Summary of the Indian Farmers protest

Currently, India is witnessing one of the world's largest planned strikes in human history.
Around 250 million people are involved in these protests, and many more are standing in
solidarity with the Indian farmers around the world.
Indian diaspora worldwide is also supporting this cause, and an online campaign using
#istandwithfarmers is gaining momentum. This controversy sparked protests in the UK,
including London, Leicester, and Birmingham.
For the past six weeks, hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have gathered in the Punjab
and Haryana regions, blocking the main roads leading to the Indian capital Delhi. Men, women,
and children are enduring tear gas, water cannons, severe cold, and rain, but they are not ready
to go homes without the government's action.
They are demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revoke the new agricultural reforms
approved in September 2020. Several rounds of negotiations have been failed between farmers
and government ministers.
The plight of Indian farmers
More than half of the Indian workers are dependent on the agricultural sector for their
livelihood. This dependency on agriculture has increased after the collapse of the urban
economy due to Covid-19; millions of laid-off factory workers have gone back to their villages
and joined the agriculture sector as a last resort.
According to the 2018 Report of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development), Indian agricultural household income was only one-third of a non-agricultural
household. During the election campaign of 2016, Mr. Modi promised to double the farmer's
income by 2022. However, data shows that agricultural income declined between 2014 and
2019.
There are many reasons for India's ongoing agricultural crisis, like; low productivity due to
fragmented land grabbing, lack of storage and transportation infrastructure, high debt, and
extreme weather conditions in recent years. Extreme poverty and the government's unfulfilled
promises of Minimum Support Price (MSP) have pushed the farmers to the brink of suicide. In
the past two years, 20,000 farmers have committed suicide due to economic hardships.

The new laws and farmer's concerns

Indian farmers have been demanding more assistance from governments for decades. Instead
of protecting these farmers, the government has passed three new laws that will strip them off
existing protection.
The farmers’ stance is that these reforms will eventually dismantle the system of MSP and the
government wholesale market locally named “mandi”, leaving them at the mercy of big
corporates. The three new farming laws, which have caused this unrest, are explained below.

According to the first law, free, unregulated trade spaces will be created outside the “mandis”.
Farmers fear that they will be exploited in the absence of benchmark prices set by the
“mandis”.

The second law allows business agreements between farmers and private investors without
much government intervention. In this scenario, small farmers will suffer in any dispute with big
corporations and have no choice except agreeing their terms and conditions.

The third law permits unlimited storage, which was previously prohibited. Using this law, big
players can stock up and dictate market prices.

Government's stance

The government's stance is that new laws will boost productivity and are beneficial for farmers
and traders. In the new system, private companies and buyers can enter the market without
red tape, and farmers can benefit from a large number of customers.

India has liberated its economy in recent decades and experiencing good growth. Mr. Modi has
ambitious plans for the Indian economy and wants to double the economy by 2024. The
government says that the current agricultural system is not sustainable and efficient; to boost
agricultural growth, they need to free the market.

Many economists also advocate that there are many benefits of liberating the agriculture
market. Private investment can revitalize India's run down agriculture sector, and the farmers
can sell their crops directly to different businesses, supermarket chains, or online retailers and
can get higher prices. In the current system, they sell to the “mandis” at low prices, and most of
the profit is taken by the middleman who has the license to buy from these “mandis”.

On the other hand, farmers fear that big companies will control the prices in the long run by
using new laws. They already have little opportunity to make a living and struggle to survive
even with the existing protections. The new laws were made without considering all
stakeholders.
The government says that the “mandi” system will continue along with the other private
markets, and MSP will continue. However, farmers are not convinced that these reforms will
bring any benefits for them.

A decade ago, in the Bihar state, the Indian government ended the “mandi” system and let the
private investors enter the market. Now a handful of retailers control the market prices there.
These unregulated markets brought no good - today, Bihar's farmers have the lowest income
among all Indian states.

The government should have gained the confidence of all stakeholders before changing these
laws. There are many problems in the current system like corruption and red tape etc., which
need to be fixed but replacing one failed model with another is not the solution.