What is this all about?
The whole world knows about the farmer’s protests in India that have continued since November 2020 after the government in the country passed some laws in September to bring in a radical changes to how the crops are grown, collected and sold in the Indian Wholesale Market, which have turned out to be controversial in their impact and how they were passed through the parliament. There is a lot of passion about the subject and lots of people have good intentions to side with the right ‘team’. But lots of these are also based on conjecture and influence and their preconceived ideas on what goes on in India, sometimes without an understanding of the culture, the history of how the problems have come about and why we are at the juncture that we are at.
Do we need this?
Nobody will disagree that India needs a huge reform of the farming industry considering this is one of the biggest employment areas for that nation. India is primarily an agriculture-based economy in terms of numbers with nearly 60% of its population engaged in some way or the other in the agriculture processes, whether it’s producing, transporting or other related industries producing goods and equipment for the farmers and above all, this industry only generates about 16% of the nation’s GDP. A huge amount of land mass within the country is applied to this key industry and with very little infrastructure investment and extreme lack of many essential services and processes to make good and efficient use of this land. This highlights the very broad picture of the need for change.
Why are we here? The past…
The issues we face today have their roots in the British Raj days. When the English left, the nation continued with the same crumbling infrastructure for decades and it lacked any further investment for at least the first couple of decades of New Free India. Freedom struggle had brought India into this position of relative peace and harmony after the devastating partition that happened and resulted in creation of another new nation out of the old India leading to a painful separation with extremely painful memories for millions. There were some Land Reform laws and the Green Revolution happened followed by some liberalisation in the 1980s, but all have been marred with huge bureaucratic mazes and corrupt officials managing those systems. There was hardly any progress made in the manufacturing and other scientific industries to produce and manufacture its own goods for its vast population. Businesses just trudged along without any guidance or decent processes in place and most progress was a result of the entrepreneurship of the Indian business pioneers who set up the initial industries in the new India. There was hardly any investment in the infrastructure to make the transportation of goods easier and despite having a vast coastline and land availability with fertile land in most parts of the country, there were wasted resources in almost every industry caused by the antiquated bureaucratic systems with little access to anything luxurious for the common man. For those who wanted to climb the social ladder, the easiest path was to become an elected leader because that could bring in fortunes for you and your family because of the connections and apparent power it provides to your family. So, any independent voice who wanted to fight that corrupt system was shut down while crime flourished. There was always lots of violence around election times in India and it has suffered because of such corrupt systems. This historic misfortune that India has been besieged with has kind of never left the country to this day. And that is one of the problems, which the new governments of this day must deal with and need to somehow eliminate and eradicate from the nation’s core. This, indeed, is a huge task and does not do you any favours while you are trying to make those changes. There are sections of population who want to impose their rules and status over others just because they have an economic upper hand over those around them, and most of these have built up land and other property portfolios mainly because of the past connections with the industries and politics. This leaves a huge amount of population behind with very little that they own or possess and hence, leaving them economically far behind. Also, the cultural element plays a big part because the poor are almost left to fend for themselves. There is hardly any state support available to those who cannot afford to look after themselves. And that has played a huge part in keeping the perpetual poverty cycle in place and never helping the poor come out as the opportunities are extremely limited for them. Government systems and support structures are non-existent. Any person, group or NGO that speaks on their behalf have been traditionally demonised and been forced to shut down.
Who are the farmers?
Next, we try to paint a picture of the setup around the farming issues. The farmers all over India are more of farm labourers rather than farm owners, with lots of them having left their hometowns to work in the more affluent states in the country due to lack of opportunities in many other parts of India including lack of land suited for farming. The percentage of farm labourers has increased from 28% in 1952 to around 46% in 2001. Probably there is only 20 to 30% of the farming community who own any profitable parcels of land as the size of cultivable land has also dropped over the decades with many small farmers owning almost loss producing land as it is not enough to harvest decent volumes of any crop. The farm labour population is all part of an irregular and unregulated farming/labour industries. And majority of the farmers who actually toil on the land are paid pittance as a salary or even irregular payments in return for spending their entire lives working on the farms. And it is probably not just the farmer, but their whole family is engaged in that activity to look after the farm, which is owned by someone else, who reaps all the benefits and profits from the toil of these poor labourers. And when it comes to selling their harvested crop, a lot of the farmers who own small pieces of land have no access to the services that the government systems offer, i.e. the mandis (wholesale markets where crops are purchased by the state food department directly from the farmers). And most also lack the ability to get their crop to these mandis, and the process of packaging and transporting the harvested crop and filling in all the paperwork required. That is the big hassle for most illiterate farmers who have no access to these facilities due to lack of investments in the past decades and a crumbling bureaucratic system. This is where the middlemen come in. These are the people or a class of business owners who offer the services to these illiterate and poor farmers at exorbitant prices to fill in for the things that a good infrastructure would have offered. So, they charge the farmers for all the bits to get their harvested crop to the marketplace and sell it at the government approved prices which is the MSP (minimum sale price). The MSP is meant to be the lowest price that the farmer gets for many of the major crops which the state buys from them. So, it is meant to be a decent enough price so that they can continue with their efforts to produce crops for the next year and feed their families and buy all the equipment and the seeds and the fertiliser that they need to continue with the farming business. But these middlemen are the ones who are actually benefiting from the MSP. Because even if the crop sale price according to the government figures was, let us say, for example, is set at 800 rupees a quintal (100 kilos), the farmer probably gets less than 50% of that price. And the middleman who is going to fill in all the forms takes the majority share of this income out of the farmer’s hard work and his harvested crop for offering those services like transportation and packaging and filling in the paperwork at extortionate rates. I suspect that half the farmers probably do not even know what the government fixed MSP is. And they are happy to just get a set amount of money for their crop, which will be probably just enough to feed their families and keep them going for another few months till the next harvest comes along. And that has been the system for the last 40 to 50 years. And no government in any state has shown any interest to make the lives of these farm labourers and small-time farmers better because it serves their interests by keeping these middlemen in business, who also almost, control this big populace. When votes are needed around election times, the middlemen are also the herdsmen to bring this vast farming/labourer population in to stamp the ‘right’ ballots to keep the corrupt politicians in power with little checks in the system. So, it’s the middlemen who not only control the business, but they are also the kingmakers during elections. No politician has been willing to upset this status quo for several decades to keep this symbiotic relationship thriving. To this day in 2021, the same thing goes on that happened in the 1950s and 60s, only with more greed and violence now.
What did the opposition do in the parliament?
The current Congress Party is as ineffective and inept in opposition as it was in power. During the previous 70 years of government, India mainly suffered because of the very little investments in infrastructure projects as they were handed out to opaque structures with no accountability which often led to poor quality of buildings, bridges, roads, all over India and part completed projects with billions wasted from public funds alongside the death and violence against those who raised their voice creating an environment of total anarchy and fear. And that has been an endemic problem in India, which doesn’t want to go away. These powerful opposition groups also have the ability to mobilise huge populations in the guise of being a more liberal and secular force. Obviously, the ordinary citizens are used as pawns in such political games and made to feel empowered by slogans and hollow sound bites. Based on the past 70 years of this country’s history and the current state of affairs, it suggests there is no good passing the power back to the Congress Party at this point in time as there are no signs in its current structure and policies that there is any possibility of change from the Congress Party which once was the majority party in most of the nation. So, India is left with this sad dilemma of supporting a government which wants to bring in economic change and progress through infrastructure projects, which is also tainted with dictatorial and sometimes, tyrannical tendencies. The northeast of the country has been totally neglected for the past 70 years with hardly any new major projects initiated in these years to connect that part of the country and make that population feel connected to the rest of India. And no wonder China eyes that neglected region as something that they can influence. And they have made some inroads by building projects close to the Indian border. And the past governments have been totally oblivious to his, because they’ve never paid any attention to the needs of the people in those states. The North Eastern and extreme North Western states which has been pretty much neglected and appear to most Indian public as a foreign lands with people who live in strange and exotic tribal groups and in mountainous regions which are inaccessible too. So, a combination of all this neglect has made those people feel like outsiders. The narrative from the old Congress governments has always been to label the opposing voices from these parts as Maoists and Naxals, i.e., people who rely on violence and gun power to control their indigenous populations and are opposed to the central government. It has been nice to see that the Modi government has been going to places like Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Nagaland (do they sound like foreign countries?), to lay foundations of good infrastructure projects including airports, railway lines, ferries, and many modes of transportation, which, have not been initiated in these parts for last six decades. The opposition, obviously, feels that they are being exposed of the neglect of all these parts of the country and parts of the economy and infrastructure. So, it is hard for them to swallow that their control will be lost forever if Modi government continues and succeeds.
Is someone caring now, 73 years after independence?
It was with high expectations for the nation when the Modi government came into power in 2014 after having done an apparent great job to make his state of Gujarat one of the more affluent states in India by providing good infrastructure and a half decent governance in the state and which also made the common man on the street feel safer because there is more efficient law and order, 24 hour electricity and water even in the small villages in Gujarat, which I have seen with my own eyes. And I know there are many parts of Delhi, the capital of the nation, which lacked those simple basic facilities (until the current AAP administration came in – and things have improved since). Decent roads and running water and all-day availability of electricity are missing in many parts of even big metropolitan cities e.g., Bangalore, Hyderabad & Delhi, let alone smaller towns throughout India. There are parts of central India where vast swathes of land have been left non-arable because of uncontrolled mining and similar illegal activities by the big industry, where ordinary local people live a lifestyle that you would associate with much ancient times and where the villages lack the very basic facilities and sanitation and people live in an extremely tribal lifestyle unimaginable to the city dwellers, but it is alive and well in parts of India. So, when the Modi government came to form the central government role in 2014, it had a huge task if they really wanted to deliver on their promises to bring progress, both economic and social to the country. The problem they would face is not just how you manage a project of this magnitude in population numbers and the geographical size of the nation. It is also the fact that you are going to be treading on established people’s businesses who are happy with the status quo, and the mafia gangs and the Indian style conglomerates, which have been, generally, run by corrupt and self-serving individuals and groups who have no interest in changing the status quo. So, Modi’s government not only had to fight and manage a logistical challenge, but they also have to fight these interest groups. And that probably is the harder part to make India economically sustainable and make that progress for the common man. In the days up to the Modi government was voted into power, the population of that nation was fed up with the rule of the national government, mainly run by the Congress Party, which had been pretty much in power since independence in 1947 with short gaps of opposition rule. In most parts of the country, corruption was rife and rule of law missing. If you were not in any way affiliated to some form of a congress governance system, whether you were at a state level or a small village Panchayat (local village governance) you had little chance of being elected and getting any share of the spoils enjoyed by the elite classes and business owners. Any independent voices were crushed. People were, literally, dying because of their political opinions and affiliations. Somehow that kind of violent Politics survived all the way till early 2000s. So the intentions of the Modi and Amit Shah duo were very good and laudable. But obviously they had huge challenges on the way.
Is something else needed to be done first?
And in 2020-2021 came the turn of the farm laws to try and change that inefficient element of the economy, which produces obviously a significant GDP for the with potential to produce more. This section of the economy also brings in foreign currency that comes through the export of much of this agricultural produce. Despite this, it is a very inefficient system given the size of country’s labour market and land available for this industry. What has been missing is the investment in technology and basic infrastructure to provide irrigation systems and water to all, seeds, equipment (a bit better than using the animals to plough the land & yes, it still happens in India) to the farming community. What the Modi government needed to do was improve those basic root structures by helping people with basic education on the available systems and get the farmers to understand their rights, and improve the infrastructure and equip them with tools and systems to sell the crop into the current markets and be able to get a fair price without having to rely on another layer of (mostly corrupt) middleman. Instead, the government has tried to achieve a western style agriculture system where large-scale productions systems are in place and has an efficient system that works like clockwork from production to consumption with the involvement of big corporates, forgetting that the current Indian systems are decades behind that stage of efficient functioning and needs to be brought up to speed first.
Why is this so toxic?
It is quite obvious that the Modi government, to counter the difficulties they expected to face to bring in these changes, adopted a policy of assuming extreme control. The Modi government, while trying to bring positive changes for the country, have also built up an image of suppression and the subjugation of any political opponents to the extent that the institutions like the Supreme Court and the legal systems and the law-and-order agencies all appear to be under their control and allowing them a free rein to implement their policies and suppress the voices of decent academics, activists, those already suffering and also those with more liberal views. Another simmering problem that the Modi image suffers from is a communal hatred for a particular part of the community which forms about 15% of the population and their track record in managing the harmony between Hindus and Muslims has been abominable. For this reason alone, the image of the Law and Order agencies in many of the northern states of India where the BJP is in control has been extremely poor. So, all their attempts to elevate the economic policies and the festering religious and communal hatred are, unfortunately, intertwined causing the Modi government’s worldwide image huge setbacks ensuring that all intended economic reforms cannot be delivered in a smooth pattern. To add to this toxic mix is their choice of commercial partners to deliver their policies. The multi-billion corporations of Adani and Ambani (Old friends from Gujarat) have been favoured to run most of the recently privatised national bodies, rather than encouraging a new class of entrepreneurs to take on the challenges and opportunities for the national growth. And the opposition has been taking full advantage of this negative image to push their agendas of trying to maintain the old status quo of the corrupt businessmen controlling the country, or the small group of corporate families related to the politicians being able to dictate the system, just as in the old days. There has been no transparency in the governance of the old Congress Party, which has brought the nation into this quandary of having to choose between the old-style corruption with a heavy dose of political violence and regular communal riots or the new style cronyism, although offering some light at the end of the tunnel but mixed with more dictatorial control over all government bodies. If only the current government could do without its policy to silence all opposition including decent humans who just want to voice their opinions, there may be a golden way forward for the nation. Why is it so hard to forge that positive working relationship with your opponent’s when the intentions are to move the nation forward? It is India’s misfortune that it has been stuck with very short-sighted politicians since the late 60’s and to this day.
The big criticisms of the Modi government are along the lines that they have allowed their, blatantly obvious, fear and dislike for the Muslim population (although nobody would admit to it, as it is disguised as an attempt to build a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ narrative) to almost cloud their judgement in trying to rebuild a vast nation and this has created an environment where even liberal academics and artists are willing to join in to oppose the policies of this government. This has led to many protests in almost all parts of the country and has created a big anti-Modi feeling in the nation which has also been felt in many western nations with Indian diaspora as these heat waves reach those parts of the world. Such images and news are not conducive to the interests of the big corporates and foreign investors coming to India. Many of Modi supporters and friends are from industries like the Reliance Industries and the Ambani and Adani clans, who also happen to be the biggest industrialists in India who have supported lots of Modi’s projects. I would like to hope that there is an element of some good intentions to bring about the changes that India has needed for decades. But along the way, the corruption and Greed has come in and because these families from Gujarat have swept up all the big infrastructure, like owning airports and majority of the shipping businesses and lots of mining and manufacturing industries. This very much smacks of cronyism as the privatisations of old public bodies has not been opened up to the new class of entrepreneurs and more forward thinking new businesses who may have created more revolutionary and socially aware productive opportunities out of some recent privatisations.
That has been the cause of problems for Modi because his policies, although are aimed at bringing better infrastructure, but all the projects and profits are going to a select few families. Partly because they have the ability to manage these projects. And partly because they are the few people, I guess, Modi trusts to deliver. I think the downfall of Modi has been the rise in communalism, aggressive suppression of any opposing voices and subjugation of the poorer castes like the Dalits and tribal people in the central parts of India, where the big industries have also suppressed their voices and needs, in their mining operations for several decades, with many of these being owned by the corporates mentioned elsewhere in this document.
Coming back to the farming laws, what Modi’s government needs to do is get rid of the corrupt and criminal activities of the middlemen and business owners and bring in proper land ownership laws with an efficient Central register of land ownership especially in the farming industry and allow the people full rightful control of their own land. And once the irrigation systems and literacy and knowledge of transportation and crop commerce are in place, only then can any laws be brought in, which equate to or are anywhere like ‘the three black laws’, as they are now referred to are re-introduced and create an environment to allow some good healthy competition in the industry. The Adanis and Ambanis, unfortunately do not have a good image of employee relations and environmental care that you would expect of big corporates who are making an eyewatering amount of profit from owning all the industries that have been ‘handed’ over to them. Some of the historical background into the Adani family businesses can be read here at https://adanifiles.com.au/#exploitation and watch a video here https://youtu.be/BKzxSKADoOM. These families could literally be a nation of two families if they wanted to, and still be a bigger economy than a vast number of African & Asian countries put together (in economic terms), but their track record of social responsibility, employee care and environmental policies do not instil a lot of faith in them running a farming industry where exploitation and poor living standards are already rife. How will corporate interests of ensuring higher profit margins allow these conditions of the farmers and workers to get better?
So who is protesting?
Beware, these are the views of a common layperson whose observations are based on what has been seen through a lifetime and watching what is happening now.
The vast sea of protestors against the new Farming Laws, now gathered on various borders of Delhi, are a mix of people associated with the farming community, some, unfortunately, with conflicting interests from each other, but nonetheless all affected. These protestors are representatives from all sections of farming –
- labourers and farmers who have been brought in to show solidarity for a cause, which they probably don’t even fully understand. I suspect this section started off an organic protest on the realisation of the potential impact of these laws on their livelihoods and has now caught the attention of other groups
- Some are there who have been herded in while they have no understanding of their own rights resulting from a poor understanding of the basic social structures around them
- Some are larger landholding owners who see their control on profits from their own harvest slipping away into the control of large corporates, whom they will not be able to fight in law courts, if things do not go to plan.
- There are proxies for opposition parties among the protests suddenly appearing to voice their support for the plight of the farming community, although it has been missing for the previous 70 years and also during the recent passing of the bills in the Delhi parliament.
- No guarantees of any state support in these laws is a big worry for small and medium sized farmers, who would rather keep the status quo of poor business practices as they are now compared to a potential of an uncertain future under the control of untrusted big conglomerates
- No doubt, there will also be proxies for the ‘middlemen’ among the protestors who appear here as ‘protectors’ of the lower end of the farmers and being present there to represent their plight and ensure that it does not get any worse under the new laws.
Irrespective of who is in the protest group, it is clear that Indian central government and local state agencies need to do a lot of work to improve the systems and build trust among communities before imposing the will of large corporates on this fragile industry.
Conclusion
The government needs to take steps to remove the barriers to accessing the market for the poorest farmers, have a decent and swift complaints process to resolve farming produce related disputes, improve the transportation, irrigation and availability of equipment and seeds. These steps would make the smaller farmers more confident in their ability to compete in a market in the future. It is only then that the nation needs to embark on western style farming processes with a (almost) level playing field, although it is acknowledged that the capitalist system is only as efficient as the honesty and social responsibility felt by those running it.