Agricultural Bills Provoke Uproar Among Indian Farmers
By Liam Brucker-Casey
International News Editor
In the last week India has seen its farmers rise up in massive protests against new Government legislation that will change the restrictions on how agricultural produce is bought and sold. Until the passage of these laws, farmers’ could sell their produce exclusively through an Agricultural Produce Market Committee. An APMC ensures a consistent pricing of goods but could be subject to the influence of farmers and local officials, and any networks or professional relationships between them. APMCs kept farmers insulated from a broader market, and thus private buyers were unable to leverage competitive pricing in efforts to undercut public buyers. These new bills allow farmers to sell their goods outside of an APMC. Many Indian farmers fear that this will create a situation in which private interests will purposefully undercut government buyers’ prices, and after the government buyers are gone, the private interests will be free lower their prices, causing farmers to sell their produce for less. Another criticism of the bills is that they will make it more difficult for states to tax agricultural transactions, depriving states of a critical source of revenue. Others fear that this is only the beginning of changes to India’s agricultural sector, with some forecasting the end of subsidies and other benefits that millions of Indians enjoy.
The primary backer of these bills is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, championing the legislation as a harbinger of much needed reform. The bills’ supporters point to the provision for a framework for farmers to negotiate contracts with buyers before the produce is harvested. More broadly, many see India’s vast agricultural sector to be in desperate need of reform. Supporters of the legislation view the status quo as benefitting a fairly small group of middlemen who have arbitrarily come to decide the terms of produce transactions. Additionally the overwhelming majority of Indian farmers run agricultural operations of less than 5 hectares, and these landsizes can become fractured with every new generations’ inheritance.
Perhaps the content of the bills themselves were not wholly incendiary, but the way in which they were passed likely guaranteed a popular uproar. Already facing fervent dissent from opposition MPs who loudly protested the bill before it was passed, shouting in the legislature and even tearing up papers, the deputy chairman of the house proceeded with a voice vote, an already contentious maneuver, made even more controversial by the confusion and pandemonium. With the voice vote deemed to support the bills they were passed and in the next days potentially millions of farmers took to protesting the bills, most fervently in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana. Farmers expressed their disapproval symbolically and practically; burning effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and blocking highways and train tracks. While many agree that some measure of agricultural reform is needed, it seems the BJP has bungled the presentation of its solution, and set the stage for further contention.
Contact Liam at liam.bruckercasey@student.shu.edu