Chennai, 16 Dec 2020:
Modi, who won elections on a promise of doubling farm income, has been under pressure to bring private investments to an agriculture sector that has stagnated badly.
That opposition to the Bills is widespread and spans the political spectrum is evident from the decisions of 15 political parties to support the farmers’ cause and speaks for itself. The alienation of the dominant community in the country including in the border state of Punjab, which has for long borne the brunt of terrorism and insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, could destabilise peace in the state and could adversely impact national security.
At the heart of the farmers’ opposition to the laws variously critiqued is the perceived dilution of the guaranteed minimum support price (MSP), linked with the survival, subsistence, economic security, and the dignity of the farming community. This is especially so in states like Punjab and Haryana where the Mandi system and MSP regime, now seen as threatened, have served their purpose.
The logic of the farmers’ demand for the repeal of the laws, premised on the basis that their enactment as Central laws is an impermissible encroachment on the states’ exclusive legislative domain delineated in List II of the constitution, is clearly persuasive. The demand for repeal also flows from a legitimate apprehension that incorporation of the changes sought by the farmers within the existing legislative framework would lead to inconsistency and unavoidable ambiguities in the laws.
A government at war with the farmers of the nation has forfeited its moral right to govern. The agitation reaffirms the view that peoples’ power and its assertion through mass mobilisation can alone secure the promise of egalitarian democracy and that elected governments cannot show a brazen disdain of popular sensitivities.
The imminent success of the agitation shows that freedom and justice survive in the consciousness of the people and that a democratic nation’s political narrative is located in the assertion of people’s power against injustice. It tells us that every Indian matters, and matters equally; that human conscience cannot be suppressed forever
The protests have been most intense in northern states of Punjab and Haryana, dubbed India’s grain bowls, where mandis are the main centres of farm trade.
For decades, farmers found themselves driven deeper into debt by crop failures and the inability to secure competitive prices for their produce. Finding themselves unable to cope, many have resorted to taking their own lives.
The agriculture sector contributes nearly 15 percent of India’s $2.9 trillion economy but employs about half of the country’s 1.3 billion people.
The bills further state that farmers can come into an agreement with private companies. Such deals are financially attractive but because there are so many terms and conditions attached, it is difficult for a farmer to cope with them. You become the slave of the company. This fight is not just about economics, but also our right to grow what we want and our self-respect.
The point is that in a country where 86 percent farmers have a land of the size of less than two hectares, you can’t expect the farmer to carry his produce to far off places to sell.
What we need is assured price for the farmers. If the markets are saying they will provide higher price to farmers, the question is higher price to what. There must be some benchmark.
Agriculture is suffering from a depressed pricing over the decades. Farmers have been denied the rightful income over the decades. Agriculture has been deliberately kept improvised.
There are serious deficiencies in the way the bills have been drafted. Clearly, it’s meant for the agri-business companies and not the farmers. While the government more or less openly says that it’s meant for investors, it obviously has not done enough to ensure that farmers’ interests are not sacrificed.