WATCH INTERVIEW There may be delay but farmers will eventually win this fight: Yogendra Yadav

This year's biggest mass movement in India is being spearheaded by the farmers of the country. There is no one leader. The farmers have gathered from across the country - Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and of course Punjab.

We spoke with Yogendra Yadav, the founding member of Swaraj Abhiyan and Jai Kisan Andolan about the perception war that mainstream media funded by corporate media is fighting for their neo-liberal masters. Well qualified in dissecting policies and legal acts, Yadav knows the games governments play. We at National Herald invited him to deconstruct the propaganda around the three new laws.

Yogendra Yadav corrects me when I introduce him as the captain of Team Farmer. He tells us that's a lie. The farmer movement has no leader; it's a people's movement. That is how it's different and more robust from Anna's movement. He then goes on to dismiss the claims by various Central ministers that there have been numerous talks between the government and the farmers. Such claims are often untrue, asserts Yogendra Yadav.

This brings us to Gurcharan Das's article in TOI, "Don't Kill 2nd Green Revolution: Rolling back farm reforms would privilege a small but vociferous group over the silent majority". Das claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in spite of being a good communicator didn’t win the much needed national support for the three farm laws because his government resorted to stealth, pushing the farm bills through Parliament without talking to the opposition, states, or farmer organisations. Das believes this led to false rumours that Minimum Support Price (MSP) and government procurement would go away soon.

He goes on to write that the understanding that corporate farming would replace peasant farming is a misunderstanding at best. Yogendra Yadav reacts strongly to this and states that Minimum Support Price is only on paper right now. This government has no desire to implement MSP, he says. He looks amused with Das's understanding that the farmers’ protest is by rich farmers.

He adds that the three new laws will only empower private mandi and companies. He then pointedly asks: Is it possible that poor farmers will get a better treatment in private mandis?

We finally ask him about media reports that ‘Khalistanis’ are part of the farmers' movement. Yadav asserts that not only have all the organisations that are part of the movement vociferously spoken against ‘Khalistanis’, but some of them lost their family members to the atrocities of the Khalistanis. This is a cruel joke of the powerful. They say whatever suits their agenda, he says.

With such statements doing the rounds, will the government really ever listen to the farmers, we asked Yadav. This was the moment when Yogendra Yadav displayed optimism. "There may be delay but farmers will eventually win this fight," Yadav said, with a smile on his face.

For now Yogendra Yadav has requested Indians from nearby states to join the farmers on the eve of the New Year.

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