Farmers 2.0: Modi besieged

Just months before going to polls Narendra Modi’s BJP is again thrown a challenge that may prove very harmful for their election prospects. The agricultural heartland of India has again risen against the BJP regime indicating that they want to pursue their unfinished agenda which just few years ago had made the inflexible Modi government to bite the dust when it withdrew the statutory changes proposed with respect to the huge farming sector. By all accounts Modi is facing the repeat of 2020 farmers’ protests that numbed the capital of the country and put tremendous pressure on BJP government.

BJP heavily relies on the northern Hindu extremist belt that welcomes its xenophobic outlook and has given its widespread support to the BJP for more than a decade but the farmer’s issue clearly created a dangerous fissure in this particular support base.

It is well known that India’s farmers constitute an influential vote bank and no government can afford to alienate them particularly BJP that is in the process of contesting a third term in office.

The farmers are attempting to reach Delhi in a repeat of their earlier protest that witnessed more than dozens of deaths and shook northern India. Farming community, mostly hailing from Punjab insist that they should be allowed to peacefully cross Haryana to reach Delhi but they have not been allowed to do so.

Scuffles between police and protesters have also been reported at the Shambhu border and the situation remains tense. In Haryana, the BJP-led state government has suspended internet services in seven districts. Images showed thick clouds of tear gas being used to disperse protesters near the city of Ambala north of the capital along with police firing tear gas at the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab states.

Traffic jams and disruptions were reported across Delhi as authorities blocked roads and diverted traffic. Police have also prohibited large gatherings in the city, including at border points between Delhi and the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states, through which the farmers are expected to reach the capital. To preclude it, Delhi’s borders have been sealed to prevent farmers from entering the city.

The renewed ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest faced its first fatality when a 21-year old farmer died due to a head injury in Haryana after protestors clashed with the police. The state government has shown its solidarity with the farmers, saying that they will push for strict action against the cop who was responsible for the incident.

The BJP regime is trying hard to quell the protests and in this context it is reported that Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has admitted to taking down accounts and posts related to the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. The site has claimed it took down the pages after the Indian government sent them “executive orders”.

The orders were “subject to potential penalties, including imprisonment”, X said in a statement, adding that it “disagreed with these actions”. Several activists had earlier complained about their posts being removed. Moreover, many influential X accounts of reporters, influencers and prominent farm unionists covering farmers’ protest in India were suspended.

In its clarification, X said the accounts and posts were being withheld in India alone “in compliance with the orders”. It, however, added that the platform did not agree with the government action and maintained that “freedom of expression should extend to these posts”. The platform also said it had legally challenged the government’s “blocking orders”, without specifying which court they had petitioned.

Farmers are asking for assured floor prices – also known as minimum support price or MSP – which allows them to sell most of their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis.

They are also demanding that the government fulfil its promise of doubling farmers’ income. In the meanwhile, the Indian Union ministers held a six-hour-long meeting with farm union leaders.

The two sides reportedly came to an agreement on some of the demands, including the withdrawal of cases registered against protesters during the 2020 protests. But there was no consensus on the MSP. In 2021, after the farm laws were repealed the government had said it would set up a panel to find ways to ensure support prices for all farm produce. But the committee is yet to submit its report.

More than 200 farmer unions are participating in the march. Farmers’ and trade unions have also announced a rural strike on 16 February during which no agricultural activities will be carried out. Shops, markets and offices in all villages will be closed while farmers will block major roads across the country.

Modi government is faced with a nightmare that it faced in 2020 whereby protesting farmers hunkered down for months, blocking national highways that connect the capital to its neighbouring states. The protest was rated as a serious challenge to BJP government as it was apparently cruising through and initiated a set of agrarian reforms aimed at corporatizing the agriculture sector. The regime failed to understand the conservative outlook of the farming community that heavily relied on price support mechanism maintained by respective government over decades.

The issue emerged out of the contention that changes were brought about in the practice whereby farmers were allowed to sell their produce at a market price directly to private sector – agricultural businesses, supermarket chains and online grocers. Most Indian farmers currently sell the majority of their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis at assured floor prices (also known as minimum support price or MSP). The laws allowed private buyers to hoard food like rice, wheat and pulses for future sales which only government-authorised agents could do earlier.

Though the suggested reforms, at least on paper, gave farmers the option of selling outside of this so-called “mandi system” but the protesters said the laws would weaken the farmers and allow private sector to dictate prices and control their affairs They said the MSP was keeping many farmers going and without it, many of them will struggle to survive. They said India’s stringent laws around the sale of agricultural produce and high subsidies had protected farmers from market forces for decades and there was no need to change that. But the government argued that it was time to make farming profitable for even small farmers and the new laws were going to achieve that. The laws aimed at deregulating the market whipped up an unprecedented firestorm of protest in the past and it has boiled over again. The BJP, which, on both occasions did not anticipate such a blowback, has been trying hard to placate the farmers, majority of them being Sikhs. It is widely observed that as far as the farm laws are concerned, the BJP initiative was misplaced and revealed BJP’s lack of legislative acumen.

The most harm done is to the aura of invincibility built around Modi’s leadership indicating that mass protests can still unnerve a government which rules with a brute majority in Delhi and faces little resistance from an enfeebled opposition. It is also a lesson for farm reform proponents that good economics often makes for poor politics especially when there is a trust deficit between the key stakeholders and the government; and the politics is partisan and non-consultative.