Groundxero | 28th December, 2023

The all-India general body meeting of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has called for intensifying struggle of farmers and farm-workers in 2024 to achieve the main demands of Minimum Support Price (MSP) calculated on the basis of C2+50% formula for all crops procurement by the government, freedom of farmers from debt-trap through loan waiver, halting privatisation of electricity, dismissal and prosecution of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni (the main conspirator behind the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre of farmers) etc.

In a press statement, SKM announced the launch of Jana Jagaran Campaign from 10th to 20th January 2024 to counter RSS-BJP’s Corporate Raj. The joint platform of various farmers’ unions which led the historic farmers’ struggle against the three pro-corporate Farm Acts, also announced holding of Tractor Parade by farmers’ unions on the upcoming Republic Day at 500 districts across the country.

SKM state units in 20 states will conduct a massive Jana Jagaran Campaign starting from January 10, 2024, across India through door-to-door visits and distribution of leaflets. The aim of this mass campaign is to expose the pro-corporate economic policies of the BJP-led Narendra Modi government, detrimental to the interest of farmers, workers and people at large, causing large scale unemployment, uncontrolled price rise, poverty, indebtedness and unbridled rural to urban migration.

The Campaign is against the Modi Governments’ narrative of the Corporate Raj based development model dependent on GDP growth rate and India becoming a three trillion-dollar economy. The model hides the decline in the per capita income, growing income inequality and denial of minimum support price to farmers and minimum wage to workers.

SKM said that the farmer and worker activists will visit households and distribute leaflets and ensure massive participation of the people in the forthcoming joint and coordinated struggle actions against corporate exploitation under the patronage of RSS-BJP rule. State level coordination committees will meet immediately to prepare for the campaign to target to cover at least 40% of the 30.40 crores households.

Tractor Parades will be held by farmers on 26th January, Republic Day of 2024 at district level in all the States and Union Territories. SKM has appealed to farmers to hold the parade after the conclusion of the formal Official Parade. The farmers participating in the Tractor Parade will fly-high the National Flag along with the flags of the constituent organisations, and will take pledge to protect the principles of Democracy, Federalism, Secularism and Socialism enshrined in the Constitution of India.

SKM has appealed to the farmers across India to make the Jana Jagaran Campaign and Tractor Parade successful to mark the determination to defeat the corporate-communal nexus that exploits and divides people through communal and casteist polarisation. It said the struggle will be intensified till all the demands are met by the Union Government.