Apple farmers stir may affect Himachal Pradesh polls again

In 1990, Himachal Pradesh saw one of the fiercest agitations by apple growers. The demand by the protestors from the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government headed by Shanta Kumar was to fix a minimum support price for the apple crop. In a gathering on July 22 that year in Kotgarh, where hundreds of protestors got together, the police fired shots, leaving three farmers — Govind Singh, Tara Chand, and Hira Singh — dead. Many more were injured.

The Apple agitation changed the political climate, the Congress with Virbhadra Singh won 60 of the state’s 68 seats. Kumar lost the two seats he had contested. Eventually, the Virbhadra government introduced the Mandi Intervention Scheme (MIS) to fix a minimum price for the crop.

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Since the Apple agitation 30 years ago, apple growers have hardly hit the streets. That changed last year when apple growers in the state came back on to the streets with a set of demands faced with rising costs and dwindling profits.

Prominent among these demands was the rollback of the increase in the GST on apple boxes from, which went up from 12 per cent to 18 per cent. Apple growers were also angry about pending procurement payments under the MIS scheme, and they were angry that the government had rolled back a scheme where it was distributing sprays, insecticides, and fungicides on subsidised rates and instead announced that it will compensate farmers through direct benefit transfer (DBT). Another complaint by the growers was the conditions and procurement price fixed by Adani Agri Fresh, which farmers said was too less and in turn, was affecting the open market.

The apple belt has always been important for Himachal’s electoral landscape. The apple crop accounts for Rs 5,000 crore or over 13.5 per cent of the state’s economy, yielding influence across 20-25 seats.

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This includes the eight assembly segments in Shimla districts, about four in Mandi, Kullu, and Chamba districts each, apart from one each in Kinnaur, Lahaul, and Spiti.

Chief Minister Jairam Thakur told DH that the issue has become political due to the investment of Opposition parties. “To ease the woes of the growers, we said that the state will bear the cost of the increase of GST in packaging material fixed by the GST Council,” Thakur said.

Apart from that, the government has taken a slew of steps, said Naresh Chauhan, chairman of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC).

“We cleared payments under MIS pending since 2013 and increased the minimum price of the crop twice — from Rs 7 to Rs 7.30 per kg in 2017 and then to Rs 10.5 per kg. This is the highest increase announced by any government,” said Chauhan.

He added that to deal with the fixing of price issues, the government formed a committee of experts including horticulturists who recommended that the minimum price should be fixed by an expert committee every season. Additionally, the DBT issue was also rolled back.

Kotkhai-based farmer Kamal Chandel says that the agitation was ill-timed. “This should have happened three months before the season, and after the agitation, procurement fell down. The rollback of the subsidy scheme has hit farmers hard,” he said.

In nearby Fagu, apple grower Harish Thakur, who is the president of the traders’ associations of Dhalli and Parmala welcomed the government’s announcements. “The protests were political, and prices are fixed by demand and supply. There is not much the government could have done here,” he said.

An apple box sells for anywhere between Rs 1500 to Rs 2000, and this year 3.5 crore boxes were produced, says Naresh Chauhan. Harish says that in Dhalli, approximately 70 lakh boxes were sold.

The issue has found takers among all the Opposition parties. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) earlier this year said that it will declare July 22 as Martyr’s Day, in presence of family members of those who died in the 1990 firing.

In its charge sheet of the BJP government, Congress has alleged that the Thakur government has done too little too late. “The government formed a committee two months before the elections, but did nothing die five years,” the Congress said.

Vishal Sangta, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate from Kotkhai, says that most of the government claims are eyewash. “Apple growers are illiterate, and to get the GST compensation they will have to fill forms, show bills, and then show up at a government office where mostly the officials will be missing. If the government wanted to help, they should have sent the compensation to the packaging traders directly,” Sangta said.

Ramesh K Chauhan, associate professor at the Department of Political Science of Shimla’s Himachal Pradesh University, says that the protests could have also been influenced by the farmers' protests in the rest of northern India. “Farmers realised that farmers united means farmers are protected.”