Tag: Farmers Protest 2024

Sabka-Saath-Sabka-Vikas Model

‘A Legalised MSP Will Bring Farmers Into Sabka-Saath-Sabka-Vikas Model’

By LokMarg

Devinder Sharma, an eminent agricultural expert and a food & trade policy analyst, says wellbeing of the country’s farmers will ensure all-inclusive economic progress. His views:

This is one of the most crucial questions I have been asking. If the government can write off nearly ₹15 lakh crore corporate bad loans in the past 10 years, and also ask banks to enter into a compromise with willful defaulters, which means another write-off of ₹3.45-lakh crore, for people who have the money but don’t want to pay back the outstanding loans — why is it then dithering on legalising the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farmers? In any case, the ₹10 lakh crore of economic burden every year that the mainline economists are trying to project is nothing but the creation of a fear psychosis. 

In reality, since only 14 per cent farmers get MSP in India and the remaining 86 per cent farmers are dependent on markets, the fact remains that markets have been short-changing farmers all these years. On an average, farmers are able to sell at prices that are on an average 25 to 30 per cent less, compared to the MSP announced for 23 crops, which, largely, remain on paper. When these 86 per cent farmers will have more money in their hands once the MSP becomes a legal instrument, their purchasing power will go up. They will be spending it in the markets, thereby raising a huge rural demand. The economy will then gallop.

Instead of being browbeaten by mainline economists, policy-makers must realise that a legalised MSP is a sure pathway for achieving the Prime Minister’s vision of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.

Unlike the iconic and protracted farmers’ protest earlier that lasted for over a year in 2020-21, forcing the government to withdraw the three contentious farm laws, the farmers’ struggle that is currently underway lacks unity. With two farmer unions spearheading the struggle, a large chunk of the collective that led the protests two years back have shied up. However, with the average farmers getting restive, the leadership that has still not openly joined the protest, is finding ways to lend support. Besides, the events on March 8, the International Women’s Day, when a huge contingent of farm women protested at various places in Punjab, is an indication that as and how the protests linger on, there will be more support coming in. 

ALSO READ: ‘Punjab Farmers Are Fighting for Millions of Others’

The protests this year have been stopped at the border areas in Haryana from moving towards New Delhi. The fortification of the national highway, and the courts now directing farmers not to use tractors in the protest, is at variance with what is happening in Europe where farmers in at least 14 countries have protested in the last few weeks in January/February, 2024. Even now, farmers are protesting in at least 12 countries, using tractors; they have also been blocking roads and throwing manure and mud on the highways, and in front of office buildings.

Farmers have laid a siege of Berlin and Paris, and demonstrated outside the European Commission in Brussels. European governments are allowing farmers the right to protest and have openly expressed the willingness to meet them and listen to their grievances.

Indeed, it is too early to say whether the farmers protest this year will impact the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. There is a fear that in the absence of any amicable solution being arrived at soon, more and more farmers’ groups will join the protests. Also, with farm unions making it clear, that even if the code of conduct becomes applicable in the next couple of weeks, they are likely to stay put; this only shows that farmers are there at the Haryana borders for a long haul.

The narrator is an award-winning writer and researcher, whose opinions on the farmers’ struggle and issues of Indian agriculture have been widely shared in print, audio-visual and social media for over three decades

As told to Amit Sengupta

For more details visit us: https://lokmarg.com/

Punjab Farmers Fighting For Others Rights As Well

‘Punjab Farmers Are Fighting for the Rights of Millions of Others’

By LokMarg

Joe John, a farmer from Kottayam, Kerala, who practices sustainable agricultural methods, finds it distressing when the state treats protesting farmers as enemy of the state. His views:

About the current farmers protest in Punjab, there’s a mixed feeling of both sadness and joy. The sad part is that the farmers have to be return to the streets after an year-long protest couple of years back which led to the proposed farm laws being repealed. The good part is that it serves as an inspiration for all others to struggle and get what is their due, their fundamental right, from the government. They would not allow themselves to be trampled by the raw power which the State is putting out against the struggle, as if they are enemies of the nation!

Thus I totally empathise with all my brothers and sisters from Punjab who are out on the streets fighting for the rights of millions of farmers across the country.

The fact is food prices have been kept low for decades and farmers have cross-subsidised other sections. One should look at the prices of agricultural produce historically and the salaries of government employees, to name just one section, to get an idea of the kind of disparity which exists. It’s not a correct picture when governments keep on harping about the amount of subsidies which is being given to the farmers and forget about the rise in input costs, be it wages, manure or other aspects of agriculture.

Not just industrialists, even people employed in the organised sector are able to get their demands fulfilled by the government because they are more organised and have more resources to ensure that these are fulfilled.

John says income of farmers has not risen in proportion to other stratas of society

One of the reasons for the neglect of the agricultural sector could be that there is a lack of a formal body which represents not only the interests of the farmers, but also of all others who have a direct stake in the well-being of this sector which provides employment to such a large section of the working population. Hopefully, these struggles, in the last couple of years, will be a turning point.

ALSO READ: Understanding the MSP Issue, India and WTO

By not giving legal guarantees for MSP, which is one of the key demands of the current struggle, the BJP-led government in Delhi is trying to wash away its responsibility. One can agree that the current MSP mechanism is only benefitting a very small section of our farmers, as it covers a very low proportion of our agricultural produce, both in terms of quantity as well as the variety of crops. In most states the farmers are totally dependent on private traders for selling their produce and it’s mostly distress-selling which happens. This is because not only farmers do not have space for storing their produce, but, also, they do not have clarity about the movement of prices. Indeed, APMCs need to be set up all over the country with proper infrastructure which are closer to the location of farmers.

Climate change is going to be the biggest threat in the coming years and there is a need for widespread adoption of agro-ecological practices. However, one cannot expect the farmers to do this on their own without any support from the government. A country like India which has such a large proportion of population dependant on agricultural and allied sectors, cannot afford to be complacent on this issue. This is because it is going to affect the livelihoods of millions of people on the ground across the country, and threaten our short-term and long-term food security.

(The narrator passed out from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai and has worked in various peaceful social movements across the country, including the Narmada Bachao Andolan)

As told to Amit Sengupta

For more details visit us: https://lokmarg.com/

No Bharat Ratnas For Farmers

No Bharat Ratnas For Farmers!

By Amit Sengupta

At the Shambhu border, one farmer shouts out loud on the microphone: “The wait is over, here it comes. Get it man. Get it.”

Two kites are flying high. One quickly does a rapid gota; in kite-language it means a fast, sharp and swift spiral downwards, which only a rare and expert patangbaaj, trained to fly kites in the gullies and terraces of small towns and village mohallas, would know. The kite dips like a rocket and there is a huge cry of joy: “Got it.”

The drone has been trapped by the kite. Earlier, the drones were dropping tear gas like bombs, a first in Indian history.

This is not a fly-in-the-sky game. This is a virtually a war waged by the Indian State against thousands of peaceful and unarmed farmers protesting for a just Minimum Support Price (MSP), a long-standing demand in a market dominated by capitalist sharks aligned to the ruling regime in Delhi.

Last we heard about drones was in Gaza. Certain journalists, ordinary folks, mothers and kids, they were targeted and murdered by Israeli drones. While India, under this current regime, whose PM has publicly displayed his bonding and bonhomie with Benjamin Netanyahu, is one of the largest importers of arms from Israel, the use of drones against the civilian population is a first in India. Earlier, all US presidents, including Barack Obama, have used drones to target ‘terrorists’ in Afghanistan and the Middle-East, with scores of civilians also murdered as ‘collateral damage’ – a normal war-tactics for the Americans, now done at a mass scale by its close ally, Israel, with American guns and bombs.

Not only drones, as during the great and glorious struggle of the farmers in 2021, through rain, sunshine, freezing cold and a scorching summer, for months, the farmers had braved tear gas, lathi-charges, water cannons, armoured barricades, and huge metallic nails, cement barricades, and multiple blockades during the protracted peaceful struggle against the farm bills. These are the same tactics once again being employed at the Delhi border. Now, they are reportedly using pellets as well, used repeatedly and ruthlessly in Kashmir earlier. Three farmers have lost their vision, according to reports.

The notorious farm bills were widely seen as another brazen ploy by the PM to privatise agriculture and vast tracts of fertile land owned by the farmers into a cash-rich fiefdom for certain crony capitalist buddies, namely from Gujarat. Finally, they lost the battle. The bills were repealed – but the promises were not kept.

Significantly, the farmers are demanding, since long, that the MS Swaminathan Committee report on MSP should be implemented. The ruling regime has continuously back-tracked on this crucial issue which is at the core of the economic well-being of India’s hard working farmers. Why? And why is the PM so afraid to allow the farmers to peacefully protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi – which is their constitutional right?

One lakh crore was lost by the government in year 2021 due to tax concessions and corporate subsidies to industrialists. Ports, mining, forests, airports, etc, apart from huge multi-million projects, are being dished to out to certain favourite industrialists, thousands of crores have been spent on the Ram Mandir, the Sardar Patel statue in Gujarat, a particular stadium named after the PM in Ahmedabad, and the new Parliament building. So, why deny their economic rights to the annadatas, pending for so long?

In a season when it has been raining Bharat Ratnas, agricultural scientist and one of the founders of the botched-up Green Revolution in north India, Swaminathan was given the Bharat Ratna. The move has flopped miserably. His daughter, economist Madhura Swaminathan, has openly come out in support of the farmers proving that not all have sold their soul in ‘totalitarian’ India.

“The farmers of Punjab today are marching to Delhi. I believe, according to newspaper reports, there are jails being prepared for them in Haryana, there are barricades. All kinds of things are being done to prevent them (from entering Delhi). These are farmers; they are not criminals,” she said at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute in an event to mark the Bharat Ratna for her father.

“I request all of you, the leading scientists of India… (we) have to talk to our farmers. We cannot treat them as criminals. They are our annadatas. You have to find some solutions. I request, if you have to honour MS Swaminathan, we have to take the farmers with us with whatever strategy that we are planning for their future,” she said.

ALSO READ: Why Are Indian Farmers Protesting Again?

Narasimha Rao, former Congress PM, unleashed crony capitalism, liberalization, structural adjustment, and the sell-out to West-dominated global financial agencies like the IMF and WTO, with Manmohan Singh as finance minister. He also played blind and deaf while the Babri Masjid was being demolished by the foot-soldiers of LK Advani, while the current PM, then a RSS pracharak, was at Advani’s side. December 6 was then called a ‘black day’ by an outraged nation and the entire media, even by those who have now been running non-stop eulogies on TV and print media on the grand ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony at Ayodhya.

Now, even Rao has got the highest official award in the land which is an open admission of his complicity in the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya, while being a lackey of Western-global predator capitalism in India. Unabashed loyalty to billionaire businessmen, and the polarizing Hindutva card unleashed, mixed with a dose of fake ‘social justice’ for the backwards – this is the triple whammy which the ruling regime thinks would result in total victory in the Lok Sabha polls of 2024.

However, even the most cunningly crafted script can turn sour. The award to Chaudhry Charan Singh seemed to have pushed his grandson to suddenly start glorifying the PM, with the possibility of him joining the NDA alliance. The last farmers’ struggle had unified the Muslims and Jat kisans in western UP once again, after they were communally polarized by poisonous social engineering before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Har Har Mahadev and Allah-o-Akbar became united slogans of the farmers during the movement.

The same farmers are holding a mahapanchayat and might join forces at the Shambhu border. The farmer struggle has decisively spilled into Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh – a bad omen for the PM weeks before the parliamentary polls. Western UP was never a Hindutva stronghold. Hence, the award given to Charan Singh to appease the jat farmers seems to have failed its purpose.

Indeed, there have been indications that despite the hype and hyperbole on the Ram Mandir in the Hindi heartland, it’s not really becoming a win-win trump card among a wider audience. More so, the Supreme Court judgment on electoral bonds, has come as a shock to the PM and his party. All the big money names would be soon displayed on the Election Commission website. The freezing and de-freezing of Congress accounts, yet again unprecedented in the history of Indian democracy, was therefore a desperate move to divert attention. It boomeranged.

Clearly, it is not all hunky dory for Modi and his men in the days to come. There have been huge protests against the EVMs in Delhi, largely unreported in mainstream media. With thousands of civil society groups and people’s movements working on the ground, the vengeful ED raids and hounding of Opposition leaders creating widespread discontent and anger, and the stupendous response to Rahul Gandhi’s yatra, the Hindutva kite which was flying high after its victory in three cow-belt states, seems to be losing steam.

However, it is a fact that the poison of hate has spread deep in the social fabric, especially in many parts of north India, while Uttarakhand has become the latest hate lab. As the polls come closer, a tense undercurrent floats in the in the air. Pulwama is remembered yet again. The tragedy is still simmering. The tears in the eyes of the families have not dried up.

As the old jungle saying goes: when it comes to the insatiable lust for power, anything can happen. Indeed, will India remain a secular and pluralist democracy after the 2024 polls? We keep our fingers crossed.

Why Are Indian Farmers Protesting Again

The Anatomy of an Agitation: Why Are Indian Farmers Protesting Again?

By Sanjoy Narayan

The irony is dark. It has been barely two years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Kisan Drone Scheme in India. In the beginning, the scheme, which assists farmers to deploy drones for spraying fertilisers, nutrients and pesticides more efficiently on their farmlands, was launched in 100 places across the country, and later, expanded to more areas. Last week, however, drones were deployed against farmers for an altogether different purpose. They were used to bombard them with tear gas as thousands of farmers converged upon Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) in what is seen as a reprisal of the protests in 2020 and 2021 against the government’s policies.

Back then, in what became one of the biggest and longest mass movements in India’s history, hundreds of thousands of farmers, mainly from the agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana, had agitated for around a year against three new farm laws of the government. That movement had coincided with one of the worst phases of Covid that had hit India and it was a period of tumult. In the end, the Modi government had to repeal the three laws and accede to the farmers’ demands.

What then is the fresh wave of agitation all about? To understand that we need some recapitulation.

The farm laws and why they were repealed

The three laws that were passed in 2021 and then repealed after the protests were aimed at first, giving farmers more freedom to sell their produce outside the regulated markets or mandis; second, they enabled contract farming when farmers and buyers could pre-agree on pricing and other terms; and third, they relaxed the restrictions on storage and movement of some farm commodities such as cereals, pulses, oilseed, onions, and potatoes.

The laws led to massive agitations and clashes with the government’s security forces and police. Farmer leaders said over 700 people died during the year-long protests but the government did not confirm any deaths. The farmers opposed these laws because they feared that they would lose the protection of the government’s minimum support price (MSP) system, which guarantees a fixed price for certain crops, and that they would be exploited by big corporations. They demanded that the government repeal the laws, withdraw the criminal cases against the protesters, provide compensation to the families of the farmers who died during the protest, and ensure a legal guarantee for MSP. They also had other demands, such as pensions, debt waivers, and stricter regulation of fake seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers.

In December 2021, Prime Minister Modi announced the repeal of the laws after which the farmers temporarily suspended their protests. Why then has the agitation begun afresh and what are the issues this time round?

What do farmers want now?

Last week farmers renewed their protests as hundreds of them, mainly from the two northern states, Punjab and Haryana, marched towards the capital and the NCR. The timing of the protest was significant as it came only a few months before parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held and in which the Modi regime that is completing its second term is keen to win a third.

This time the authorities were more prepared as they barricaded the capital and adjoining areas. Delhi and the urban sprawl that makes up the NCR has an urban population of around 30 million people and the farmers’ march can drastically disrupt the functioning of the area. This time local and central police had ramped up their efforts to stop that from happening by barricading highways, pouring concrete and stacking shipping containers to halt the advancing tractors and masses of protesters.

ALSO READ: Understanding The Mandi System in India

At the core of the provocation for the renewed protests is the farmers’ demand for a guaranteed implementation of the minimum support price (MSP) for all crops so that they get what they consider fair prices and protect them from exploitation by private companies. The repealed farm bills were aimed at increasing market access and competition, but farmers had feared they would weaken existing structures and leave them vulnerable to corporate control.

About 58% of Indians depend on farming for their livelihood and as much as 68.8% of them live in the rural areas. Considering India’s estimated population of 1.4 billion, those translate into huge numbers. Many farmers are burdened by debt and demand loan waivers to alleviate their financial hardships. They also think that rising costs of fertilisers, pesticides and other inputs put further pressure on their livelihoods.

Among their list of demands is also a call for repealing the electricity amendment bill, which was enacted in 2022, to change electricity distribution rules. Farmers fear that it will increase their costs and further increase their dependence on private companies. 

Government’s view on farmers’ demands

To begin with, although the three farm laws have been repealed, the Indian government still maintains that they were beneficial for farmers and were needed to modernise the farm sector. The contribution of agriculture in GDP of India is 18.3% as per the second advance estimates of national income for 2022-23. This share has been declining over the years as the economy diversifies and grows.

However, the growth rate of agriculture in India is low. In 2022-23, it was 3.3%, which is lower than the previous two years, which recorded 4.1% and 3.5%, respectively. The growth rate varies depending on the monsoon, crop prices, and other factors.

India’s farm productivity, measured by the gross value added (GVA) per worker, which was Rs. 1,00,000 in 2022-23, is much lower than the global average of Rs. 3,60,000. India’s farm productivity is constrained by factors such as small and fragmented land holdings, lack of irrigation, low use of technology, and poor market linkages. According to the government, many of these problems were sought to be tackled by the laws that the Indian government had proposed in 2021.

After the previous round of protests and the repealing of the farm laws, the government has offered what it considers alternative solutions such as MSP for select crops and increased procurement efforts. It has also held multiple rounds of talks with farmers but has not been able to agree on some of the demands such as MSP for all crops. One of the main constraints is the lack of resources to be able to do that.

The problem is compounded by the fact that with a few exceptions, agricultural income is generally exempt from income tax in India. Under the existing laws, even rich farmers with large holdings can be exempt from tax, and this often creates a loophole for tax evasion and inequality.

Is there a solution to the farmers vs. government impasse?

While farm union leaders are demanding guarantees, backed by law, of greater state support or a minimum purchase price for all crops, the government is unable to acquiesce. The central government announces support prices for more than 20 crops every year. However, agriculture falls under the jurisdiction of individual states and their buying agencies can usually buy only rice and wheat at the support level, which benefits only an estimated 7% of farmers.

The procurement of rice and wheat, the two staple foodgrains, is aimed at building a food bank to supply to a massive food welfare system in India that entitles more than half of India’s population (or 800 million people) to subsidised (essentially, free) rice and wheat through the public distribution system. In 2024-25, this food subsidy bill is estimated at Rs 2.05 lakh crore ($24.7 billion). The government has extended its flagship free food welfare scheme, which was announced during the Covid-19 pandemic, for the next five years.

Given the magnitude of the food subsidy bill, the government will find it difficult to extend the MSP to all crops as the farmers are demanding. That is why it is not able to guarantee by law the state support for procurement as demanded by the farmers. The government had, while repealing the three farm laws in 2021, said that it would form a panel of farmers and government representatives to find viable solutions to the issue. Farmers are now accusing the government of going slow on that assurance.

What to expect in the future?

The renewed protests are smaller than the massive agitations that marked the 2020-21 movement but the farmers remain persistent. The government has said it is willing to engage in dialogue but is hesitant in meeting the core demands of legally guaranteed MSP and loan waivers.

The government stresses that alternative solutions and a focus on long-term reforms are the only way to resolve the impasse but farmers are not convinced. The outcome would depend on the government’s willingness to address core demands and farmers’ ability to sustain the movement.

There is, obviously, also a political aspect to it, which is heightened by the coming elections. Further escalation of protests or a deadlock could impact agricultural production and political stability, both highly undesirable outcomes for the ruling regime that is keenly looking to be re-elected for a third term in May.