Why Are The Indian Farmers Protesting?

In June 2020 the Indian government passed an ordinance for the Farm Bills by silencing every opposition in the parliament. The laws allow corporations to directly profit from agriculture. Towards the end of November 2020, the farmers of Punjab and Haryana gave a call to march to Delhi and about 300,000 farmers have been camping at Delhi borders since then.

The protesting farmers are braving the cold weather and the government repression at every step. Until now 159 deaths including seven suicides have happened during the protest.

A farmers’ tractor march was organized on Republic Day of India (Jan 26) in Delhi. In other states farmers, students and workers marched to show solidarity to the protest. There was a clash with police and the Red Fort in Delhi was occupied by a small fraction of the protestors, with possible infiltration from RSS, a fascist group linked to the ruling BJP.

The state sponsored media have been quick to defame all the protestors, brand them as seditious and undermine the actual cause of the protest. Since then there has been more violent repression on the protesting farmers, arrests of independent media personnel.

The laws which the protestors are fighting ae clearly anti-farmer.

The first law allows the corporations to trade with the farmers directly eliminating the small-scale traders from the scene.  One essential part of this law dictates that no state government in India will have the power to bring changes to these regulations, essentially removing the farmer’s hope of gaining support in the progressive states. The farmers have raised the demand to get a minimum support price for the crops to be written into law.

The second law allows a company to contract a deal with a local farmer in India. The farmers anticipate frauds and fear that they may get severe debts and penalties. The farmers are in no position to strike a profitable deal with companies with billions in assets.

The third law is a modification to the “essential commodity act” which now removes the food grains from the list of essential items. It also allows for unlimited food grains to be stored. While the effect of this on consumer side is obvious including a possible shattering of the public distribution system (PDS), the law, along with recent lowering of trade import barriers on food items, threatens every indigenous farmer’s livelihood.