Govt committed to enhancing farmers’ incomes: Devesh Chaturvedi
He made these remarks when Australian High Commissioner Philip Green paid a courtesy call on him at Krishi Bhawan in New Delhi on Thursday.
The farmers’ agitation has succeeded in rattling the central government as well as the Uttar Pradesh government to such an extent that they resort to violence and brute force, charged social activist Yogendra Yadav while adding that the three ‘black laws’ are ‘dead’, no government dare implement it.
Condemning the Lakhmipur violence as ‘barbaric’, he said democracy and the Constitution is being crushed by a government that has turned scared.
Speaking at a function organised by the Lohia Academy here on Monday, Yadav said very often people ask what have you achieved in this long 10-month struggle.
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The answer is that farmers have achieved ‘self-respect and confidence’, they have realised their political strength and thirdly the farmers across the country have united.
The movement is often labeled as one by ‘andolan jeeves’ by the PM and it is also being undermined by saying that it is limited to pockets of Haryana, Punjab, UP, noted Yadav before pointing out at the unevenness there was even in the freedom movement.
But even today farmers of Kerala were protesting against the violence in UP.
Everywhere farmers are reacting and are united – it may be on a lesser scale in some states and on a larger scale in other places, he noted.
He pointed out that the farmers are a class whose movement is aligned to democracy, diversity and development and it has the capacity to bring about change in the country.
Incidentally, several activists and farmer outfit leaders present expressed dismay at the total silence of CM Naveen Patnaik and the ruling BJD in Odisha over such a raging issue. The BJD appears to be in a fix as it has been supportive of the BJP and central government on almost every issue, hence, it does not even dare to condemn the incidents in UP, they remarked.
The pretensions of the BJD with regards to its reservations to the farm laws stands exposed, they noted.
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