Indians all over the world are concerned with the confrontational situation in India as a result of the Farm Laws enacted by the Modi government. Some well-wishers of India have sent their comments which we are publishing, without editing, below.  – EDITOR

From the very young age, we have been reading in tax books in school that in rural areas Agriculture is the main profession of almost 80% of the people in rural area. It is overwhelmingly believed that much of the rural economy is based upon the agriculture. If the production of the farmers is bumper than everybody is happy, and all the businesses are flourishing based upon agriculture and people have the feeling good living.

Everybody remembers those days when India is not self-sufficient in food and beg food grain from USA. Punjab farmers were the first who put their hard work and resources to bring the revolution in food production. With the joint efforts of Punjab’s farmers, it brings prosperity in rural areas particularly and the whole of India, in general.

In the present time in spite of the bumper crops produced by the farmers their economic conditions are going worse to worse, due to high cost of the input that is needed to produce crops. The situation is so bad that farmers are killing themselves because they cannot meet their needs with the measure of profit they got by selling their produce. Suffering of the farmers now come to a point at which it become a matter of death or life for them.

In a democratic government it is the prime duty of the government to take care of the primary needs of the people. Governments are answerable to the people. But a new trend comes almost all over the world that they are becoming more considerate to the corporate sector than people who elect them. Honesty and service to the people have been the hall mark of all the political parties and individual leaders to win the election. Now a days,everybody knows that the more money you have the more are your chances to win the election. Political parties have sold their sovereignty to the corporate sector who provide them with money in their election.

Openness is a good idea to bring money into the economy but it has to be governed by rules and regulation that take care of the people of the country. Every new law should be after long discussion of the concerned parties. It should be debated in Parliament and Raj Sabha by all the member of the house irrespective to the party affiliation and consensus should be brought by persuasion, experts help and the concerned peoples to whom it applies. In the period of Corona Pandemic Government passed these laws in hurry and I would say with ill attention and to appease the corporate sector. Corporate sector’s only motiveis to maximize profit. I am of the firm view that Government has cheated farmers and have sole purpose to appease the corporate sector. Government is running away from responsibilities and they want everything to be sold out so that the people do not ask them question what is going on.

This government is so inhuman that they do not have any feeling regarding suffering of the farmers living on the roads in winter and now in scorching heat of the summer. They did not say or show any sympathy for the so many farmers who died in this agitation. Majority of membersof   parliament does not give them absolute authority as the old King to do whatever they want. They are dividing the people on the basis of religion, language and region. India is onecountry, and it is my country. I am interested in the wellbeing of all the people. I wish India to be the most prosperous country of the world. I hope and pray for the people of India. This government forget all the other problem faced by the people of India except religion. Religion is my belief; it is my personal liking. Government is no body to suggest me what religion I should believe in.   This hate among people will never make us strong as a nation. It will bring anarchy which is not in any way good for all of us. We need more school, universities, research institution, hospitals, housing, employment, justice and above all communal harmony. Use this parliament to improve living standard of the people, make the laws that make life of the people easy and prosperous. Develop infrastructure so that benefits reach to the ordinary people. Let us do something to improve upon environment, bringing technology to the service of the people and more employment so that they can have good quality of life.

In the end I appeal to every player in this situation or associated with this issue even the government to scrape these laws and make new efforts to bring every stake holder to the table and try to make consensus and then make new laws acceptable to all concerned. One thing is very clear, and everybody should understand that farmers need help, they need MSP so that they can make profit, by selling their produce, so that they can live a happy prosperous life in peace.

In Nov. 2020 when the protest started senior BJP & Sangh Parivar leaders, their supporters on social media, and pro-Modi media, began blaming the Sikhs, another religious minority of India. They accuse Sikhs of having a Khalistani agenda, a reference to a 1980’s & 90’s Sikh separatist movement in Punjab. When they found general public is not supporting their claims because the protest is spreading across India cutting religious lines; they started calling the Farmers protest of non-farmers than infiltrated by unwanted elements, extremists. Maoist, anti-national and finally jihadis & terrorists. They have also protested, posing as local villagers at different Farmers’ protest sites around Delhi border to violently uproot peaceful protestors. Most of these protestors belonged to Hindu Sena, Hindu Army, Hindu Force and Sudarshan Vahini, ABVP, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha – local Hindutva organizations from Delhi. Some of these protestors were spotted in JMI & JNU university attacks in 2019-2020, Shaheen Bagh attack against peaceful protest against CAA and North-East Delhi large scale anti-Muslim riots both in 2020. They were successful in all of them but failed against Farmers’ protest because of their pan India & International support.

Modi’s farm laws will make majority of the Indian farmers bonded labor of rich corporations. The Indian farmer is refusing to be marginalized any more. Their protest has become an historic & largest ever protest in the world that is being supported by non-farmers in India as well as across the world. It has gained wide international support from Farmer Unions, Labor Unions, Human Rights organizations, Celebrities & Politicians. This protest is joined by millions of farmers across caste, creed, religion and region to fight for their rights and their livelihood. Rather it has become a mass movement to restore Democratic Republic character of the nation that is being eroded under Modi government.

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The Indian farmers’ protest is an ongoing protest against three farm acts which were passed by the Parliament of India in September 2020 via a voice vote thus ignoring the requests of the opposition for a full vote. The President of India gave his assent by signing the bills on 28 September, thus converting them into acts. The legality of the acts has been questioned since both agriculture and markets come under State list

Farmer unions and their representatives have demanded that the laws be repealed and have stated that they will not accept a compromise. Farmer leaders have welcomed the Supreme Court of India stay order on the implementation of the farm laws but rejected the committee appointed by the Supreme Court. Farmer leaders have also rejected a government proposal, dated 21 January 2021 of suspending the laws for 18 months. Eleven rounds of talks have taken place between the central government and farmers all were inconclusive

The Farmers acts, often called the Farm Bills, have been described as “anti-farmer laws” by many farmer unions, and politicians from the opposition also say it would leave farmers at the “mercy of corporates” The farmers have also demanded the creation of a Minimum Support Price (MSP) bill, to ensure that corporates cannot control the prices. The government, however, maintains that the laws will make it effortless for farmers to sell their produce directly to big buyers, and stated that the protests are based on misinformation.

The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 are the main issue behind farmers’ protest. The farmers are demanding the scrapping of these laws which were passed in the Monsoon Session of Parliament. The government’s offer to amend these laws have been rejected by over 40 farmer union leaders who have been talking to the government on behalf of thousands of farmers sitting on five different borders with a set of five major demands since November 26, 2020.

Two-thirds of the land holdings in the country are less than one-hectare Other related issues include farmer suicides and the state of the economy in India. India reported a total 296,438 Indian farmers suicides between 1995 and 2015. In 2019, 10,281 people who work in the farming sector committed suicide. The slower growth of Punjab’s economy, particularly its agricultural sector, is believed to have helped fuel the protest.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during an interview in 2004, said, “We need a second green revolution, making use of modern advances […] For that we need to revitalize India’s research agricultural system, India’s extension system, India’s credit system. The more we commercialize our agriculture, the more our farmers need access to commercial inputs and that was a modernization of our agriculture credit system. […] There are other rigidities because of the whole marketing regimes set up in the 1930s which prevent our farmers from selling their produce where they get the highest rate of return. It is our intention to remove all those handicaps which come in the way of India realizing its vast potential as one large common market.” On 8 February 2021, in the Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister Modi referenced this interview of Manmohan Singh and said – “Manmohan Singh talked about it but Modi is having to do it now. Be proud”. Prime Minister Modi has referred to the second agricultural revolution in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Recently I had a privilege to talk to the Consulate General of India, New York, Mr. Randhir Jaiswal, during the discussions on famers issue he gave his candid view and I quote “MSP will stay. The Mandis will not be closed. As far as the contract farming is concerned, there are clear provisions to protect the interests of the farmers. Farmers’ land will not be taken away by anyone for any reason. Buyers cannot make any changes to farmers’land. Land rights of the farmers will be fully protected.  The agreement will be for the produce and not for the land. The farmers will have price guarantee for their produce, so they do not have to bother about market risks. Buyers cannot cheat farmers; contractors cannot end agreement without full payment. However, the farmers can walk away from contracts whenever they want. All the rights of the farmers whether it is market risk, price risk or their land ownership, everything is protected.  MSP system will continue. In fact, after the farm laws were passed, MSP procurement has not only continued, but it has also increased.  Government stands ready to discuss the laws with the farmers clause by clause, while keeping them in abeyance for 12 to 18 months. Government is ready for talks. Dialogue is the way forward”.

Many developing economies reformed their agriculture policies in the 1980s and 1990s to encourage private section participation. Swati Dhingra of the London School of Economics cites the case of Kenya in which their agriculture reforms increased the ease of doing business, however this very increase caused other problems for the farmers. In February 2021, 87 farmers’ unions in the United States wrote a solidarity letter, giving the example of Reagan era farm policies— “Reagan era furthered the farm crisis through deliberate federal policy changes, with systematic erosion of parity prices and other deregulatory efforts.”

As I was putting my pen down, I got a news flash and I quote “the Punjab government on Thursday, April8, agreed to implement the direct bank transfer of MSP to farmers, bypassing the arhtiyas, from the current season saying it was left with “no choice” but to implement the scheme as Centre said it will not lift the grains if the new system was not followed. The move is bound to create ripples among the farmers, the arhtiyas and the political class in the agrarian state, where the commission agents have traditionally been carrying out the procurement for the government agencies. Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh had earlier written to Centre, urging it to let Punjab carry on with the old system of procurement and payment through arhtiyas. In a meeting with the commission agents, he had refused to implement the new system that seeks to bypass the arhtiyas.” – Indian Express.

(This write – up has clips and references from Internet News)

Farmers in America, Europe & India

Let us do an eye-opening comparativestudy of farmers in America, Europe and India.

America (USA)

In 2019, the federal government delivered an extraordinary financial aid package to American Farmers.Farm subsidies jumped to highest level in 14 years, mostly paid without any action by congress.

Farmers got $19 Billion in 2019 and $9 Billion in 2020.

In 2020, American farmers made more profit than ever, and still got aid.

Aid is given so that Farmers keep working hard and bring food for each American and supply to other countries

Europe

Last year all Europe paid $1.12 Billion to Farmers. Spain and France gave additional aid to their Farmers

 

India

Farmers were given new rules and regulations by ruling party and Prime minister

The new rules remove many of their safeguards. More than 86% of India’s cultivated farmlands controlled by small holders less than 5 Acres

“The Indian Government has left farmers on MERCY of big corporations” Instead providing aid as rest of world is doing to their Farmers

FARMERS CAN NOT BRING THEIR DISPUTES TO COURT

With new rules, it appears that small farmers will become laborers on Farms and big corporations will take over Farming

Just to remind you that in 1965 when India was suffering food shortages and west was not ready to sell food grains to India, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri ji created the slogan “JaiJawan, Jai Kissan”

Farmers of old Punjab, now many states, produced so much food that India was exporting food.

Farmers were given tax breaks, subsidized fertilizers and sufficient water supply. Now farmer pays for everything

Indian Government should not only repeal new laws but give aid to Indian Farmers,as all other counties are doing.

NEVER FORGET

Jai Jawan! Jai Kissan!!