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Collective Editorial
Since the beginning of Modi’s India, the Government has managed to make an impression of strong governance, given the majority they came into power. Comments like “56-inch chest size” were used to describe Modi’s power. And true to their words, the BJP government used an iron fist against all those who had dissented with their work. Modi Government managed to look strong in the face of any protest ranging from Anti-CAA-NRC to various student protests across the country. The Government used a similar tactic while facing the Farmer’s protest. After a point, it started seeming as if the Government was simply not willing to step back due to their egotistical nature with power. Even though the Farmer’s protest led to many people standing with the farmers against the Government, they tried to use every trick in their playbook to decry the protest, from calling the protesters Anti-national Khalistanis to inciting violence on 26th January at Red Fort. Facing it all, the Farmer’s movement stood out victorious on the face of such huge propaganda machinery, which not only proved successful for their cause but symbolic for every anti-fascist movement going around in the country and throughout the world. It acted as a major boost for every struggle in an atmosphere where the strength of RSS-BJP seemed gigantic.
India’s farmers protests were aimed to repeal 3 bills introduced by the Modi government, without any deliberations in the parliament, were passed through ordinance. The three acts were: These acts areas are : Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020; and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020. The background for the introduction of these bills goes back to the the signing of Agreement on Agriculture (1994) in the Uruguay rounds of WTO convention. According to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, the administered price cannot exceed the ‘de-minimis’ level of 10% of the total volume of production. This exemption is allowed under the Aggregate Measure of Support. India has already exceeded the limit in the case of rice where the procurement price has shot up to 24% from the base year 1986-88 that was agreed upon. The double standards are clear. In 2012, the US provided $100 billion for domestic food aid, up from the $95 billion it spent on feeding its 67 million undernourished population in 2010 including spending on food coupons and other supplementary nutrition programmes. In India, the Food Bill was expected to cost $20 billion and will feed an estimated 850 million people. Against an average supply of 358kg/person of subsidised food aid (including cereals) in the US every year, India promises to make available 60 kg/person in food entitlement. And yet, while the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is quiet on the subsidy being doled out in America for feeding its poor, the US has launched an attack on India for “creating a massive new loophole for potentially unlimited trade-distorting subsidies.” At the same time, the agreement allows food security only for targeted groups only with clearly defined demarcated sections. There are other provisions in this, stemming from Dunkel Draft (1993) which allow free play of multinational seed companies in the Indian agrarian market, apart from removal of the government-controlled Mandi system which allow the farmers to produce at fair prices. The Dunkel Draft was clearly aiming to reduce domestic subsidies to agriculture in order to “liberate” them from statist model of development.
However, Dunkel et. al. were only interested in removal of subsidies from Asia, Africa or Latin America. The subsidies, provoded by the US or the EU, were not to be touched upon. ‘Plans of these international stakeholders in WTO were to be executed in India by their servants, Modi-Shah. Although, previous UPA governments were the ones who were the harbinger of such policy changes, but political compulsions held them off from implementing these. The Modi government ensured that they do not have such political compulsions after being re-elected in 2019 with a thumping mandate. However, it was the farmers of India who stood up against the wholesale sell-out of the farming sector of this country to the Imperialists and their partners in our country.
It is clear that BJP is the richest party ever in India, and their major contributors, say Ambani or Adani, are heavily benefiting from such policies. Hence, it is highly unlikely that the policymakers will deviate from their plan and bring an actual beneficial economic policy for the people. The whole mechanism works to make the people accept that their condition would get better if they kept believing in it, and indeed, the BJP government has mastered this technique. Their method of introducing even the most anti-people laws with a pro-people coating has worked on various occasions, but it failed terribly in the case of farmers in Punjab. Major credit goes to the Farmer unions, which had been working in these areas, who identified the enemy behind these policies correctly and directed their protest towards them. The farmers of Punjab had already been suffering under the hands of the green revolution, which was again a policy forced upon the people calling it necessary for increasing productivity; which made the farmers utterly dependent on GM seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The introduction of a foreign variety of wheat and paddy required huge amount of drainage of ground level water from soil, killing of natural microbes through chemical pesticides and fertilizers, started off a process called “desertification” in the areas of Punjab, Haryana and West UP. Eventually, the usage of these seeds, fertilizers and pesticides is benefitting the major international corporations selling these products. Protesting against the three farm laws mainly exposed the relation between major corporations and the Government, particularly the relationship between Ambani-Adani and Modi. In these terms, the farmers’ movement fought not only for themselves but against the larger neo-liberal project and privatisation in total.
This Kisan Andolan is not just a spontaneous action from the ordinary farmers, but an outcome of longstanding continuities of organised resistances and revolutionary movemental traditions of Punjab. Since, the passing of the bill through ordinance in 2020 during lockdown, there has been block level, district level and state level mobilizations by various farmers unions, led by an uncompromising revolutionary leadership. History of revolutionary movement in Punjab is marked by glorious struggle of PEPSU tenants in 1950s, struggle against issues of electricity in 1980s, anti-displacement movements in 2000s. In the continuity of Tebhaga-Telangana-Naxalbari, peasants of Punjab once against upheld the green and crimson banner of resistance against imperialist plunder and loot. Malls, godowns, cell-towers owned by Adanis and Ambanis were shutdown. Highway toll plazas were occupied by farmers. While marching towards Delhi, spontaneous supports came pouring in from farmers of Haryana and later on from Western UP.
Certainly, the farmers’ protest has taught many of us the importance of organisations, leadership and commitment to carry out any protest and gave hope of standing against the ever-rising power of fascists. Agriculture in our country can be sustainable through a people’s revolutionary alternative, and that primarily entails severing every ties with the WTO. This movement has proven the importance of mass movements and presented an example of a successful extra-parliamentary struggle. Only through building of such powerful mass movements against this corporate Hindutva regime, such plunder of resources and over-exploitation of the people of our country can be resisted.
