India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial farm lawson November 19, 2021 at 5:34 am

Indian PM Narendra Modi has announced the repeal of three controversial farm laws after a year of protests.

Thousands of farmers had camped at Delhi’s borders since last November and dozens died from heat, cold and Covid.

Farmers say the laws will allow the entry of private players in farming and that will hurt their income.

Friday’s surprise announcement marks a major U-turn as the government had not taken any initiative to talk to farmers in recent months.

And Mr Modi’s ministers have been steadfastly insisting that the laws were good for farmers and there was no question of taking them back.

Farm unions are seeing this as a huge victory. But experts say the upcoming state elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh – both have a huge base of farmers – may have forced the decision.

The announcement on Friday morning came on a day Sikhs – the dominant community in Punjab – are celebrating the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

In his nationally-televised address, Mr Modi said the farm laws were meant to strengthen the small farmers. “But despite several attempts to explain the benefits to the farmers, we have failed. On the occasion of Guru Purab, the government has decided to repeal the three farm laws,” he added.

Rakesh Tikait, one of the most prominent farmer leaders, said they would stop their protest movement only after the government repealed the laws in the winter session of parliament.

Another farmer leader said they needed additional promises from the government around assured prices for their crops to end their protest.

Opposition parties have welcomed the decision. Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi said the repeal of the laws was a win against injustice.

BJP members say the decision to repeal the laws had nothing to do with the polls and the decision was taken to end the protest. The party has not said if it has any plans to bring back the laws in another form later.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella group of some 40 farmers’ unions, had refused to back down despite appeals from the government to end their protest.

Farmers continued to block motorways to Delhi through harsh winter and summer months and even through deadly Covid waves. They called for strikes across the country and dozens of them even died due to cold, heat and Covid.

The government initially engaged with them and offered to put the laws in abeyance for two years. But after farmers rejected their overtures, the authorities retreated, preferring to go with the wait-and-watch attitude.

But two things changed in the last few months.

First, the son a federal minister allegedly drove his car into a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh in early October. He denied the allegation, but was arrested. Eight people, including four farmers and a journalist, were killed in the incident which sparked outrage across the country and put the government on the back foot.

Second, PM Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is up against strong regional parties in the upcoming elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the government knows that angry farmers would hurt the BJP’s chances of winning the crucial polls.

Taken together, they loosened rules around sale, pricing and storage of farm produce – rules that have protected India’s farmers from the free market for decades.

One of the biggest changes was that farmers were allowed to sell their produce at a market price directly to private players – agricultural businesses, supermarket chains and online grocers. Most Indian farmers currently sell the majority of their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis at assured floor prices (also known as minimum support price or MSP).

They also allowed private buyers to hoard essential commodities for future sales, which only government-authorised agents could do earlier; and they outlined rules for contract farming, where farmers tailor their production to suit a specific buyer’s demand.

The reforms, at least on paper, gave farmers the option of selling outside of this so-called “mandi system”. But the protesters said the laws would weaken the farmers and allow private players to control their fate. They said the MSP was keeping many farmers going and without it, many of them will struggle to survive.

They said India’s stringent laws around the sale and use of agricultural land and high subsidies had protected farmers from market forces for decades and there was no need to change that.

But the government argued that it was time to make farming profitable for even small farmers and the new laws were going to achieve that.