Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

 

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

"Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan"

This is a very popular slogan

You must have heard it multiple times

but how much do we value our farmers and our soldiers?

You can guess this by the fact that very few of you would already be aware of what I'm going to talk about today.

I'm sure that most of you would have no idea about the topic I'm going to talk about today

But it isn't your fault- our media deliberately hides such issues under the carpet.

Recently, the government of India  established  three ordinances related to agriculture

which has infuriated the farmers of the nation

Especially the farmers of Punjab and Haryana are out on the streets to protest against these ordinances

Why are they protesting?

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

What changes are suggested by these ordinances and why does it concern all of us/the common man?

Come, let us find out about all of his in today's  blog and my assignment topic of English 

The Bhartiya Kisan Union and other farmer organizations sought permission

from the Haryana government for a protest rally

On the 10th of September, the BJP-led state government denied them the permission

 BJP-led state government

because of the coronavirus pandemic and that a protest during this time would not be right

But the farmers did not pay heed to the government and a rally was organized in which more than 100 farmers

rode their tractors to the site of protest and hence some called it the "tractor protest"

because farmers were protesting with tractors

"tractor protest"

and were raising slogans of "Save the farmers, save the mandis"

The situations turned violent in some places and it is alleged that the farmers were lathi-charged by the police

But why are there demands to save the mandi in the slogans of "Save the farmers, save the man"?

Let us first understand that?

We will have to go back in history of India for a bit- When the India  got independence,

India  got independence

the whole distribution system of the agricultural sector was dominated by the moneylenders and traders in the villages

The farmers had no means to sell their produce directly in the markets

They were dependent on moneylenders and traders that in turn exploited the farmers

So, the farmers were perpetually in debt

and had to face a lot of problems- which was not a great system

The government of India came up with a way to solve this problem

APMC

APMC

Agriculture Produce Market Committee

The government set up special areas in the State and declared them as market areas

These market areas would be subject to the jurisdiction of the market committees

No farmer or trader would be able to sell or buy produce freely in a market area

If a trader has to procure products from the farmers in a market area,

then they would require a license to do so

By this licensing system, the government-controlled these traders to some extent

The government also claimed that the farmers would be granted Minimum Support Price in these markets.

that is, a minimum price at which the farmers would be able to sell their produce

to safeguard them from exploitation.

But over the years, some flaws of the APMC surfaced

The market committee had extraordinary powers to grant the license to the traders

A "License raj" developed in one sense

The second flaw was that the licensed commission agents that procured produce from the farmers

started forming cartels and formulating deals with one another

to collectively not buy produce from the farmers at a specified rate

and so the farmers would be left with no option.

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

Now, let us talk about the ordinances brought in by the Modi government

They have claimed that these ordinances would create "one nation, one market"

and give farmers the freedom of choice- they can sell their produce wherever they wish to

But I am focussing on the points that are making the farmers angry

These ordinances state that the areas outside these APMCs

will have no taxes on sale or purchase

The farmers allege that if the government make the sale and purchase outside the mandis more attractive,

due to the absence of taxes,

Then this would pose a huge disadvantage for the farmers

because everything in the APMC mandis is regulated

Transactions are taken into account

They're also a Minimum Support Price

but no MSP exists outside these mandis

There is no Minimum Support Price for the farmers

There is no one to regulate anything and to ensure that the farmers are treated fairly and are not exploited.

The protesting farmers believe that these ordinances would "corporatize " the agricultural sector of India

where big companies would be able to establish their monopolies over the agricultural sector of India

and it would become easier to exploit the farmers

A good, recent example of this would be when Pepsi sued some farmers in court in Gujarat

Most of the farmers in the country do not have the requisite knowledge to understand lengthy contracts

made by the multinational companies

and fight legal battles with them

Most experts also say that the government is fooling people by claiming that these ordinances would impart freedom of choice

because this freedom already exists with the farmers

They can sell their produce wherever they wish to.

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

Neoliberalism is an ideology that believes in free markets

This ideology is most seen in the USA

and free markets refer to a situation where the government does not interfere

and lets businesses operate the way they want to - which sounds good superficially, but

if the market is left free for the businesses to earn profit as they wish to

then overall, this will not be good for society and the world

because if businesses and big companies operate without the regulation of the government,

then they will always think about their profits

and if they are only focused upon the profits, who is going to look after the environment?

It is going to get destroyed- which is happening all across the world today.

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

Those who oppose neo-liberalism say that the government should make regulations in some sectors

Strong regulations like Minimum Support Price for farmers

there should be an upper limit on the price of medicines

to prevent companies from selling such items to consumers at the prices that they wish to sell for.

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

There should be some sectors that should not be profit-driven, rather they should be welfare driven.

-True independence for farmers would be assured MSP both within and outside mandis

MSP should be made legal. Another thing is that

Like  we deliberately kept agriculture impoverished to build it up

There is an RBI(Reserve Bank of India) report between 2011-12 and 2017-18

that 0.4% of the GDP was being invested in agriculture

In a sector where 50% of the population or 60 crore people are involved, only 0.4% of the GDP is being invested

There is no doubt that there are shortcomings in the APMC

But if we improve the APMC by building it up and removing its shortcomings

and lay a network of 42,000 mandis in India,

and if we can provide farmers with an assured income, that's the only way forward

Thirdly, if we want to bring people out of villages into the cities,

there was a statement of the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India

the biggest reform would be when we take the farmers out of agriculture into the cities

because there is a need for cheap labor in the cities

If this our thought process and this is our economic design

the reason for the crisis that we see in both India and worldwide is right in front of us

The reverse migration that has happened should have taught us a lesson

basically, they were agricultural refugees

They were agricultural refugees but we were not able to understand that because the visual was not in front of us

Now we have seen the people going back and the conditions that they have gone back in

Now, probably there is a visual in front of the people

the population that I talked about when I spoke of agricultural refugees

So should we still adhere to the model of taking people out of the villages into the cities

Why should we not reverse this economic design?

Farmers Protesting? | Ordinances Explained by Sohail khan

The protesting farmers have 4 main demands

firstly, a rollback of all three ordinances,

secondly, the mandi system {i.e. state government-regulated APMC mandis} to remain in place,

thirdly, their loans are cleared,

a law should be made for MSP to be at least 50 percent more than the weighted average cost of production.

I hope you would have found this article to be informative

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