The context and timing of this is what matters. India is currently hosting the largest protest in human history. It was sparked by three ordinances which sought to regulate farming, by re-structuring how farmers may grow and sell their crops. The bills were passed with such haste and indifference towards the sentiments of opposing members in parliament, that something seemed very off right from the start. And then fa…
Would you be able to explain why the farmers don't like the new laws? I personally don't trust thewire.in either because as far as I understand, thewire.in is left wing. Just like I won't trust swarajamag or republictv.
Farmers already felt oppressed and unheard in India, so naturally, when the government suddenly said: "here are three new laws and we promise they're going to be good for you" without consulting a single farming union, and passing them in such a haste, it raised all sorts of questions, and a sort of grassroots investigative effort uncovered a blatantly corrupt scheme, which i will get into, but first, a few facts about farming to add context:
A) Farming income in india has not increased in 40 years. Even if we just take this fact and inflation into account, it shows how unsustainable farming is becoming and helps us understand why 27 farmers a day were committing suicide in india, before the laws. Most farmers are incredibly poor and in debt.
B) Political parties have promised to aid them during campaigns, but once in power they've just carried on not caring.
C) a similar system of privatization has already been implemented in two states: Bihar and Gujrat. Since then, Bihari farmers have sold much of their land, and now seek labor work in other states such as Punjab, where farming is still the bulk of the economy. They had already been warning everyone against privatization due to their experience. When groups of farmers from both of these states attempted to travel to Delhi to join the protest, Police deployed checkpoints and used heavy-handed tactics to submit and scare them, putting those caught under house arrest. Even so, small groups of these farmers ended up reaching Delhi by obscuring their identities/ hiding through checkpoints. They then gave interviews detailing as such and expressed solidarity with the Punjabi and Haryana farmers who had reaching Delhi after breaking through various police barricades. They further warned the country that what had happened in their own states would happen in the rest of India because of the new bills.
D) every single one of the advantages touted by the government of the three bills, only sounds good to someone who doesn't understand the above context, making farmers further mistrustful of them. For example, Modi has repeatedly said that farmers will now have the freedom to sell their crops to anyone, anywhere, and they should be happy. What he ignores is that the vast majority of farmers currently have trouble getting their crops to local Mandis( grain markets) where they barely break even, and if they do it's because of MSP.
E) govt officials began to say that farmers don't need to worry about losing MSP, and it will continue, but it is literally discontinued as per the bills, and unless the government revises the law or makes a new one, there is zero reason to believe this. When directly asked whether they're willing to put the continuation of MSP into law, the government simply deflects and distracts from the question.
F) the bills make it legal to infinitely store goods, where previously there was a hard limit on how long someone could purchase and cold store grains, to prevent market manipulation. This single bill is extremely suspicious as it ties into existing fears that farmers have, because they have been seeing their land bought by large out of state companies. These companies will often bully several neighbouring farmers into selling their land, and then simply let it sit in some areas, while building giant warehouses in other locations.
G) Reliance, a telecom company owned by billionaire Ambani, has a mobile branch called Jio. Jio made Indians savvy to a particular model which corporations in India (or really anywhere) seem fond of. When the company first started, they offered users unlimited data, no strings attached. This of course led to the demise of competing companies, and everyone and their dog signed up with Jio. However, only a couple years later, when the competition was non-existent jio began to charge for data, and then kept on increasing the rates, to the point where today, they are charging more than all their competitors used to. This is seemingly it's own separate issues but it will tie into the farmers protest.
So what happened in Punjab was that during the two month long protest there where farmers blocked railroads and highways, a local journalist began to investigate the construction of the giant warehouses, and then published a piece about it. He basically concluded, with evidence, that the two main corporate powers backing the current government (Adani and Ambani) had already built many warehouses Punjab, while the construction of many others was ongoing.
Basically, the corporate powers were ready to purchase and cold store goods, as per the new laws, while the protesting farmers felt that not only were the bills passed completely behind their backs without any consultation, but their protests were now being ignored and maligned.
So this news caused mass outrage, and people began to boycott Jio, and some of their towers were even vandalized. The owner of Reliance being Mukesh Ambani, the Jio boycott became a natural way to support to farmers, and all across Punjab and Harayana, Jio reportedly began losing hundreds of thousands of customers per day.
The journalist who had written the piece, was then kidnapped by police officers in civilian clothing, and later revealed to have been 'arrested'. At this point many people, professional journalists and lay people alike, began to speculate that the Jio model would be used against farmers as well. That farmers would actually be given above MSP rates by corporate buyers for a couple of years, rendering the traditional mandis, where MSP is legally required, useless. And when those Mandis are gone, they corporations would begin increasing the rates, forcing farmers into either selling their land, or entering oppressive contracts with large companies who could bully them, as most farmers cannot even afford the legal fees to take someone to court were there to be any disputes.
While this sort of information was spreading through daily rallies and protests, the government began a string of unconventional arrests targeting key figures using bogus charges, which only made people even angrier, and more and more people joined the protest. It really turned into a game of chicken, with the government betting that their next step would scare the people, and the people believing that their next escalation would force the government to listen to their demands.
This kind of escalation has resulted in the protest today no longer being limited to just farmers, or just the farming states, as people from all walks of society from all over India are openly defying the government by reaching the Delhi protest sites.