{"id":19564,"date":"2021-09-28T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=19564"},"modified":"2021-11-09T09:41:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T09:41:01","slug":"support-farmers-and-farm-labourers-bharat-bandh-shutdown-across-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/28\/support-farmers-and-farm-labourers-bharat-bandh-shutdown-across-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Support farmers and farm labourers’ bharat bandh (shutdown) across India"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following posting is from the Samyukta Kisa Morcha coalition of farmers unions, calling for a complete shutdown across India.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SUPPORT FARMERS AND FARM LABOURERS’ BHARAT BANDH (SHUTDOWN) ACROSS INDIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) coalition of farmers unions has called for a complete shutdown across India (except emergency services) on 27 September against Modi\u2019s three farm laws which will open the floodgates to corporations undermining food security and livelihoods of millions of people, and the destruction of the soil and the climate. The shutdown will be from 6am-4pm (India time). SKM say:\u00a0“This would include all government and private offices, all educational and other institutions, all shops, industries and commercial establishments, all public events and functions. Public and private transport shall also come to a halt during this period.”<\/p>\n

The Indian farmers\u2019 and farm labourers\u2019 10-month confrontation with agribusiness and Modi\u2019s right-wing government is a huge power and our point of reference for international movements for food and social and environmental justice everywhere.\u00a0 We must do everything we can to support them.<\/p>\n

Community organisations, unions,\u00a0progressive states<\/a>, millions of people are coming out in support of the shutdown. \u00a0While governments discuss climate change at conferences like\u00a0Cop 26<\/a>,\u00a0we say listen to the Indian farmers and listen to mothers, without whom there would be no population!<\/p>\n

\u201cIndustrial food systems and increasing corporate control of food chains are responsible for existential threats faced by our populations and planet<\/strong>, including the climate crisis, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, water pollution and countless human rights violations\u2026.and\u00a0has produced a food system that leaves over a billion hungry, under-nourished, and economically destitute…\u201d (Opening Declaration of the Counter-Mobilization to Transform Corporate Food Systems<\/a>)<\/p>\n

By contrast \u201c70% of the world gets food from the peasant food web, which works with only 25% of the resources. Millions of smallholder farmers, fishermen, pastoralists, agricultural and rural workers and entire indigenous communities practice agroecology, a way of life and a form of resistance to an unfair economic system that puts profit before life. As countless experts have attested, agroecology improves nutrition, reduces poverty, contributes to gender justice, combats climate change, and enriches farmland\u2026.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(People’s Autonomous Response to the UN Food Systems Summit<\/a>)<\/p>\n

People across all continents are fighting for survival and against environmental destruction. Africa demands\u00a0food sovereignty<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>for all: \u201c\u2026 to put the control of seeds biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture \u2026in the hands of the peoples who feed the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effects of climate change are hitting farmers in India hard, as everywhere, and threatening life.\u00a0 Drought and lowering water levels\u00a0have destroyed crops.<\/a>\u00a0And the government has targeted discriminated groups:\u00a0Modi\u2019s farm laws endanger millions of Adivasi farmers and labourers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Corporations like Adani, hand in hand with Modi\u2019s government, exploit their position of power by determining the\u00a0price of crops, eg apples.\u00a0 Farmers have protested\u00a0Adani<\/a>\u00a0who set the market prices at lower than last year which will impoverish yet more farmers, especially in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

Women hold up the back<\/strong><\/a>: collecting food and funds, talking to the press, and mobilizing crucial support for the movement<\/strong>\u00a0in the families. As such, they are essential, doing the critical, largely unsung, work\u2026. Women have brought with them their varied experiences of being landless laborers; having lost husbands, fathers, or sons to deaths by suicides and forced to pick up the responsibilities of farming, repaying debts, and demanding state compensation; preventing forcible evictions from land; and their experience of fighting against sexual violence and its tolerance in society. With women joining, the farmers\u2019 movement\u2019s claims on the government have expanded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalit and Adivasi women in rural Chhattisgarh<\/strong>\u00a0in our network, including farm workers say: \u201cAs part of the\u00a0Bharat Bandh, women farm labourers in the village areas refuse to work on the landowners land (it\u2019s plantation season). We give our\u00a0solidarity to all the women Kisan groups.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want the government\u2019s farm laws and agricultural policy.\u00a0 100 Adivasi women in our group are doing cooperative farming on forest land. They have been fighting to keep their land and have won their land rights papers. They say this is our land!<\/p>\n

The climate is very changed, when it\u2019s very hot we don\u2019t have water facilities on our land to grow rice and dahl. This time it\u2019s rainy season but the temperature after the rain is higher than usual and people are suffering with more viral fever, malaria, typhoid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farmers\u2019 movement\u00a0<\/strong>has organised against divisions<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0incited by Modi\u2019s government<\/strong>:\u00a0 Muslim, Sikhs, Hindus and people of all religions, and none, have been fighting together against the farm laws and labour codes\u00a0and despite increasing state and\u00a0police violence<\/a>\u00a0the farmers\/labourers\u2019 movements are taking actions constantly across all India including\u00a0defeating the BJP in state elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Indian farmers and farm labourers, women, men, children, people of all genders, are fighting for their survival, the survival of their families and communities, and generations to come, against the blood-sucking corporations hand in hand with governments. They are defending life itself. They are showing us:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is a progress towards ruining the more long-lasting sources of that fertility\u2026Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth \u2013 the soil and the worker<\/em>.\u201d (Karl Marx,\u00a0Capital,\u00a0<\/em>vol.1, Penguin Books, 1976, 638)<\/p>\n

Victory to the Bharat Bandh!\u00a0 Victory to the Indian farmers and farm labourers!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Global Women\u2019s Strike
\n<\/strong>www.globalwomenstrike.net<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n		Women of Colour Global Women\u2019s Strike\u00a0<\/strong>womenofcolour@globalwomenstrike.net<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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What you can do<\/span><\/b><\/span>:<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Retweet <\/span>Kisan Ekta Morcha<\/span><\/a><\/span> Farmers unions official twitter account. (<\/span>https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kisanektamorcha<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Email the Indian High Commission where you are supporting the great Indian strike against<\/i><\/b> the three farm laws and the takeover of agriculture by multinationals away from the Indian farmers and farm labourers on the land, and for<\/i><\/b> the climate, the soil and the workers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Your Union can pass a resolution in support of the strikers <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Your Mosque\/Gurdwara\/Synagogue\/Church\/can pass resolutions supporting the strike, thanking the Indian farmers\/farm-labourers movement for protecting the soil and workers on the land. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Contact your local press telling them why you support the Indian strike<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Please circulate this information as widely as possible. They are fighting our battles against the multinationals and for food sovereignty and decent wages, starting with pay equity for women farm workers. (The attached leaflet is a print version of this email.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a027.9.21<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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also see:-<\/p>\n

Mass farmers strike in India – Women of Colour and Sushanta D. Roy, International Marxist Humanist Organisation<\/p>\n

Mass Farmers’ Strike In India<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n