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| India-Pakistan |
| Hammered By The Sickle |
| 2008-04-12 |
| The CPM’s (Communist Party of India (Marxist)) anachronisms reach a frightening level: rice farmers are starving because the party says, ‘no machines’. KA SHAJI reports THE CPM’S time-warped ideas are reaping a bloody harvest for Kerala’s rice farmers. The party’s 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 he’ll 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 Cherukad’s farm in the Kuttanad region, and offered the gathered mediapersons some defiant bytes. But no sooner had the ceremonies ended that Cherukad’s woes began. Those in charge of operating the machine fled fearing the CPM’s wrath, and the farm workers avenged this assault on peasants’ unity by boycotting Cherukad’s 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 Kerala’s rice bowl, is that the embargo on machines has meant a severe shortage of farm hands. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 Meanwhile in Thailand rice farmers are literally riding shotgun on their combines so the harvest doesn't get hijacked. But of course to make money on food is criminal. |
| Posted by: bruce 2008-04-12 18:37 |