds indigenously… 50 to 60 percent of edible oil is imported. Interests which are against India gaining food security and reducing foreign dependence are behind these PILs against GM Mustard…” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, submitted in the Supreme Court.
The God the state is a jealous God and will have no other Gods before it.
Woe betide those who stand their ground.
A walk through the valley of the shadow of death is a walk through state ownership.
“The SKM was formed in November 2020 as a coalition of more than 40 Indian farmers’ unions to coordinate non-violent resistance against three farm acts initiated two months before.”
Good show. But take a tip from Holland’s “Boer War” and drive your non-violent tractors up where they make an impression on The Body Politic.
When they ‘own’ our health, food, money, assets and time we become digital zombies. Easy to control, easy to eradicate.
I dont know any “they’s” that can do all that, I dont even know any magicians who could try that, I do know one God who can, but you dont know the likes of her, yet.
If you remember COVID lockdowns and how succsesful it was, then there is your answer how “they” and Karens and rest of obediant people can make it.
They didnt affect me, you perhaps, but not me. I do recall some fools being scared to death of something, but that’s all I recall of covid.
Just today at a panel discussion at a financial services summit in Mumbai, Morgan Stanley India’s managing director, Ridham Desai, pushed a point on pending farm law reforms as being a risk factor for Indian economy. Another agent of world oligarchy this man and the investment firm Morgan Stanley he works for.
All this calls back to mind the eco-War that the Bechtel Corp. declared on the indigenous peasants of Cochibamba a couple decades ago, by their pretentious claims of “owning” the country’s (aka cutizens’) water rights. That then made it illegal for residents to collect rainwater, by supposing that any water from the skies within the nation’s boundaries belonged exclusively to Bechtel. That’s when all the people “rose up as one” in common cause and drove the corporation out of the land.
But Bechtel’s army of attorney’s regrouped soon, and went, I believe, to Holland, where they sued for breach of contract, or (as CJH would have it) “Whatever.”
“And so it goes.” Always more & more of this to come I would guess.
It is way past time for a worldwide general famer strike, just do not grow anything, let the stupid assholes in the cities starve, maybe then they will learn were their food comes from.
Does BRICS hold out any hope? Or are Monsanto Bayee, er al in cahoots with Russia and China?
India, just like all other nations, have over a period of time lost almost all control of their government.
We are encouraged to focus our energy on a myriad of downstream derivative issues while in the background our governments continue to accept loans from private Central Banks and sign treaties/contracts with corporate entities such as the UN, EU etc.
This is the most important historical event that very few people appreciate. I suppose we should give credit (no pun intended) to the cartel for so thoroughly taking control of world governments without anyone (or very few) even noticing. Now it’s way too late to try to wrest that control back, especially if we need to depend on a sleep walking populace to do it.
Too true. The tentacles of the global octopus squeeze by increments.
RE: This was a patriotic movement of the highest quality in the face of repression by a fascist government serving interests of Imperialist exploiters.”
If you study Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, this is what she lays out – that genuine fascism is neither nationalist nor socialist, it is an expansionist (imperialist) movement of the capitalist class. This is quite unlike the typical portrayal in the Media of “fascists” by people like Naomi Klein, who as a jew and a scholar does not seem to know anything about geniune fascism/totalitarianism, only the cardboard cutout caricature.
One of the best definitions of genuine fascism I found so far is umberto eco’s 14 features of fascism, at this point all governments and all organised religions show most if not all of these features.
btw, there is no capitalist class, this is just another commiunist newspeak term, with communism being just another fascist ideology.
Readers may have already heard that Narendra Modi’s party is a direct descendant of the RSS, whose member Godse assassinated MK Gandhi.
But it bears repeating. 🍎 don’t fall far from the tree?
I know I would cringe for all that.
I’m reading a Lesser-known Huxley novel .Ape and Essence’ – in it he has a character say “we” killed Gandhi because his nationalism led him to believe in village life.
BTW the novel has the usual Malthusian rants against “overpopulation” which is blamed for a nuclear war (and environmental destruction before that). Was humanity really less warlike when there were fewer people?….
Anyone whose voice is not being suppressed, is a tool of the globalists.
Control of alt media, is right-han,d left-hand, just as state corporate media, which is evidenced by the fact that the fascist media speaks with one voice.
I see it even in the supposed pro-Palestinian opposition on Twitter Spaces: they are gate keepers. They insist that we focus on the genocide of kids, rather than how it fits into a broader plan.
I see it in the faux anti-Semites like the Goyim Defence League, a poodle of the ADL. Providing the justification for “hate speech” legislation that installs a police state.
Also, events in Palestine increasingly prove Zionism to be simply a globalist land grab, resource grab, concocted under the umbrella Ella of religion.
The media can be easily boycotted, but a media boycott is unobservable. Nobody cares if you read a book instead of raging about Gaza on the internet. You’re outside the system, which is almost as good as not existing at all, which is the next best thing to being a mindless stooge. Why is a complete boycott of the vote not openly recommended? Or is it, and it’s being perfectly censored? Is there a petition somewhere? There’s an “important” “election” coming up next year in the US. If nobody participated, it would break something, at least temporarily. The appearance of legitimacy is very important to a government that still clings to the aesthetic traditions of democracy. The election would have to be rescheduled, this time with threats to encourage participation. There were actually not-so-subtle threats mailed out by the DNC for the mid-terms. “Did you know? A secret ballot means… Read more »
Anarchy. Chaos. Is that what you want?
It requires people who are self regulating and knows what is up and down and have a moral compass. The big majority dont have that.
Be careful what you wish for until you have thought this out in detail.
If I had not been published here and there, a little, always only atl in the realm of USA alt media, since about 2005, I wouldn’t grasp yet the range and grasp of the censorship and the utter totality of its reach. That was an uncomfortable but priceless lesson to know though, drop by torturous drop. “The CIA doesn’t mind what you do, as long as it’s something they want you to do.”
£4£&$4$~~~
“If you sit by the peg, you will not notice the leash around your neck. It is only when you stray that you will feel the restraining tug.”
~ Michael Parenti (or very close to him, quasi~verbatim. They finally took down his website michaelparenti.org, or it lapsed (I doubt), so we fend for ourselves now, some. Self-reliance is the new “accurate”!)
More exactly, to discourage the “online industry” of dubious variants, which are mostly less well said:
“You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.”
Ibid from Michael P another bon mot and just as à propos:
(Embed it in gold in the pavement of our preoccupied Wall Street, just as they do all over downtown San Jose CA with favorite son Cesar Chavez sayings:)
“PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY’RE FREE IN THIS WORLD JUST HAVEN’T COME TO THE END OF THEIR LEASH.”
And furthermore, as a classic take on all that as an ode for these times, if not all:
“Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”
From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden,