The Communist parties and the Indian National Congress have been busy staging protests for the past one month blocking all roads and highways in Punjab-Delhi Border demanding a complete roll back of the new Farm Law enacted by the BJP led NDA government at the Centre. The BJP led government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has through the new Farm Act freed the countless small farmers from the harassment of middlemen extorting commissions to sell their produce at the government approved APMC mandis. The farmers can now individually or through cooperatives directly sell their produce  to corporate food processing industries or at urban markets directly. This would facilitate doubling their present income making farming a viable and profitable occupation.

Even a cursory look at the manifestos of the Congress and various other opposition parties for 2019 General Elections shows their plans to scrap the APMC mandi system fettering the farmers’ right to sell their produce at a market of their choice and at more profitable rates than the Minimum Support Price earned by them by sale at APMC mandis. So, their duplicitous stand against the new Farm Act exposes the politically sponsored “farm protest” which is now being increasingly infested with Khalistani proponents.

Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister of Kerala has now grandly declared to stand in solidarity with the “protesting farmers” and stating that Kerala would be impacted the most if a food scarcity strikes the country as it is a consumer state. Notably, Kerala successively run by Congress and CPM led governments has never implemented the APMC regime but wants the farmers in the rest of India to be scuttled by it.

It is quite shameful for the CPM Kerala CM Pinarayi to proudly say that Kerala is a consumer state and depends on other states for staple food. Kerala, once famous for its superabundant captivating lush green paddy fields and backwaters monikered “God’s Own Country” is now relying on other states to meet its own demands for rice which is the most essential food grain of Kerala. Paddy cultivation in Kerala has steadily declined from 1970-71 when it was 8.8 lakh hectares and in 2009-10 it had drastically reduced to 2.3 lakh hectares as reported by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Kerala.

The area under paddy cultivation in Kerala has further reduced to 1.96 lakh hectares in 2015-16. Moreover, the Kerala Governments own Economic Review 2010 admits that foodgrains produced in the State account for only 15 per cent of its total consumption of foodgrains (GOK, 2010, p.106). Kerala therefore now imports food grains from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat so that it can meet its basic food needs and not starve for rice.

Thus, it is abundantly clear how the inept farm policy of successive Congress and Communist led governments in Kerala have wrecked production of rice and reduced it to begging other states for rice and vegetables. It is a well-know fact that the CPM and Congress indulged in crass commercialisation of arable land into real estate businesses with legal-illegal funds flowing from Gulf which has now left it to depend on other states for food sufficiency.

The Communists and Congress have encouraged urban encroachment in forest areas which is driving out the already marginalised indigenous tribals dependant on forest produce out of their traditional abode in Wayanad and Palakkad. Tribals in Kerala are regularly lynched to death under the pretext of “stealing rice” from illegal urban settlements in forest areas, there is a conspiracy of silence in the secular media to sweep these gory incidents under the carpet and under report them.

While CPM General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury has brazenly misled that in Kerala, the Paddy Procurement Price is Rs, 2748 /quintal and claimed it is Rs. 900 more than Central MSP of Rs.1848/quintal. Whereas the reality on ground is that the average Paddy Procurement Price in Kerala is Rs. 1900/quintal, the minimum being Rs.1800/quintal (which is lesser than the central MSP) to a maximum of Rs.2000/quintal.

The communists and the Congress would do well to stop misleading and lying to the public at large about their fabled, “Kerala Model” which is imploding from jihadi terror “Gaza Strips” and red terror “Party Grams” with negligible economic and employment opportunities prompting many Hindus to migrate out of the state to safer areas. Kerala the famous rice bowl of India has now been reduced to a begging bowl.  

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