Going Beyond Politics And Bonding With The Farmers Of Kashmir

On November 17, a select gathering in Pune was briefed about farmers’ distress in the districts of Jammu and Kashmir. The farmer leader, Raju Shetti, had just returned from a three-day tour of Kashmir and had a harrowing account to present the damage and destruction caused to the three main commodities of the troubled union territory: apples, saffron, and walnuts. He was part of a seven-member delegation of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee and had visited apple orchards and saffron fields and spoken to the farmers and members of the local chambers of commerce.

For Shetti, a prominent farmer leader from south Maharashtra, this visit was an eye-opener about agricultural issues in Kashmir. It is ironical that it should have taken all these decades for such a visit to happen. His account was revealing also for his audience in Pune, who were otherwise poorly informed of the ground realities of agriculture, agricultural issues and the agricultural distress in Jammu and Kashmir.

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