The Samyukt Kisan Morcha and the ten Central Trade Unions (CTUs) belonging to the Opposition camp will hold a joint meeting on Monday to devise the future course of the ongoing protests of farmers and workers. The meeting, according to leaders of the CTUs and SKM, will be significant as this is for the first time that they are meeting for jointly strategise the next course of the agitations.
The leaders said earlier they held two joint meetings in support of each other’s protests. “We would like to give some joint calls. We will discuss the possibilities of worker-peasant producing cooperatives and holding a Bharat Bandh against the policies of Narendra Modi government,” said AITUC general secretary Amarjeet Kaur. She said the Centre is pushing the workers and peasants to distress. “The attitude of the government is the main reason for the protests,” she said.
She said the meeting will be held with an open mind. “The farmers have put up their battles against corporate companies. Here, we are finding possibilities of coordination among ourselves. Workers are also under attack from the same corporates. The Centre is supporting these corporates,” Kaur added.
The meeting will consider setting up a common agenda for not the workers and the farmers. “Farmers are threatened by the corporate houses that their land will be taken away. This will impact the food security of workers in this country. The issue of the consumer and the farmer is same,” Kaur said.
The suggestion of trade unions is that the small and marginal farmers, if they have to compete in the modern world, will have to organise themselves through the producing cooperatives. The trade unions say that this will help in reducing and sharing the input cost. The All India Kisan Sabha had recently come up with a Bill to support social cooperatives of workers and farmers. SKM leader Darshan Pal also openly supported producing cooperatives of workers and peasants.
All India Kisan Sabha leader P Krishnaprasad said there is an unprecedented upsurge of the peasantry and it will erode the base of the pro-corporate Modi Government. “The slogan ‘Farmers against BJP’ will ensure defeat of BJP in the forthcoming state assembly polls too. BJP has miserably failed to gauge the intensity of farmers struggle,” he said and added that the meeting will discuss protest plans for March and April months.