Maharashtra dairy farmers spilling milk on roads is unacceptable
Dear chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, please do not say you are open for talks with milk protesters of Maharashtra. First, round up every farmer, activist or citizen, who is spilling tanker-loads of milk, to flow down drains and roads. Take into custody, all the protesters who have been stopping and emptying milk tankers on roads across the state.
How dare they?
And here is why...
Only last week, Maharashtra minister for women and child development, Pankaja Munde, informed the Assembly during the monsoon session that from September 2017 to January 2018, as many as 995 infants, in the 0-6 months age bracket, died in the state.
A comparison of nutrition indicators for children under five years, using the third and fourth rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-2016 and 2005-06, shows child malnutrition claimed as many as 718 lives in Maharashtra’s Palghar district alone. Even after a decade of double digit economic growth (2004-05 to 2014-15), Palghar’s malnutrition status has barely improved.
If that be the case, how can we digest protest like these, where vegetables and milk are wasted and allowed to rot along roads. A farmer’s dharma is to nurture produce, not to destroy it in anger and clash of egos.
We stand with the farmers. But a farmer is as much a responsible citizen of a state as is a teacher, police officer, or a government servant. Teachers cannot protest by burning books, police cannot protest by vandalising and government servants cannot protest by razing government buildings to the ground.
These people, who are trampling their produce and livelihood under their feet can, by no stretch of imagination, be farmers.
This whole issue sounds quite akin to fighting the manhole menace in Mumbai by digging holes into the roads. And this actually happened when Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists took it upon themselves to damage the road in front of the Mantralaya as a mark of protest. Should we be encouraging this any further?
Meanwhile, the milk protests have already taken a violent turn in Malegaon.
Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana chief Raju Shetti says: “We are not happy to waste milk but the government is protecting dairies and not considering farmers’ woes.” He warned of more protests if the state government fails to fulfil their demands.
To the likes of Raju Shetti, we say: If the produce must not be sent to the dairies, take it to orphanages and children’s homes and feed the kids. Not selling it to potential customers will be seen as a protest, and feeding the deprived will be seen as character. That way, your protest will be registered, and maybe, even respected.
Protest we must, but a protest must fit the bill of social and civic propriety.
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