History and the Modern World is full of ‘Conspiracy theories’ which apparently are turning to not just be theories but a reality which is shocking the World and making it wakeup.
Greed is the nature of man and more so of the Supremacists out of which was born a new form of morality and humanity which some dubbed as ‘Philanthrocapitalism’ to those who may not be aware of the term it is bluntly cashing in on unfortunate events and circumstances while making a show of magnanimity.
Before we go further into the discussion it is important to understand the fact that politics today is not limited to respective it is now an international affair with the whole world now having become a single community which in itself is beautiful and an achievement for the human race.
However beautiful as it may be it is unfortunate how it has turned all world democracies to capitalism. One must be really ignorant or absolutely lacking intellect to not see or understand the above fact.
In general when we talk capitalism it is mostly corporations, sometimes individuals that run affairs and control the politics of their nations and sometimes others too in which case the governments become puppets or brokers for these corporations and billionaires.
As far as the Indian Farmers are concerned it is known that it is one of the biggest industries of the nation and has been so far a long time seeing how lucrative it is international corporations have been trying to affect and control it.
It is easy for everyone to want a piece of such a great industry creating genetically structured seeds and patenting them even trying to automate and mechanise the industry. Fortunately thanks to some Indian activists they were not able to succeed.
As fortunate as that wall is, it is now unfortunate that the corporations of our motherland that have grown are now aiming for the same goals as their international counterparts. Hence the new ‘Act’ which gives these corporations total control over the farming industry ignoring the fact that Indian Farmers are refusing, for it being detrimental to the life and growth of the farmer.
The president of India Mr. Ram Nath Kovid on 27.09.2020 gave his consent to the three farm reform bills –
The Farmers’ Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill 2020,
The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020, and
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020.
As per our head of the nation “A watershed moment in the history of Indian Agriculture!” but the farmers for whose betterment these Acts have been passed are on the streets protesting against these Acts. Farmers organizations like Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) have been protesting the bills from September 2020 itself. They have raised the slogan of ‘KISAN BACHAO MANDI BACHAO’ in this article we will know about the reason for the farmers’ negative reaction.
I think all of India that has studied upto high school knows about zamindari system and its abolition. 90% of Bollywood movies from the sixties to the nineties were full of stories about Zamindars and the Zamindari system and how it deterred the growth of the farmer, the farming industry and in turn the Nation. So we have three decades of cinema apart from 100’s of documentaries and programs defining the evil of the zamindari system which in modern parlance could be understood as a form of contractual farming, which is why the average intellect fails to understand why we want to go back to the same contractual system that we abolished in the form of the zamindari system. Any layman would understand that no assurance can be given about the result of a particular season of farming because the result of it depends on nature. How can we justify taking under contract a process that has an uncertain result. No wonder the Indian farmer is out on the streets protesting and fighting against these bills.
To end the zamindari system, the government introduced APMC (Agriculture Produce Market Committee) Act. It was introduced in the 1960’s at the very same time when the green revolution started in India many experts believe that in the major green revolution APMC Act played a major role. APMCs set up Mandis or Markets across India where farmer’s produce was sold. There are around 7000 APMCs in India at present. Now, the process of selling the produce is that after harvesting crops are brought to the Mandis or Markets where they sell the produce through auctioning or price discovery. To whom the farmers sell the crops? Not to the government but the middlemen or Arhatiyas. Middlemen are people between the farmer and the retailer or big traders. Government gives license to these Middlemen; shops, storage facilities etc. are provided to them in APMC markets. Many people work in these APMCs, there is storage of grains, so it requires labourers, accountants so overall it is a self-thriving ecosystem. One thing which should be noted here is these APMC markets are regulated by state governments, a tax is charged on each transaction so in a way the government knows that, at what price the produce is being sold.
Now what about the produce that is not bought by the middlemen in these markets? This is being bought by the government at MSP (Minimum Support Price). MSP is constant throughout the country. MSP also ensured that produce bought by the middlemen were not below a certain price. When everything is so good are farmers happy? According to the National Crime Bureau report 2018, 1,34,560 suicides were reported in India out of which 10,350 were farmers remember this was the total number of reported cases. This system was good seeing the 1960’s but with time we need to evolve similarly, not much was done to APMCs and some problems popped up. Middlemen started exploiting farmers; they formed cartels or an understanding among themselves and started buying the produce at MSP only and sold to traders at a high rate. For example, MSP for onion is Rs.8.5 per kg (data as of February 06, 2019) but we buy onions at Rs 35 – 80 per kg depending on state. In a way we can say Minimum Support Price became Maximum Selling Price. Voices arose from time to time to remove these defects and in response the government brought the three Acts in 2020. Farmers were exploited not because of those
These Acts envisage to bring change in some of the key aspects of the farm economy — trade in agricultural commodities, price assurance, farm services including contracts, and stock limits for essential commodities. These Acts sought to bring much needed reforms in the agricultural marketing system such as removing restrictions of private stock holding of agricultural produce or creating trading areas free of middlemen and take the market to the farmer.
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020 or The Market Place Law
We have already discussed the process currently in place well according to the new market place law, farmers can sell their produce anywhere not just in the APMC approved mandis or market places but literally anywhere i.e., they can sell inside the state, outside the state, or if they wish they can also sell it online. Which means according to the union government this law has been brought in to give freedom of choice to farmers they will have a variety of marketplaces. The government says this is actually going to do good to them because they can choose from several options.
The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020 or The Contract Farming Law
Farmers can enter into ‘written agreements’ with anyone, including a company, and sell them their produce for a set period of time, as per the contract. In other words, companies can now have contracts with farmers for buying with farmers for buying their produce. They can set the price for the produce, the standards and qualities and other legalities can be mentioned beforehand. The Union government says this will protect and empower farmers to sell to anyone a wholesaler, a retail giant or an exporter. They will have written contracts which will protect the farmer in case the buyer tries to cheat them. And they can also sell future produce today, according to the government.
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020 or Essential Commodities Amendment
The Essential Commodities Act was first brought in decades back in 1955. The Act basically controls the production, supply and the distribution of certain commodities that are known to be essential. So if an item comes under this Act for instance a food item or an important drug then companies and supermarkets cannot hoard these items when there is a shortage, they also cannot artificially increase the prices etc. the list of essential commodities as per the original act includes: Drugs (medicines); Fertilizers (inorganic, organic, mixed); Foodstuff (including edible oilseeds and oils); hank yarn made wholly from cotton; Petroleum and petroleum products; Raw jute and jute textiles; Seeds (food crops, fruits and vegetables, cattle fodder and jute seeds). The new amendment has removed food stuff such as Potato, Cereals, Pulses, edible oilseeds and oils, from the list of essential commodities which means unless there is a dire circumstances like a war or famine or an extraordinary price rise these commodities will not be considered under the essential commodities list.
Further, the government cannot impose a stock limit i.e. it cannot stop a supermarket chain or a retailer from hoarding unless there is a 100% (percent) increase in price of perishable goods or 50% (percent) increase in price of non-perishable goods. All items removed from essential commodities act are: Rice, Wheat, Potatoes, Onions, and Oil.
CONTROVERSIES
The Act which is going to be implemented in the whole country has not been discussed with states which will be affected by the Act Farmers are demanding for legal backing to the MSP is Legitimate that’s why we are witnessing a country wide protest, Although there is no provision of removing of APMCs then why are farmers fearing and raising slogans of MANDI BACHAO? APMCs are under state government and are maintained by taxes collected in APMC market’s transaction. Government says in private markets, which can be set up now, no taxes will be charged in the transactions of private market so this would save taxes, all companies and traders will buy farm produce from private markets which will slowly result in the end of APMC because the state government will have no funds to maintain APMC.
Our farmers cannot bargain with corporate houses. In the private sector there will be no control and exploitation by middlemen may multiply. (86% farmers of our country are marginalized farmers i.e. they have less than 2 acres of land.) With the end of APMCs, MSP will also practically end. That’s the most important reason why farmers are on the streets against these bills.
We are talking about ‘One nation One market’, ‘freedom of choice of market’ any farmer can sell his farm produce anywhere, looks good on seeing but the ground reality is this already exists and a farmer can sell his produce any where he wishes in any part of country, it does not happen because our farmers do not have medium and money to transport goods from one place to another because government itself says 86% of farmers are marginalized.
Contract farming is as good as the zamindari system. Our farmers cannot bargain with these profit making companies and can pay whatever price they want to the farmer.
Nevertheless these private companies, exporters, wholesalers, and processors, will always have an edge in disputes. Written contract is not mandatory which means the farmer will never be able to prove violation of terms of contract. Farmers have a valid point because they have seen privatization in markets of seeds and fertilizers where the government believed prices will go down because of competition but results are opposite, and farmers fear the same in this case also due to which they are protesting on a large scale.
These bills removed limits on hoardings because the situation of ‘Extraordinary price rise’ will be way too high to reach which simply means big private players can any time cause artificial price fluctuation. Not only farmers will be affected by it, consumers will also be affected because the main goal or focus of a private company will be to raise its profits.
Farmers needed the corruption to be taken care of not the facility the facility was good the said system only needed to check corruption it is very clear that the farmer of India doesn’t want this change and it is not the minority but the farmers of the entire nation are one on this Nation needs to stand for the farmers because everybody eat food produced by them which means it is the need of the people as far as democracies go they work for the people. If these bills are enforced in spite of Nationwide protest then the government has vested interest and if they can impose their vested interest on the people of the country then this act itself is not democratic anymore rather our nation has become a capitalist dictatorship I leave the rest for my fellow country men to understand and follow.
