In­dia dwells in un­earthing uni­form so­lu­tions for every­thing across the length and breadth of the vast In­dian con­ti­nent. This has re­sulted in anom­alies, con­cerns and strife on agri­cul­tural, eco­nomic, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal is­sues. Re­but­ting this cam­paign for uni­for­mity, in toto, a string of Pun­jab schol­ars, ac­tivists and farm­ers in a joint state­ment, have sought the right of farm­ers to de­ter­mine the price of their agri­cul­tural pro­duce and the right to trade in­ter­na­tion­ally with a re­gion of their choice, at par with all other pro­duc­ers of all other prod­ucts.

THE CUR­RENT AT­TEMPT BY THE GOV­ERN­MENT OF IN­DIA TO FOIST UNI­FORM ANTI-FARMER LAWS, WHICH ARE  also against the le­git­i­mate eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests of the farm­ers in Pun­jab, has re­ceived a strong and de­ter­mined re­sponse from the peo­ple of Pun­jab. Po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, ac­tivists, singers, aca­d­e­mi­cians and stu­dent bod­ies, men and women have con­verged onto streets or in protests dot­ting all parts of the state of Pun­jab.

Giv­ing a com­pre­hen­sive and clear re­ply to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and spelling out a clear line that the lead­ers of the protests across the state of Pun­jab must take, a bunch of schol­ars and ac­tivists, who have been closely study­ing the is­sues since the last decades, in a state­ment have said, “The Pun­jab farm­ers’ fight is not about a few con­ces­sions and fa­cil­i­ties. It should be fo­cussed on ob­tain­ing the right to self-de­ter­mine the course of ac­tion to be taken by farm­ers.”

“It is one thing to re­solve cur­rent is­sues and an­other to get to the root of the prob­lem and evolve long-term so­lu­tions.”

“In­dus­tri­al­ists, tech­ni­cians, tech­nocrats, ser­vices and the arts sec­tors -all have the le­git­i­mate right and free­dom to de­ter­mine the price of their prod­uct and so should the farmer.”

Ajay­pal Singh, Writer and Pub­lic Speaker

Speak­ing to the World Sikh News, au­thor-ac­tivists Ajay­pal Singh Brar said, “In­dus­tri­al­ists, tech­ni­cians, tech­nocrats, ser­vices and the arts sec­tors -all have the le­git­i­mate right and free­dom to de­ter­mine the price of their prod­uct and so should the farmer.”

“It is highly ironic that the price of the tools, seeds, fer­til­iz­ers, anti-weeds and other chem­i­cals used as in­puts by the farm­ers is de­ter­mined by the re­spec­tive com­pa­nies and not by the end-user -farmer but in the case of the Pun­jab farm­ers, the prices are de­ter­mined by the Union gov­ern­ment in Delhi,” he added.

“Un­ques­tion­ably, the right over Pun­jab wa­ters is that of the peo­ple of Pun­jab and this has been tram­pled and grabbed by the pow­ers that be from Delhi and is be­ing dis­trib­uted against ri­par­ian prin­ci­ples. The pri­mary is­sue is the right of the peo­ple of Pun­jab over its wa­ters and other nat­ural re­sources. These rights must be re­in­stated.”

Pardeep Singh, writer and film pro­ducer

Ex­plain­ing the state­ment, a young farmer and po­lit­i­cal ex­po­nent Mand­hir Singh elab­o­rated from the state­ment, “In the In­dian en­vi­ron­ment, there is a vast range of dif­fer­ence in the cli­matic con­di­tions, soil qual­ity and con­di­tion and the wa­ters avail­able for agri­cul­ture. Like­wise, the con­sump­tion of farm in­puts is dif­fer­ent in all ar­eas. There­fore, it is not pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine a sin­gle uni­form price for all the states. It is not fair to do so. The right to de­ter­mine the farm pro­duce of each area should be of a body of lo­cal farm­ers, agri­cul­tural ex­perts of that par­tic­u­lar area and lo­cal gov­ern­men­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”

If the lead­er­ship of In­dia is clam­our­ing for the best price for farm­ers be­yond the con­straints of agents and gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, then, the state­ment added that “all rights of mar­ket­ing and in­ter­na­tional trade of farm pro­duce should be given to Pun­jab farm­ers. Ge­o­graph­i­cally speak­ing, it can be more ben­e­fi­cial to the Pun­jabi farmer to trade with Pak­istan, Arab coun­tries and other Cen­tral-Asian coun­tries.”

Sikh Siyasat ed­i­tor Par­m­jeet Singh -wrapped up the ar­gu­ment, in a nut­shell, say­ing, “We be­lieve that this strug­gle should be fought not just for a few con­ces­sions and fa­cil­i­ties but for the le­git­i­mate free­dom to make de­ci­sions suit­able to the in­ter­est of the farm­ers and the peo­ple of Pun­jab.”

There is no doubt in the minds of the peo­ple of Pun­jab, es­pe­cially the farm­ers and the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship that Pun­jab’s wa­ters and other nat­ural re­sources have been vir­tu­ally looted by its neigh­bour­ing states un­der il­le­gal laws framed by the Union of In­dia.

Writer and Film pro­ducer Pardeep Singh said, “Un­ques­tion­ably, the right over Pun­jab wa­ters is that of the peo­ple of Pun­jab and this has been tram­pled and grabbed by the pow­ers that be from Delhi and is be­ing dis­trib­uted against ri­par­ian prin­ci­ples. The pri­mary is­sue is the right of the peo­ple of Pun­jab over its wa­ters and other nat­ural re­sources. These rights must be re­in­stated.”

“These is­sues are not just eco­nomic but po­lit­i­cal in na­ture. There is a need to start a po­lit­i­cal strug­gle for the restora­tion of the right to de­ter­mine farm pro­duce price and the un­fet­tered right to in­ter­na­tional trade. “

Jag­mo­han Singh, Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News

WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, who is also one of the sig­na­to­ries com­mented from the state­ment, “These is­sues are not just eco­nomic but po­lit­i­cal in na­ture. There is a need to start a po­lit­i­cal strug­gle for the restora­tion of the right to de­ter­mine farm pro­duce price and the un­fet­tered right to in­ter­na­tional trade. Ul­ti­mately, we need to have a po­lit­i­cal dis­pen­sa­tion where the fun­da­men­tal right to make po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions is that of the peo­ple of the re­gion.”

Those who en­dorsed the doc­u­ment in­cluded -writer and pub­lic speaker Ajay­pal Singh Brar, Uni­ver­sity re­searcher Anup Singh Gha­nia, Ac­counts of­fi­cer In­der­preet Singh San­grur, Karan­jit Singh Kaath­garh, Pan­thic ac­tivists Mand­hir Singh, Gur­jant Singh, Gangvir Singh Rathore, Paramjit Singh Mand, Mal­keet Singh Bhawani­garh, Ran­vir Singh, Ra­j­pal Singh Sandhu Sarab­jit Singh Ghu­man, Sukhjeet Singh, Sukhdeep Singh Meeke, Ravin­der Singh Dharam­garh, Farm­ers -Gur­nam Singh Moonkan, Gur­pal Singh, Gur­preet Singh Khudda, Davin­der Singh Sekhon, Sukhwinder Singh, Har­jin­der Singh WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, stu­dent leader Ju­jhar Singh, writer and film pro­ducer Pardeep Singh, Or­ganic Farm Pro­duce trader Ram­neek Singh, Soft­ware En­gi­neer Suman Ku­mar, Harpreet Singh, Har­bakhash Singh, Elec­tri­cal En­gi­neer Har­man­deep Singh, and stu­dent Sukhmin­der Singh.