“A Hidden Truth Behind The Martha’s Silent Protest”

Impotency in  Agriculture due to Economic , Social , Political Instability

Maharashtra has been accompanied by new social and political equations that threaten the Marathas’ political hegemony. Maharashtra has been Witnessing a thus far unseen occurrence: Lakhs of people gather, a march begins, there’s no sloganeering, the crowd walks in complete silence and the gathering ends with handing over of a memorandum to a local government official .

 People from rural Maharashtra along with the diversified  group of school and college girls ,   women , Doctors , advocates and other people of Maratha society had  created a cause to  mental distress among all the  political leadership of Maharashtra . All  the  silent protest are guided by different hard core Maratha organizations like ; Martha vikas morcha , Maharashtra seva sangh , Maratha kranti morcha  etc. in a  professionally  planned and  managed way . Now the question arises  Is protest was triggered by the brutal rape and murder  of a 14 yrs. girl from the community two months ago, allegedly by three Dalit men in Kopardi village, in Ahmednagar district on 13 July 2016 worked as a fuel to fire for their demands like….

1)   Amendment in “Preservation of Atrocities act 1989” .

2)   Death penalty to the perpetrator of Murder case.

3)   Reservation to Maratha Community

All three demands appear too innocuous to trigger such a huge protest. 
 Successive droughts, diminished their incomes. If we critically  examine the reason behind the  Patels’ outburst in Gujarat  the Jat agitation in Haryana, and Silent protest Maratha’s in Maharashtra we would be able to realized that Successive droughts, dwindling landholdings and changed ground realities have significantly diminished their incomes.  Incidentally, all three communities are basically agrarian  and agriculture of these states are  growing with diminishing rate due to inconsistency of climate , poor government policies to control this worst alarming condition of farming community .

 Maharashtra also had    strong correlation  between agriculture and  socio-economic structure of the state  Over the past few years, Maharashtra has been topping the list of states in the country when it comes to farmers committing suicide. The problem has became more   acute due to proper attention was not paid to it in the past 15 years. The government machinery which was supposed to be looking into the matter has been riddled with corruption. The monsoon does have a very real impact on agriculture. But it is by no means the main reason for the farm suicides. And with the bulk of those suicides occurring amongst cash crop farmers, the issues of debt, hyper-commercialization, exploding input costs, water-use patterns, and severe price shocks and price volatility, come much more to the fore. All factors  majorly driven by state policies.

Technological changes in Cotton seed research in favor of GM varieties (Bt. Cotton) promised higher output per hectare and profit of rupees ten thousand. But ultimately in  a case of the studied suicide affected households from the district Yavatmal , it resulted in per acre loss for rupees

7742 Rs.

As these farmers have faced frequent crop failures and inadequate crop output in recent past more than 96 % the eligible households under Conditions were debt ridden which conforms indebtedness as the main cause for suicides Mainly the increase in borrowing by all holding categories for farm operations was due to the outstripping by input prices of the output prices causing net negative returns on cultivation and thereby pushed farmers into a debt trap.

The average of the rate of interest charged by co-operatives was 15.57 % where as it was 8.02 and 67 % by banks and moneylenders respectively (the maximum rates charged were 36% by co-operatives, 12%t by banks and 100 % by moneylenders. Respondents refrain to reveal about the moneylenders due to a strong hold that they retain on rural farm economy and society on account of their ancestral dominance and the contemporary political links.

 [ A case Study by ; International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research_ ISSN 2277 3630 Vol.2 (2), FEBRUARY (2013)]

90% of famer suicide are done by Maratha farmers that’s why Maharashtra is on the top among all the states of country. Another truth that prevails 4.5% area of Maharashtra is under the sugarcane crop cultivation which utilizes 71% of water resources of the state ( 4.5% cultivable land ) Let us see what are prevailing economic  condition of rest 96% farmers as per data shown in  fig. indicating since last 15 yrs. most worst scenario of Martha farmers in the state . The average income of a farmer from one hectare of land is just approximately 700/=Rs.  Which is less then income received from MGNREGA  and this  is unbelievable how Maratha  farmers are surviving from the decades .(Data source;http://cacp.dacnet.nic.in/)

Under these prevailing condition the protest of Maratha’s are quite right that is why Sate of Maharashtra witnessing such a huge protest all over the states . While influential Marathas got political power and entered cooperative sectors, the farmers became the deprived community.

55% of the state population lives in villages  and this population is out of reach to avail better health care , better education and with the privatization of these services make the situation more worst .

On the other side if we compare salaried Government employee they have better economic security .

 Bar diagram  are self explanatory that the input cost of fertilizer for  cultivation is just  had double increase in price over the  last 8 years where as MSP of different crops is concerned  had a little increase  over the past 8 years . More interestingly the MSP of wheat in 1970 was 600/=Rs. Per quintal and since last 46 years MSP of Wheat in 2016 is 1450/=Rs per quintals . If we compare the salary of Govt. since last 46 years there is a increase of 300 time and increase the corporate salary is more than 1000 times  If a peon in Govt. office   salary is  1800/= per month including allowances Why not  farmer too    it is happening due to  unrealistic and  imbalanced economic   reforms of the farming community in India ( Ref.; My previous write-up “NO Hope For Farmers Despite AGood Monsoon”)  . Martha’s silent  protest evolved because of imbalance  equation between Politics and Agro-Social Economy and this kind of protest should not be ignored for our national interest .

Picture ; theologicalindian.com