Farmers’ Protest: The Farmers’ Perspective

 

There is a petition in the Supreme Court questions the constitutionality of the Farm Laws and, it is a topic worth discussing. Agriculture and matters related to trade and commerce form a part of the second list which is a subject matter of the state and yet the center had passed the laws on those very subjects. The center states that it had the power to make the law as per entry 33 of the third list, which is the concurrent list. However, this entry was introduced into the list for a temporary period, which for some reason did not find any need to be discontinued, and so it remained. Now, at this point in time, it is providing the center to make the activity of the state with regard to the same entry, redundant. Our country is quasi-federal, and giving the power of making laws on a subject to the hands of the Center, which the particular States would have more competency to make laws on, favors a form of government that is unitary. Such developments should have been nipped in the bud and such irregularities of law-making powers should have been properly assorted, as soon as the operational period till which the entry should have existed got over.

The Supreme Court had stayed the implementation of the farm laws and had set up a committee to further favor talks. But there are serious concerns as to what the actual role of the Court should have been in the whole matter. It was stated by many that the court should have asserted the constitutional validity of the laws instead of being a mere spectator and stating that the court is “not an ‘expert’ in agriculture or economics.” And if the way in which the law was passed is to be examined, then it is a matter of great shame. The law was passed in the Rajya Sabha by a voice vote which is not recognized anywhere in the law and when the opposition required the proper channel of voting, the same was denied. Voice vote takes away the possibility of knowing how many members are in favor and how many members are against the motion and the denial of the presiding officer to follow the proper method of voting can be viewed as a serious irregularity. In fact, it can be stated that the laws were not really passed in the Rajya Sabha. Now, even though Article 122 bars any petition being raised against a law passed due to alleged irregularity, it can still deem the laws unconstitutional because Article 107 was violated which states that a law shall come into existence when it is passed by both the houses of the Parliament, and in this case, the laws were not really passed in essence by the Rajya Sabha.

There is another matter of grave concern. The Supreme Court had set a dangerous precedent by not stating the ground for which the stay on the farm laws were granted. This could potentially allow the courts to sanction stay orders on laws passed by the legislature without the need for valid grounds in future, which is quite simply unchecked excessive use of power.

With the Constitutionality and the actions and inactions of the parliament and the judiciary out of the way, it is important to ask the question, why are the farmers still protesting? Given the stay order and the promise of more talks, the farmers have simply not called it a day and moved on but have instead chose to protest further. The demand is simple. ‘Repeal the three farm laws and we will be off to our houses, no problem’. But the exemplary showcase of arrogance on the part of the Government simply knows no bound. The attitude of “I am right, you are wrong”, “we know better, you are a bunch of illiterates”, has gotten everyone to think, “What is the Government playing at?” Did it even for a moment think that the farmers were enjoying the newly made laws, after all the incidents of protests and hunger strikes and what not?

The farmers do not want these laws passed, and the government like a faithful servant that it should be must repeal the laws. Why is it so hard for the Government to understand this simple thing? It only puts a bigger question mark on the competence of the Government to govern, when it is not humble enough to hear the demands of the common people. The farmers have left their home, sacrificed their time which they spend on the field for the welfare of each and every person in the country, and they are greeted with barricades and tear gasses! This is just utterly shameful.

Let’s look in detail as to why the farmers are still protesting. The laws that have been passed do not make the APMC invalid, but it gives freedom to the farmers to choose their trade with whoever they want outside the APMC. Meaning that they can trade with the APMC at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) or with any other entity as per their choice without the need to pay taxes to the Government. Now, this brings in a lot of speculation. The farmers think and it can quite possibly be the case, that with the corporates entering the market, better prices above the MSP will be guaranteed and the farmers will prefer making contracts with the corporates thereby causing a severe loss of revenue to the state and thereby forcing the states to abandon the need of keeping the APMCs open. APMCs are maintained by the Mandi tax that is collected. With the implementation of the new farm laws, it is certain that the revenue earned by the state is further going to deplete. It can be seen from the laws that were passed earlier that the Government had been trying to increase the number of APMCs to one in every 80 square kilometers to increase the procurement of commodities. With the revenue that was earned, only so much could be done and the vision of having an APMC at every 80 square kilometers is not even close to reality. With a decline in the revenue obtained by the states, it is only logical to think that the APMCs will close and the natural consequence would be that the MSP protection will perish. This is a dangerous proposition. Leaving the lives of the farmers in the hands of the corporates whose eyes only meet profit could lead to shocking consequences. This can lead to farmers having no recourse or remedy from the Government and at the complete mercy of the corporates.

Farmers should be allowed to trade with anyone including the corporates at an equal footing but not before they are empowered with education and certainly not before all of them are themselves confident to be able to handle the contracts that they are going to engage in. The government must not try to indirectly force them to the new system. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) at least 10,281 persons involved in the farm sector ended their lives in 2019, accounting for 7.4 percent of the total number of suicides in India.  If we do the math, then every day 28 farmers commit suicide. This shows the grim reality of the farmers in our country. Taking away the guarantee of MSP and introducing the farmers to the corporates who look for profits cannot lead to positive speculations, not now and not ever.

Set aside the farm law for once, what is even more astounding is the way the center is treating those who have come to protest peacefully. The level of measures adopted to keep away the farmers where they have a right to go to and the right to protest, is just unprecedented. There are sixty to seventy concrete barricades on each side of the carriageway at the Sindhu border, with plans of erecting a cemented wall and digging trenches to keep the farmers from using the road to make their way to the capital. The government cannot be allowed to get away with whatever it wants, the citizen of India is above all and in it, farmers and soldiers are the backbones of our nation, their needs, and demands must be heard as it is and the road for them should not be made perilous at all.

For a man of ordinary prudence, this really comes out as a big surprise. What is the center trying to imply here? It seems that the only thing the Government wants to state out loud and clear by their action is that, “look, the farm laws are coming, whether you like it or not. The center is king and the king doesn’t want your audience in the matter, so, buzz off. And if you won’t, then deal with the 60-70 barricades that we have so grandiosely placed, the police our loyal servants, tear gases, and a whole lot of risk of being detained for various reasons, most prominent of which is ‘sedition’, another one of the Center’s favorite tool, wherein, you can only see that everything is going wrong, but you can say nothing about it since you have the risk of being detained by the cops, who have a large ambit of discretion in deciding whether to make an arrest. What comes after the arrest is a lawsuit filed in a ‘competent court’ and if a man is poor and cannot furnish the bond money, then, a waiting period in jail, till the court finds the time to hear the matter, which usually results in an acquittal but at the cost of a tarnished image in the society, along with the insecurity of getting a job and living a normal life.

These are reasons enough for any person to simply see nothing, state nothing and hear nothing. The freedom which we all hear about, is only in textbooks, am I really free today or are you?

Anyway, matching two and two together from the Finance Minister’s budget and the issue of the prevailing farm law protests, it seems that the Government in its struggle to reduce the GDP deficit is trying to dig its way out, by indirectly increasing the prices of the once essential commodities like wheat, pulses, etc. And what’s more, it cannot be overlooked, that according to various committee reports it was found that only one item, of all the goods,  were getting the benefit of procurement at the guaranteed MSP, while in the case of other goods, it was not clear as to what method of calculating the MSP was employed. It only seems logical herein to think that the whole concept of procuring goods at the MSP was a burden to the Government since the beginning, and thus, these farm laws are being stressed so much even after such long protests so that it’s free from this burden. And of course, flaunt the obvious eventuality in the next budget session that, ‘look, we have met the target of reducing the deficit and we delivered. Happy farmers and happy citizens (only in lip service, while the people would be paying more for the goods and the farmers on the other hand would be having their rights toyed with by the corporates)’.

The recent incidents of FIR being charged against the creators of the controversial toolkit on farmers' protests and Indian celeb’s comments against foreign opinion only further adds salt to the wound, by showing how insecure our celebs are with regard to our country. In this day and age, where the countries are ever so closely interconnected with one another, opinions and comments on ongoing issues are common. It is highly illogical to state that India’s matters are India’s alone and to state that there is an international conspiracy being planned against India due to the foreign personality’s reaction to the ongoing crisis in the country is all simply childish. Opinions are natural and when something reaches the ears of foreign citizens, it is even more natural and quite frankly a reasonably expected reaction. This should be taken as an indication that things are not going the right way and something good has to be done about it.  It is for the country to realize that someone or something is the reason for the mess. And the same responsible person or body, must rectify or be rectified, in order to reassert the prime importance of the people over the Government.

Written by : 

Danny Louis David

Amity University 

Disclaimer: This article is the personal opinion of the author. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any Indian Government or any other Government of the world. This article is only opinion and does not render ant personal or professional advice.