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Hammered By The Sickle
The CPMs (Communist Party of India (Marxist)) anachronisms reach a frightening level: rice farmers are starving because the party says, no machines. KA SHAJI reportsTHE CPMS time-warped ideas are reaping a bloody harvest for Keralas rice farmers. The partys peasants unions have been boycotting machines for years, insisting that the sickle is revolutionary both as tool and idea. Ask local Congress leader and rice farmer Shaji Cherukad, and hell tell you that raising a banner of revolt in the Red bastion of Alappuzha is a recipe for starvation. Cherukad lent his fields for a symbolic protest by Congress leaders against the CPM unions refusal to allow farmers the use of cutting and threshing machines. The Congress state leadership turned up in full strength to deploy a giant harvesting machine on Cherukads farm in the Kuttanad region, and offered the gathered mediapersons some defiant bytes. But no sooner had the ceremonies ended that Cherukads woes began. Those in charge of operating the machine fled fearing the CPMs wrath, and the farm workers avenged this assault on peasants unity by boycotting Cherukads farm. Twenty days after the harvest date, the crop lies uncut and rotting. What makes the situation bizarre in the Alappuzha-Kuttanad region, once called Keralas rice bowl, is that the embargo on machines has meant a severe shortage of farm hands. Posted by: john frum 2008-04-12 |
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