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Thousands of farmers gathered to protest three new agricultural laws in Mumbai, India, January 26, 2021. (Photo: Sanket Jain)
Why India's Farmers--Confronting Corporate Power and Modi's Right-Wing Government--Deserve Global Solidarity
For more than eighty days, Indian protesters have demonstrated against a set of laws that would corporatize the country’s agriculture—and leave most farmers destitute.
Feb 27, 2021
During the last four months, Anjana Balsane has travelled more than 1,900 miles. She has attended protests with as many as 100,000 other farmers, who often chant "Kaale krisi kanun wapas lo," or "Take back the black farm laws."
"How could I follow social distancing when the new farm laws will kill us anyway?" asks Anjana, sixty-five, in a frail voice.
Since September 2020, when the far-right government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi hastily passed three farm laws without due consultation, tens of thousands of farmers across India have taken to the streets.
These laws give unprecedented power to corporations by deregulating trade and undermining the existing state support systems that serve farmers. The three laws are: the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.
In India, farmers sell their produce to registered buyers through auctions or at mandis (market yards). The first law enables farmers to directly sell their produce to private traders. With no taxes and no mandate on reporting these transactions, farmers fear this will deregulate trade throughout the country.
At the official, state-monitored markets, farmers are paid a Minimum Support Price, or MSP, set by the government for twenty-three commodities. The new bills make no mention of the MSP, stirring farmers' fears that they will lose this bare minimum support once these markets are dismantled.
Anjana told me about her recent experience of selling soybeans to a private trader in her village in the Nashik district of Western India's Maharashtra state. She says she was paid $41 for 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of soybeans, down from $53 in 2020.
"For every 100 kilograms of soybeans we sell, we have to give seven kilograms to the trader as a commission," Anjana says. With this deceitful practice, she lost more than 40 kilograms of her product as a commission--an amount that would have otherwise accounted for an additional $20 in her pocket.
"If there's no MSP, what will the poor farmers like us do?" asks Anjana, who has been tilling two acres of land for more than twenty-five years.
For the past eighty days, around 300,000 farmers have protested at the borders of New Delhi, India's capital. In late January, after several thousand farmers stormed Delhi's Red Fort, a Mughal-era monument that's become a symbol of the Indian state, the government began cracking down on the protesters, deploying barricades, trenches, barbed wire, batons, water-cannons, and Internet shutdowns.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
The protests at Red Fort quickly became international news. On February 2, the pop singer Rihanna tweeted, "Why aren't we talking about this?" Several other activists, entertainers, and international celebrities such as Greta Thunberg, Mia Khalifa, Ilhan Omar, Meena Harris, Vanessa Nakate, and John Cusack soon began expressing solidarity for the protesting farmers. On February 16, The New York Times even published a full-page advertisement signed by more than seventy global human rights organizations supporting the farmers' protests.
In response, Modi's government called this international solidarity a "global conspiracy to tarnish India's image."
Pro-government media channels have accused protesters of being mainly elite landholders. But in reality, more than 40 percent of India's population works in agriculture, and a majority of these workers are small and marginal farmers.
According to an official report, the average monthly income of a farm household in India during 2012-13 was $88. But with an average household size of 5.1, the per-capita income comes down to a mere $17. Moreover, over 86 percent of farmers in India own less than two hectares of land.
Keep reading...Show less
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Sanket Jain
Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in Kolhapur, India and a 2019 People's Archive of Rural India fellow.
During the last four months, Anjana Balsane has travelled more than 1,900 miles. She has attended protests with as many as 100,000 other farmers, who often chant "Kaale krisi kanun wapas lo," or "Take back the black farm laws."
"How could I follow social distancing when the new farm laws will kill us anyway?" asks Anjana, sixty-five, in a frail voice.
Since September 2020, when the far-right government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi hastily passed three farm laws without due consultation, tens of thousands of farmers across India have taken to the streets.
These laws give unprecedented power to corporations by deregulating trade and undermining the existing state support systems that serve farmers. The three laws are: the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.
In India, farmers sell their produce to registered buyers through auctions or at mandis (market yards). The first law enables farmers to directly sell their produce to private traders. With no taxes and no mandate on reporting these transactions, farmers fear this will deregulate trade throughout the country.
At the official, state-monitored markets, farmers are paid a Minimum Support Price, or MSP, set by the government for twenty-three commodities. The new bills make no mention of the MSP, stirring farmers' fears that they will lose this bare minimum support once these markets are dismantled.
Anjana told me about her recent experience of selling soybeans to a private trader in her village in the Nashik district of Western India's Maharashtra state. She says she was paid $41 for 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of soybeans, down from $53 in 2020.
"For every 100 kilograms of soybeans we sell, we have to give seven kilograms to the trader as a commission," Anjana says. With this deceitful practice, she lost more than 40 kilograms of her product as a commission--an amount that would have otherwise accounted for an additional $20 in her pocket.
"If there's no MSP, what will the poor farmers like us do?" asks Anjana, who has been tilling two acres of land for more than twenty-five years.
For the past eighty days, around 300,000 farmers have protested at the borders of New Delhi, India's capital. In late January, after several thousand farmers stormed Delhi's Red Fort, a Mughal-era monument that's become a symbol of the Indian state, the government began cracking down on the protesters, deploying barricades, trenches, barbed wire, batons, water-cannons, and Internet shutdowns.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
The protests at Red Fort quickly became international news. On February 2, the pop singer Rihanna tweeted, "Why aren't we talking about this?" Several other activists, entertainers, and international celebrities such as Greta Thunberg, Mia Khalifa, Ilhan Omar, Meena Harris, Vanessa Nakate, and John Cusack soon began expressing solidarity for the protesting farmers. On February 16, The New York Times even published a full-page advertisement signed by more than seventy global human rights organizations supporting the farmers' protests.
In response, Modi's government called this international solidarity a "global conspiracy to tarnish India's image."
Pro-government media channels have accused protesters of being mainly elite landholders. But in reality, more than 40 percent of India's population works in agriculture, and a majority of these workers are small and marginal farmers.
According to an official report, the average monthly income of a farm household in India during 2012-13 was $88. But with an average household size of 5.1, the per-capita income comes down to a mere $17. Moreover, over 86 percent of farmers in India own less than two hectares of land.
Keep reading...Show less
Sanket Jain
Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in Kolhapur, India and a 2019 People's Archive of Rural India fellow.
During the last four months, Anjana Balsane has travelled more than 1,900 miles. She has attended protests with as many as 100,000 other farmers, who often chant "Kaale krisi kanun wapas lo," or "Take back the black farm laws."
"How could I follow social distancing when the new farm laws will kill us anyway?" asks Anjana, sixty-five, in a frail voice.
Since September 2020, when the far-right government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi hastily passed three farm laws without due consultation, tens of thousands of farmers across India have taken to the streets.
These laws give unprecedented power to corporations by deregulating trade and undermining the existing state support systems that serve farmers. The three laws are: the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.
In India, farmers sell their produce to registered buyers through auctions or at mandis (market yards). The first law enables farmers to directly sell their produce to private traders. With no taxes and no mandate on reporting these transactions, farmers fear this will deregulate trade throughout the country.
At the official, state-monitored markets, farmers are paid a Minimum Support Price, or MSP, set by the government for twenty-three commodities. The new bills make no mention of the MSP, stirring farmers' fears that they will lose this bare minimum support once these markets are dismantled.
Anjana told me about her recent experience of selling soybeans to a private trader in her village in the Nashik district of Western India's Maharashtra state. She says she was paid $41 for 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of soybeans, down from $53 in 2020.
"For every 100 kilograms of soybeans we sell, we have to give seven kilograms to the trader as a commission," Anjana says. With this deceitful practice, she lost more than 40 kilograms of her product as a commission--an amount that would have otherwise accounted for an additional $20 in her pocket.
"If there's no MSP, what will the poor farmers like us do?" asks Anjana, who has been tilling two acres of land for more than twenty-five years.
For the past eighty days, around 300,000 farmers have protested at the borders of New Delhi, India's capital. In late January, after several thousand farmers stormed Delhi's Red Fort, a Mughal-era monument that's become a symbol of the Indian state, the government began cracking down on the protesters, deploying barricades, trenches, barbed wire, batons, water-cannons, and Internet shutdowns.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
So far, more than 200 activists have been arrested and, due to the biting cold of Delhi's winter, more than sixty farmers have died.
The protests at Red Fort quickly became international news. On February 2, the pop singer Rihanna tweeted, "Why aren't we talking about this?" Several other activists, entertainers, and international celebrities such as Greta Thunberg, Mia Khalifa, Ilhan Omar, Meena Harris, Vanessa Nakate, and John Cusack soon began expressing solidarity for the protesting farmers. On February 16, The New York Times even published a full-page advertisement signed by more than seventy global human rights organizations supporting the farmers' protests.
In response, Modi's government called this international solidarity a "global conspiracy to tarnish India's image."
Pro-government media channels have accused protesters of being mainly elite landholders. But in reality, more than 40 percent of India's population works in agriculture, and a majority of these workers are small and marginal farmers.
According to an official report, the average monthly income of a farm household in India during 2012-13 was $88. But with an average household size of 5.1, the per-capita income comes down to a mere $17. Moreover, over 86 percent of farmers in India own less than two hectares of land.
Keep reading...Show less
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