Deadly protests in India highlight despair of poor landless farmers

The killing of five farmers in clashes with police in central India exposes the plight of landless peasants struggling to pay back debt with meagre earnings from lower produce prices, activists say. Low prices for produce such as lentils and cereals amid a glut in supply have triggered protests by farmers in central Madhya Pradesh state and neighbouring Maharashtra, where officials have said they will waive loans of some defaulting farmers. But the waivers will only benefit farmers who own land and do not address the main reasons for farmers’ distress including landlessness and the small size of holdings, said Kishor Tiwari, head of a committee set up by the Maharashtra government to address farmers’ issues. The five farmers shot dead in Madhya Pradesh when police opened fire to disperse a protest did not own the land they cultivated, the Indian Express daily reported on Friday. About two-thirds of India’s 1.3b people depend directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihoods. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of farmers have killed themselves across the country, with “bankruptcy or indebtedness” cited as the main reason in official data. Most of these farmers were tenants who did not own the farmland, and therefore did not qualify for benefits such as subsidised loans or crop insurance, said Raghu Pillai, head of the land and livelihood hub at advocacy group ActionAid India. Several Indian states, including Madhya Pradesh, are adopting a model land leasing law aimed at giving tenant farmers greater access to benefits such as credit, but the move is opposed by landowners who say it jeopardises their rights.