The Communist Party of Canada extends its full support to India’s farmers who are struggling against mass, brutal police and government repression to protect their farms and their livelihoods from the catastrophic consequences of new laws imposed by the fascist Modi government in September.
The new laws will corporatize agriculture and throw hundreds of millions of small and marginal farmers into bankruptcy and starvation. The current market protections for farmers will evaporate, including government procurement policies and minimum price guarantees, government staple food quotas, state subsidies, marketing boards, farmers’ co-ops, the co-op banking system which provided farmers with cheap loans and the system of Commission agents which advanced funds to small and marginalized farmers.
The new laws will enable the agricultural monopolies to dictate what crops will be grown, what the price of food will be to surviving contract producers and to consumers. They will enable unprecedented corporate price-fixing and profiteering in food production and will give the food monopolies the ability to create massive food shortages in order to do it.
These neoliberal laws, in line with World Trade Organization (WTO) demands that countries eliminate farm-gate price controls, income subsidies and other assistance to small farmers, have stripped small farmers of their power to negotiate with government and corporations, and their legal rights to take disputes to court. The new laws force them to accept resolution from third parties named by the fascist Modi government.
Since the new laws were fast-tracked and proclaimed two months ago, millions of farmers and farm organizations have demanded their repeal and the protests and demonstrations have been attacked by police and paramilitary forces.
India’s trade union movement, its artists and intellectuals stand in solidarity with the farmers against these reactionary and deadly laws.
Now the protests have moved to Delhi, despite freezing temperatures that have resulted in some deaths and widespread suffering. This struggle has expanded to become the largest uprising since India’s independence in 1947.
The Communist Party of Canada adds its voice to the demands of millions of farmers and workers in India, and their supporters around the world, that the Modi government rescind these reactionary laws and end the violence and terror against protesters exercising their democratic rights.
Further we call on the government of Canada to condemn the Modi government for its violent attacks on Indian farmers and their supporters, and to press for repeal of the dangerous new laws that will impoverish and subjugate small and marginal farmers across the sub-continent. This is state terrorism by a fascist government.
We further call on the labour, farm and democratic movements in Canada to also speak up against the Modi government’s violent attacks on farmers and on their rights and livelihoods. Workers and farmers in Canada are also under attack from transnational corporations and reaction in this country. They also aim to eliminate Canada’s food sovereignty and state organized system of supply management in agriculture which is deteriorating under global corporate free trade agreements including the USMCA and CETA.
International unity and solidarity must be the order of the day. These are the keys to victory.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
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