Indian farmers who camped out in the outskirts of the capital to protest set off in their tractors on the 12th to Delhi for continued demonstrations and protests.
India’s Supreme Court today issued a judicial order to put on hold the three agricultural laws that triggered the farmers’ protest in the capital until a new order is issued, and decided to set up a four-member expert committee to resolve the impasse between the central government and the farmers.
A panel led by Supreme Court Chief Justice SA Bobde said that the implementation of the three laws on agriculture will be put on hold until further orders are issued. To get a clear picture of the situation, a committee of experts is being formed to provide the panel with a focus on the effectiveness of the law and the protection of the lives and property of citizens affected by the agitation.
The committee of experts will serve the full court and all those who wish to address the issue will participate in the committee, which will not issue orders or penalties, but only report to the full court, Baudet noted.
The four members of the expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court are HSMann, president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, Anil Ghanwat, president of Swabhimani Shetkari Saghtana, a farmers’ organization in Maharashtra. Anil Ghanwat, South Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Pramad Kumar Joshi and agricultural economist Ashok Gulati.
However, the Indian Express reports that the leaders of the farmers’ organizations protesting in New Delhi have refused to participate in the expert committee set up by the Supreme Court, stressing that the demonstrations will stop only if the Agrarian Act is repealed, and accusing the members of the expert committee of supporting the Agrarian Act.
The AllIndia Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, which is opposed to the Agrarian Sangharsh Act, issued a statement saying that it was clear that even the Supreme Court had been misled by various forces in organizing the expert committee, whose members were known for their support of the Agrarian Sangharsh Act and were active advocates of it.
The Agricultural Commodity Promotion and Facilitation Act, 2020, the Price Guarantee and Agricultural Services Contract Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities Amendment Act, 2020, passed by the Indian central government in Parliament last September, are known as the Three Agricultural Acts.
The purpose of the three agricultural laws is to remove the restriction that farmers could only trade agricultural products with the agricultural market committees designated by the provincial and municipal governments.
The three agricultural laws also simplify the contracts between farmers and markets by removing grains, pulses, edible oils, onions, etc. from the list of essential commodities, so that the production, storage, transportation and sale of these agricultural products are no longer subject to strict government regulation, thus liberalizing and allowing businesses to participate and establish better marketing, storage and transportation facilities for agricultural products.
However, the opponents, led by farmers’ groups in Punjab and Haryana, the major agricultural provinces in India, believe that the three agricultural laws will deprive farmers of the guaranteed purchase price of agricultural products provided by the government; and that small farmers will be reduced to serfs who depend on corporate pricing after the intervention of large corporations, so they launched demonstrations and gathered on November 26 last year to occupy the main road and camp at the border of New Delhi to protest and demand the repeal of the three agricultural laws.
The central government of India and farmers held eight rounds of coordination meetings during this period, but the two sides have reached an impasse so far because the farmers insisted on the abolition of the three agricultural laws, while the central government asked the farmers to put forward demands other than the abolition of the three agricultural laws.
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