India’s capital, New Delhi, is being besieged by farmers from all over the country.
Tractors loaded with food, fuel, and medical supplies run through police barriers and are drenched by high-pressure water cannons – a scene that has been playing out in the streets of New Delhi for nearly a month now, with people dying in clashes.
Beginning in October, in opposition to the Modi government’s new farm bill enacted in late September, hundreds of millions of farmers drove to the main highway leading to the capital, New Delhi, and vowed to camp there until the new bill is repealed. Under pressure, the Modi government has negotiated twice with farmers’ representatives, but without much success.
According to the latest reports, the Indian government has admitted that the new agricultural policy has shortcomings and will be amended.
At 8:30 p.m. local time on December 3, farmers’ representative Baldev Singh Sirsa told The Times of India, “We listed all the shortcomings before the government and they had to admit that there are shortcomings and then they will make amendments. “
But the farmers aren’t agreeing, and they want to keep negotiating with the government. Baldev said, “We don’t want to amend, we want to withdraw the law.”
Farmers camped out in the streets
Since last month, Singh, who has a small piece of land in northern India, has been sitting on the back of a farm trailer covered in mud and piled high with rice, lentils, fresh garlic and other spices, along with two dozen men from villages in Punjab, along with other tractors, blocking a main road to the Indian capital.
“Our land was handed down to us by our mothers, it was passed down to us by our parents, our parents got it from their parents and now Modi wants to acquire it and give it to his rich friends.” Singh, a farmer, told the New York Times.
Many tractors came from northern India, traveling hundreds of miles, breaking through barriers placed by the police, and enduring tear gas and water cannons. Every day, countless tractors, passing through the border between New Delhi and the neighboring state of Haryana, blockade New Delhi into a walled city.
Farmers descending from tractors, holding the flags of the farmers’ union, swarmed into New Delhi on a large scale. There were sporadic anti-Modi speeches, and food was distributed by the growing crowd and volunteers.
At lunchtime, a group of old men with long white beards and calloused hands would prepare lunch by scooping onions into a huge iron pot the size of a bathtub.
After the meal, the group packs up their pots and pans and continues on their way to New Delhi. On the way they would encounter the police, along with clashes.
“The police would throw stones at people, barricades were broken down, buses were damaged, and there were violent clashes between police and protesters.” Ravi Choudhary, a photojournalist, told the fact-checking website Boomlive.
Ravi took a photo that has gone viral across social media over the past week.
In the photo, a police officer brandishes a baton at a Sikh farmer with a long white beard. Many people, including the photographer, labeled the image “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” (i.e., “Long live the soldier, long live the farmer”), which was taken by former Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. (Bahadur Shastri) during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 to emphasize the importance of soldiers and farmers in nation-building.
This photo has been used by Modi’s opposition to make an issue out of it.
Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party, tweeted the picture.
“This is a very sad photo. Our slogan is ‘Long live the soldier, long live the farmer’, but today PM Modi’s arrogance has pitted the soldier against the farmer. This is very dangerous.” He wrote.
But the New Delhi Police Department told local media, “The protesting farmers were allowed to enter the national capital and were also allowed to protest.”
According to the Indian Press Trust on Nov. 26, there were total shutdowns in Kerala, Pondicherry, Odisha, Assam and Telengana, with more than 250 million workers participating in a nationwide strike, according to the Central Union of India.
On November 30, Modi made comments on the banks of the Ganges River in an attempt to reassure farmers that the new law would benefit them. Modi said, “These reforms have not only unshackled our farmers, but have also given them new rights and opportunities.”
But the farmers don’t see the government’s sincerity. Protests have continued this week, with more than 200,000 farmers expected to pour in from near the capital, New Delhi. Local media reports say that drone cameras have been deployed for security surveillance along the border between New Delhi and Haryana.
The farmers have set up mass camps at several locations near the capital and have said they will stay if the government does not agree to repeal the “black law.”
Under pressure, the Indian government has agreed to negotiate with the farmers’ representatives, with the first talks on December 1 being unproductive; on December 3, the government only agreed to the existing shortcomings of the reform program. They expect a third negotiation to take place on December 5.
“We are prepared for a long battle,” said Singh, a farmer from northern India, “It’s cold at night and we have to snuggle each other in our tractors, but our hearts are colder, the wheat farms are shut down and we are losing money every day.”
What kind of new bill?
What kind of a bill is it that has triggered so much opposition from Indian farmers?
On September 20, the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) of the Indian Parliament passed the controversial Agricultural Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Regulations (2020), the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Regulations (2020), and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Price Guarantee and Agricultural Services Agreement Regulations (2020), three important amendments to agricultural laws.
Taken together, these reforms focus on rules for marketing, pricing and storage of agricultural products. For decades, these rules have protected Indian farmers from free market forces.
Santu, who has lived in India for many years, has had a long observation of the country. Traditionally, the supply chain for Indian agricultural products has been overseen by the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), which sets up a wholesale market where government-licensed licensed middlemen procure produce from farmers, ensures better prices and minimum purchase prices, and regulates the transaction process. For the most basic agricultural products such as grains, beans, oilseeds, onions, potatoes, etc. (similar to China’s “national grain reserve”), the government will provide a minimum purchase price.
However, the new bill allows private buyers to stockpile the necessary commodities for future sales, whereas previously only government-authorized agents could do so, and sets rules for contract farming, in which farmers tailor their production to the needs of specific buyers.
The biggest change is that farmers will sell directly to the market, at market prices, to individual institutions, such as agribusinesses, supermarket chains, and online sellers.
The danger of this is that farmers lose their minimum purchase price and optimal price protection, and the end result may be a monopoly by large corporations.
“This is a death warrant for small and marginal farmers. They intend to hand over agriculture and markets to the big corporations, which will eventually destroy us. They want to take away our land.” Sudhir Venkatesh, a farmer, told All Now.
Anshuman, who is close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strategizing, gives an example, “Because of the WTO, there are certain agricultural products that farmers are not allowed to grow and the import of these products would be monopolized by some companies. Like PepsiCo, they want to make potato chips, and they tell India which farmers can grow potatoes, how much, and where.” Anshuman told All Now, “Another example is sugarcane, which is grown by farmers but needs to be processed as quickly as possible to get the maximum amount of sugar from the cane. But some government leaders own processing plants, and farmers have to wait for their cane to be processed. Every day they wait, the sugar in the cane decreases and their income decreases.”
The government’s policy is largely due to the fact that middlemen charge arbitrary commissions and delay payments, so even with a “regulated” market, most farmers choose to bypass the APMC.
The MSP (minimum purchase price) demanded by farmers also has many drawbacks, as farmers are more likely to grow crops protected by the MSP in order to ensure their income, resulting in a large pile of spoiled grain.
The problem is not that simple.
Although the government has stated that it will not lower MSP (minimum purchase prices), farmers are concerned that these prices will disappear. Farmers believe that without them, they will be at the mercy of large corporations that will buy basic crops at extremely low prices, putting them in debt and financial trouble.
Santu told All Now that many farmers in India have taken out loans to grow their crops, and if prices are not guaranteed, the pressure to take out loans will only increase.
A 2018 study by India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) found that more than half of India’s farmers are heavily indebted. From 2018 to 2019, more than 20,000 farmers died by suicide, and while the causes are debated, some studies suggest that debt is a major factor.
Agriculture is pivotal to India’s economy, with nearly 60% of the country’s 1.3 billion people depending on it for their livelihood. However, the contribution of agriculture to GDP is small, accounting for only about 15% of India’s GDP.
The government hopes that reforms to open up agricultural products to a free-flowing market will attract private companies to this sector and facilitate the transition from agriculture to manufacturing, which will benefit farmers.
“It’s a necessary hard choice,” Sadanand Dhume, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an expert on South Asia, told VOX, “It should have been done 20 years ago to facilitate the transition from agriculture to manufacturing, as China has done. “
The main reason why it hasn’t been done, according to Doom, is that there are just too many farmers in India. According to Foreign Policy magazine, half of India’s 1.35 billion people are engaged in agricultural activities.
So far, the re-employment of India’s farmers has not been completed. 2020, manufacturing accounts for only about 17 percent of India’s GDP.
If the economy created jobs, farmers wouldn’t have so much anxiety,” says Dum. India’s ability to create jobs has been weak, so the thought of losing security makes farmers anxious.”
Farmers’ fears are also partly due to the urgency of the moment, which is compounded by the epidemic’s impact on the economy.Between July and September, India’s economy shrank by 7.5 percent compared to the same period in 2019. A June survey by the All India Manufacturers Organization found that more than one-third of small and medium-sized businesses are going bankrupt despite receiving government assistance.
Opposing voices argue that the new bill is unlikely to be a panacea for farmers’ problems. While the government’s goal is to allow market forces to play a greater role in agriculture, corporatization of agriculture, in contrast to raising farm incomes, tends to depress farm incomes and ultimately affects states’ tax revenues.
Indian agricultural policy expert Devendra Sharma, a strong opponent of reform, argues that subjecting farmers to the tyranny of the market is tantamount to subjecting sheep to wolves, and that evidence from the states suggests that even when wholesale markets are abolished, farmers do not benefit.
In an interview with The Hindu, Arindam Banerjee, an associate professor at the University of Delhi’s Burson-Marsteller School of Education, pointed out that farmers’ incomes will not increase simply because of the opening of markets, but are currently affected by the high cost of farming and sluggish market demand, which require government intervention.
According to Anschulman, “The reforms are very strong and change so much so fast. The combination of what works now and what is good in the new law, plus letting the market balance it out, is what is needed.”
Farmers couldn’t accept the changes for a while, and they brought enough food with them to supposedly last at least six months. Farmers’ representatives had previously spoken out and were determined to stay until the Modi government repealed the new farm bill and enshrined the minimum purchase price in law.
Farmer Singh said, “If a child doesn’t cry, how will his mother know that he is hungry?”
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