Vasantdada Patil, General Secretary of the ruling Indira Congress, took along 25 MPs from his party to meet Rao Birendra Singh, the Union Minister for Agriculture. He presented demands of the farmers which were basically the same as those listed by SS, but he presented them as if they were coming from him! Political leaders who had ridiculed Joshi all along suddenly began to cultivate some link with Joshi. Haribhau Mahale of Janata Party, Vitthalrao Hande of Peasants and Workers Party and then education minister Baliram Hiray of Congress Party were among them. Even Sharad Pawar who earlier rediculed the agitation realised the widespread support to it and later laid an independent foot march (Dindi) of farmers to Nagpur to support the demand. Even the Communist Party of India had sent its politburo member Comrade Z. A. Ahmad to study this farmers’ agitation. However, Joshi was clear that he had to keep politicians out of his struggle. Most leaders in Delhi were realizing that the demands Joshi had put forward were well-calculated and reasonable. They were pressurizing the State Government to settle the issue as early as possible before the unrest had spread to other States. Antulay had become the Chief Minister mainly through the intervention of the Central leadership and hence could not overlook their wishes. Ultimately, he started negotiations with the agitating farmers and on 27 November he issued the orders to grant the rate of Rs. 300 per ton to sugarcane and Rs. 55 to 70 per quintal to onion. He also issued order to release all leaders and farmers. However the court cases against them continued for many more years. Had Government accepted these legitimate demands at the beginning, the entire subsequent struggle, firing, lathi charge, arrests and deaths could have been avoided. But had that been done, it would have meant bending before the SS which Government never wanted. Ego of the politicians was the real villain. They never wanted Joshi to emerge as the sole voice of the farmers.
Bitter Story of Sugarcane
Q
131
