All: this thread turned into a wretched nationalistic and religious flamewar. I've scolded and/or banned many of the accounts that did that. If you see a comment that didn't get scolded that should have been, it's simply because there isn't time or energy to read everything here, let alone respond. We're not secretly agreeing with it. You can always email hn@ycombinator.com about egregious cases.
To the commenters who perpetuated this flamewar: it's not what HN is for and we ban accounts that do this kind of thing. Please don't do it again, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, or how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. This is a site for curious conversation, not a battleground. If you're feeling warlike (including flamewarlike) rather than curious, please don't post until that changes.
Sadly as much as I hate seeing essential communication links cut, though I don't have any data I am assuming a lot of people are going to buy in the public safety angle. It is not like the Indian state hasn't used that line of reasoning before for even bans lasting more than a year.
Reading through the linked article on the violence related to the same protests that happened few days back reminded me of some tweets I had seen. People running around brandishing swords(and other melee weapons) attacking cops, which felt way worse than what we saw in US Capitol insurrection. https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1354088807424028673
Nope, complete propaganda by the Indian govt. I have family there so I can confirm. The Indian media is completely sold out to the govt and will only present highly selected and curated pictures. Social media is where they can't control the narrative. The Indian govt unleash sate sanctioned mobs on these protestors, desperate resort to break up the protest. Now they had to ensure that the truth stays under wraps. Hence, cut off internet.
Complete propaganda here. The oligarchs and nationalists are pushing down the minorities (Sikhs, and Muslims and poor). A t the end of the day those funding Jio and other Oligarchs (Hi Mark, Hi Bond), will end up catching blame with a black swan event goes down. Follow the money, VCs and Facebook fund up these same oligarchs that press and kill hundreds of millions.
This forum is a product of VCs and big tech. A huge portion of Silicon Valley wealth comes from enslaving and subjugating Asia.
This audience is probably the people who need to hear it most, but also the audience that it would upset the most.
When did hacker culture evolve from loving technology and rebelling against the establishment into placing profits above human lives? Is a nice tech salary all it takes to purchase one's humanity? What about the promise of VC billions?
The profit motive subjugates the poor, perpetuates genocide, and upholds slavery. Technology is not some humanist savior, it has been twisted to exploit the many and serve the few. Maybe one day our advanced technologies will work to serve and uplift the people rather than suppress them.
Does a US company contracting with say a Chinese company to produce its products help or hurt Chinese workers? I think it would help Chinese workers by increasing employment in China and generally improving the Chinese economy.
Exporting environmental waste, abusive workplace exploitation, unsafe practices and lack of self-reliance, are the counter arguments. We need a healthy mix of both, not the extremes.
My thought is that the more wealthy a country becomes, the more it can push back on environmental waste, and the more workplace regulations its workers can demand.
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I was talking about the protestors attacking cops of which there are a lot of videos on social media. The video I linked above shows them jumping from a fort to save themselves.
There is plenty of propaganda floating around from both sides. If you dislike muddy waters, I would recommend staying out of Indian politics. It is a clusterfuck.
To add to your top comment, these events - protestors attacking police personnel and protestors raiding Red Fort and raising their own flags - happened on republic day, which is like a mini 4th of July for India (we have two: 15th August, which is when India became independent and 26th January, which is when India adopted its constitution). On Republic Day, India observes the president furl India's national flag from the Red Fort, so seeing these events unfold, especially seeing a flag other than the Indian flag at Red Fort on Republic Day, were of very big symbolic value.
Own flags, which Indian Army encourages, allows, & make a new recruit to Swore upon when recruited. Same flag is the flag of that Regiment, saluted by Prime Ministrr on every Jan 26 parade on Punjab state's vehicle (jhaanki, kind of vehicle is converted & decorated with things showing culture,).
Same modi, whose Delhi Police tramples the Tiranga, whose party flies the Tiranga lower than party flag, whose mother party RSS has never flown that flag ever in their premises, events even in 52 years since 1947.
Yes, agreed, & thats why 100s of Sikhs are now in Jails around Red Fort, without any access to Lawyer or Phone Calls. But Modi Bhakats are tweeting all the way Missing Indira Mummy. They also want to burn Sikhs just like any power hungry party, be it 1984 like Congress, 2002 like Godhra.
Modi bhakts would be on the side of sikhs surely. Sikh community is the reason Hinduism survives in large parts of India. The people you are calling “sikhs” were throwing policemen off heights. Do they get to kill without impunity? What are you defending here exactly?
No, they are & always wished death upon non Hindus. & Carried it too. Godhra, 1984, & many others.
No need to add sikhs in Quotes, those are Sikhs. Many of them are in jails. Do you want to be the judge & executioner on the spot? Any mob who damages or hurts, should be controlled, & then tried. But in India, if that mob is Hindu, then it never happens.
You asked for sources for Modi bhakats wishing death upon Sikhs in 1984 style. You literally asked Who is wishing Sikh Killings! I provided the sources. Only 6. There are millions of tweets & videos, where BJP RSS Hindu are saying We Miss Mother Indira.
If that’s the case, do you have a single source for any RSS leader saying that? How did you count there are millions of these tweets? How did you ascertain their origin?
I am not going to do the work for you. You don't wanna believe, thats fine, your choice, uour opinion, your freedom.
You asked Who is wishing, I gave you tweet links, now if you want, can click through those profiles. Them profiles have photos of Gandi & Jinaah with Text Dividers. Savarkar as Veer. Modi as Best Prime Minister in world as per UNESCO. That's how I made the connection that they are RSS or Supporters. Because many of them are in RSS Uniform.
You Modi Godi Bhakats are wishing to teach Sikhs a lesson, by repeating 1984 & Godhra, burning & teaching lesson. I thought you are on HN, most probably not being paid Rs 2 by BJP per post. These tweet links are only by one search on Twitter Indira Gandhi. & Many of these have photos of Modi, Savarkar & such. You stop just repeating what Dalal media is feeding you, Fox news equivalent from India.
& Stop conveniently not answering my points, but twisting & gas lighting.
All I wish is Modi dictator goes away back to Gujrat if they want, people vote him out. Anybody who thinks about people, is not extremist, not lier, not fake, should be voted in. Not rahul gandi, not Kamal nath.
Replying here as I can’t reply below. What is that? A show of sick fucks wishing people dead? What is your point? You can find those everyday on Twitter. Why are you trying to paint this disgusting picture based on that?
That's how BJP IT Cell rolls. Their operatives have been caught out in sting operation many times. heck, some of them have come out in the open themselves.
You repeatedly posted flamewar comments in this thread. We've had to ask you before not to do this. We ban accounts that won't stop doing it. Please don't do it again.
He's talking about the fact that the RSS did not raise the Indian flag till about 2002. And that their historical opposition to the flag is well documented.
Wow, that seems to be correct. I wonder why they would do that. In my childhood I went to an RSS school and we used to hoist the national flag all the time. Strange.
That lovely linguistic sleight of hand means that people called a region bharat. By the criteria how come Sri Lanka is not included? Or how do you reconcile the 7 sisters being part of that? For that matter the word Europe exists - are you arguing that states should act like nations a la the EU?
More information has come out linking the violent folks to the ruling party. The farmers have said it's not their people. Indeed the leader of the group that entered Red Fort is a known BJP. There's a video of him running away when accosted by the farmers. It's such a mess.
Damn man the level of misinformation you guys are feeding in is at the next level. So which is it, the people who where rioting were actual farmers, sikhs or from BJP? In the same thread you guys are listing out all possible combinations.
In India there are Farmer organizations, labour organizations etc of all parties. The current agitation is by farmer orgs belonging to opposition parties. This is just politics nothing else.
When the media fails to do its job then the people have to do it for them. Of course there will be condtradictory information coming in because the media has completely failed to provide a source of credible information. I'm not throwing out misinformation, but merely pointing out information that the OP missed and is available in reputable sources. There is A LOT of video evidence that points to BJP stooges inciting violence. The guy who hoisted the flag on Red Fort, Deep Siddhu is a known BJP supporter. Times of India , Indian Express, The Wire have all reported on this. Heck even Aj Tak had video where the BJP stooges are throwing stones at the protestors while an entire police battalion stands behind them doing nothing.
Yes, but those are selective video shots. Many videos on tiktok & whatsapp show where Reporters are telling their cameraman, Dont Show that, when camera goes towards Police slashing the tyres, throwing the flag at ground, & attacking 1 protester by 4+ Cop goons.
Yeah, police will control a rioting mob anyway they can. Maybe don’t brandish swords, try to run over public and police and attack people in your peaceful protest?
The Godi media you are watching does not show the Delhi police trampling over Tiranga, slashing tires, shooting tear gas over a distance of less than 20 feet, blocking the route agreed upon.
So the police should make sure not to trample on tiranga while controlling a rioting mob?
Shooting tear gas is worse than shooting bullets?
Let’s not get into what was agreed upon. For that just look at the list of broken promises provided by the police and it’s crystal clear what these people wanted to achieve.
Pulling a tiranga from tractor, & rolling it, & then trampling it over while nothing else is going on, is I think bad. Police Brutality, as a scare tactic will always fire back on dictator's face.
This has been shown again and again by current administration and ruling party in India that power and ideology of pure Hindu state is more important than lives and livelihood.
On a grand display in 2002 incident in a province in India [1], please read the whole NYT article, before commenting on it.
Later on at display in Kashmir. Subsequently during national register and citizenship act protests where religious riots were used again to suppress a year of peaceful protests.
Than again during university protests in New Delhi. Here again students were attacked inside the university, police beat and shot university students. Still even one person from ruling party who participated in violence or a cop who shot is to be prosecuted. On the other hand most of those opposing are being charged with terrorist charges.
India to really progress out of poverty needs to first learn to respect its diversity and be united. Current administrations and ruling party’s policy has taken India on a downhill path of economic disaster, lower HDI, more poverty and more hunger. United Nations data and research don’t lie, India constantly slipped compared to its neighbours like Bangladesh on this index. So probably it will be better instead of hardline approach things change in India, otherwise it will be too late for a divided country to progress forward. It might on the other hand will move towards authoritarian dictatorship very quickly. India needs to come out of tyranny of majority and authoritarian mindset of current government for a change.
I hope this same story and violence does not repeat in Bengal, where already violence is being promoted to unseat local government which does not believe in Hindu supremacy like the central government.
Again you are parroting the same national agenda of the current Indian government of a Hindu state and Hindu way of living forcibly forced on every community in India. Recent example of local government passing laws to support groups and Organization who kill people who eat beef, another example of people of different religion marrying needs approval from state government (calling it law against love jihad). Not sure what is Stone Age medieval.
If you want to repeal laws in India, first study them. India has Hindu marriage act too, especially designed for Hindu undivided family with similar inconsistency.
In India a Muslim woman can choose special marriage act [1], where triple talaq is inapplicable. It’s not for you or majority to decide how that community should live.
If woman are unhappy with unjust law let them as community fight it. You don’t have to force your views or your self-righteous way for them.
Indeed the funny part is the woman of that very community you try to help, despise the current Indian government. If the purpose of the change was to help that community there will be some support, but indeed there is complete opposition.
Also to be married under the Special Marriage Act you can really only have a civil ceremony at a magistrates office. If you have a religious ceremony, it does not apply.
In any case the ceremonies are much too elaborate to be held in magistrates office without cutting corners. So they are held at home or marriage halls.
But it isn't abolished in all states, and India is the largest exporter of beef. Beef politics is new and a recent BJP/Modi/Adityanath invention.
It is the same tactics the British used to divide the country, and simply used as a tool to target Muslims.
The fact is that Hindus eat beef and there is no religious proscription against it, that is the whole point of "Hinduism being a way of life".
Secondly - old cows are not a resource, and farmers do not care about them. You cannot support their population without making cows useless to farmers. So cows get slaughtered.
The efforts made to politicize this has lead to herds of cows destroying farmers and farm land. Now that the attention of the population is away from cows, I bet farmers and politicians are busy shipping cows to be butchered once again.
Its pretty amazing that no one wonders who is selling these cows to be killed, it only becomes an issue when muslims eat meat.
Conveniently leaving the truth that those state government which banned beef is same as central government (ruling central government party). People killed on suspicion of storing beef in home refrigerator is also perpetrated by central government party and its members (this is the reason no one got punished or prosecuted for mob killing). Central government has wide powers to initiate investigations and punish local officials as they have constantly done to muzzle political opponents in every state where they are not in power.
> marriage act
There is a reason it’s called Hindu marriage act and it’s very patriarchal with lots of inconsistencies. Not just this, there are many laws in India which needs repeal or reform like laws on sedition’s which are conveniently used by current government to put people in jail without trial trampling basic human rights. For higher courts it’s important to judge what a comedian can say or not say and habeas corpus cases are just kept pending. A minister of central government is outraged and any court takes up the case with utmost urgency, and person languish in jails for years waiting for their habeas corpus plea pending hearing.
> Muslim reforms
Let that community decide what reforms they want, don’t impose your will on them.
May be follow a bit of Buddhism to do self introspection and all will be evident.
Nationalistic and religious flamewar will get you banned here. You did that repeatedly in this thread. Please don't post any more like this to HN, regardless of which side you're fighting for or how right you feel it is.
>>Beef consumption has been forbidden in most Indian states since independence and supported by all political parties.
Only 'Productive Cow(milk yielding)' slaughter was forbidden until recently. Karnataka(Ruled by same party as the center) recently banned all bovine slaughter. Farmers now say they will happily pass on the expenses to take care of unproductive cattle(calves, bulls and older bovines) to consumers in the form of higher priced milk.
Regarding the remaining thing. As a Married Indian muslim who has registered their marriage. All Indian muslims go under special marriage act whose provisions are way way more stricter than the Hindu marriage act. They even send out your application to the local mosques in Bangalore to check if this is a genuine alliance or if the couples have eloped and parents have objections to file. The time given is 45 days. All the best registering a marriage between a Muslim and Hindus.
>>It may forbid triple talaq but other provisions like custody and alimony still apply.
Literally negligible follow triple talaq in Muslim community. In my entire biological and parents biological existence and our entire network of friends and family we don't of a single case of divorce happening this way.
Things like 498a and DV laws apply to all Indian citizens as they are criminal laws.
The reason why people protested against 3T is because even a random stranger could accuse a Muslim man of 3T and the criminal proceedings begin, with arrest and imprisonment of the Muslim man. tl;dr a law created to reign in strong men who wouldn't bow to your political/religious harassment.
>>Protests, crazy ones just like for the CAA.
It's quite a telling about you when you say refusal to walk into concentration camps as crazy.
And the reason all this happens is because a uniform civil code is unpalatable to muslims. We would be in a better place if we didn't have polygamy and good divorce, custody, alimony laws instead of religious laws.
> In India a Muslim woman can choose special marriage act [1], where triple talaq is inapplicable. It’s not for you or majority to decide how that community should live.
I agree with you on general gist but not this. Seriously? You don't think muslim women are oppressed by these medieval age laws and need to be changed? You don't think bringing religion into laws was a horrible idea, and live jihad is just the other side of the picture of triple talaq laws? You can't just hate one side and turn blind to the evils of the other.
Consumption of dogs is banned in the US. Dogs are a delicacy in a number of places. Quite different from discriminating by gender and treating one gender in a marriage as chattel I would think.
It is banned but did not permit anyone to kill other people without impunity on suspicion of having dog meat in refrigerator. So may be please get facts right before arguing.
It also offers protection for "persons acting in good faith" as no suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings can be instituted against the competent authority or "any person exercising powers under this Act."
That does sound damning. What are these powers? I know villagers here have been stopping traffickers from cow smuggling since forever. What powers is this ordinance giving them is not detailed in the article. I am pretty sure killing won’t be allowed though.
How many have these 'villagers' have been convicted or even arrested. The government does a wink wink and they are released on bail and their cases buried under humongous paperwork. These is how, among other things, the government sanctions public lynchings.
The anti-cow slaughter Bill has been drafted in such a manner that cow vigilantes will be granted protection under Section 17. Interpreting the “good faith” clause means that no suit, prosecution or legal proceedings will be initiated against the vigilantes if they can prove that they committed the act in such a manner.
States with stringent laws on cow slaughter have often reported high cases of lynching by cow vigilantes. According to a report of the New York based Human Rights Watch, 44 people in India have been killed by cow vigilantes within a span of three years. The report further revealed that these radical cow protection groups often received support from politicians and law enforcement agencies.
Political and nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't do that on HN, regardless of which side you're on or how right you feel it is.
>I am doubtful if any Army officer, even if they are Sikh, will support what happened at the Red fort. Also the protests were supposed to be representative of are farmers, not just Sikh farmers. Giving it a religious angle will be detrimental to the protests.
Not sure what's the fuss. People who disrespected the flag are on the record. Police can arrest them. Why to malign the whole community?
BJP has disrespected the Indian flag so many times by flying their own party flag above the national flag.
Never said anything about red fort & army. I repeat, Nishan Sahib & Jaikaara is official war cry & flag of Sikh Regiment. Home minister, prime minister, president salutes to it in every republic day parade. Modi wears that Khanda symbol oh head when visting Gurudwaras.
Rajnath, on visit to a army post,asked a Sikh Officer to do the War Cry.
I am used to that fact. My comment doesn't oppose anyone's right to follow their religion in any way. I would have opposed the act even if the flag belonged to some other entity. And for the record, we are talking about hooliganism which has caused injuries to scores of people.
The BJP has won and lost elections that were run using EVMs. They literally won a national election and lost state elections in the same EVM run elections. Are you going to tell me about Biden supporters somehow having stolen the presidential election while losing house seats by ballot stuffing now?
I am half Sikh and many members of my family served in the Indian military, including in Sikh regiments. I would FAR prefer a BJP central government to a Congress one. Before you listen to another word of Congress propaganda, google the Delhi Sikh Riots and the role senior Congress party members like Kamal Nath played in them. The BJP may not be particularly erudite English speakers and may deliberately choose not to participate in debates at Oxford like a Shashi Tharoor might. They don’t want care to play to a western audience in that manner. But unlike the Congress they don’t put mafioso or wife killers in senior positions no matter how suave they may be.
Trump and Modi are not from the same Universe. Modi noticed Trump loves adulation and let him have all he wanted. That is just smart diplomacy.
No worries, I understand. Many sikhs here support Trump. Mostly who are here since ages, & are businessman, does not pay minimum wage, employ & exploit asylum seekers. And I am also sikh, although does not wear any sikh symbols like Hair Turban.
No where I said we need congress government. Modi dictator need to go away. India was progressing way way more in Manmohans rule (yes, there were million bad issues were too, no denial). But Modi's rule is dictatorship.
Delhi 1984 need to be punished, by Singh's or by Government, or by people. Yes, that includes Rajiv, Indiara, Kamal Math, Everybody who was involved. #NeverForget1984
You can't even compare Biden Support to modi Supporters. Biden won fair & square. The greatest president has world's most secure elections under his rule, & fraud happened? No, he lost it. Simple. I am Democrat pro, want Sanders, but will work with Biden, because the other option was Twice Impeached Orange. Never. A lesser evil is better than bigger one.
RSS has a MBA Think Tank in Nagpur, thinking over every next move to keep the power clutched in their bloody hands forever. Its a rouse that winning every election will seem sus, so lets lose some smaller ones.
Serving in military does not give one a certificate of something. Its a profession. Nobody is forced. Its for money, just like any other profession. Teachers, Cashiers, Servers, Firefighters are equally important. Nothing morally special about being you or family in military. Millions of racist bigots work in every country's military, thinking themselves as Patriots, but infact are just racist.
Also to be clear, I’m not super pro BJP or anyone. I’m pro competence. I’m certainly not pro some of the nonsense that the various state BJP governments pull, including the past beef related hysteria.
Modi himself is not pro that nonsense as he has mentioned more than once. However, to govern he does need to create a big tent. Beef ban vs 15% of Indian women legally treated as chattel. Which battle would you prioritize?
As far as India doing better under Manmohan Singh? I like Manmohan Singh. I think if he actually had freedom to act rather than being a puppet he would have done really well. But frankly, in terms of how the country did it’s not even close. And if the Congress won again, you wouldn’t get Manmohan Singh. You’d get Rahul or Kamal Nath.
I don't understand how banning beef has anything to do with Indian women being treated as chattel.
You can prevent the latter without dictating my food habits. Also, if you're so intent on saving the cow, why is India still the world's largest exporter of beef? Because banning exports of beef will hurt the corporate masters who fund the BJP.
Exactly, many of the beef factory owners are BJP members or Supporters. It should be simple to rule, provide safety, & quality of life, but dont dictate what to eat or wear or marry or sing or dance. As long as its not a defined crime, people should be able to decide if they want to eat beef or celebrate valentine.
>You can't even compare Biden Support to modi Supporters. Biden won fair & square
So did Modi. His victory in elections was accepted by all his rivals as fair and square.
> But Modi's rule is dictatorship.
How is it a dictatorship? Modi won fair and square in an election conceded by all his rivals. If you don't like him, then vote him out. If you cannot vote him out, then you can claim to it being a dictatorship.
But you can go and vote him out. And sorry, the majority of the country not accepting your views to vote him out is democracy, not dictatorship.
You are correct that Modi won popular vote. But this one chancellor who is rather a poster child of being a bad boy won his election too. Note also the fact that only about 50% of the people exercised their vote so there is a large fraction who aren't that enthused about Modi
So you are claiming that the video in the comment above is fake? That the sword was photoshopped in as part of a misinformation exercise? If you are claiming this, then it sounds something straight out of an Indian QAnon conspiracy theory.
> I have family there so I can confirm.
I happen to live there myself. So I can confirm that these sword wielding protesters were attacking policemen armed with sticks (Indian policemen are not armed with lethal weapons). I saw this happening from my own window with my own eyes.
Can you provide some sources on how RSS is the nazi model. Or is this all based on just one paragraph from 1938 (before it all happened) in one of the books? Subhash chandra Bose met hitler and asked for help against the British rule, is he a nazi now?
Would love some sources for RSS goons beating up a protester or activist. Mind you RSS and not some random goony org off the street.
No, thanks. I am not interested in helping you whitewash their history. It is common public knowledge that the founders of RSS were an admirer of Hitler and his party. (And they still continue to admire and glorify Hitler). The RSS is also a thrice banned terrorist organization whose members are involved in various communal riots and also assassinated Gandhi.
And no, Subhash Chandra Bose is not a Nazi because he didn't embrace their ideology. He was a secular and left-leaning revolutionary who believed that the British could only be overthrown by violence and revolution, and thus relied on the opportunist political maxim that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"to ally with Germany and Japan. While an inspiring figure in indian politics and its freedom movement, his politics was ultimately foolish, as the Japanese occupation of some parts of India, with his army's support, highlighted - the imperial army of Japan considered us as second-class citizens, as did the Nazis, and showed it with the brutality against the indian citizens in the occupied territories.
Yes, why counter with facts when you can say it’s just “common knowledge”. I will not try to talk you out of your beliefs. But I can assure you from first hand extensive experience, RSS is not “nazi”.
You are making extraordinary claims at least specify one “admiring and continue to admire” source.
“If we Hindus grow stronger, Muslim friends … will have to play the part of German Jews” -- Golwalkar, Father of RSS
"To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." -- same guy in his book "We -- Our Nationhood Defined"
These quotes are indeed common knowledge and easy to find.
It's easier for westerners to understand. Within India the popular term for them is now Sanghis (for Hindu religious fundamentalists) and MuSanghis (for muslim religious fundamentalists).
From RSSs role in the MK Gandhi's assassination, Gujrat's riots, to the Samjhauta Express bombings, Ajmer Dargah attacks, to the cow vigilatelism, beating up couples at valentine's day - the list is pretty long to consider RSS as Religious terrorists.
Given your knowledge in these matters I am sure you know that Bajrang Dal is part of the RSS ideology in the sense its part of the Jan Sangh. That you chose to ignore that makes me doubt the degree of good faith in your question. You are just trying to poison and cloud the discourse.
OP mentioned RSS as terrorists because their members did violent acts. Now i know a religion whose members are usually involved in terrorists acts. We don't label them as terrorists as it should be.
So tell me. Are you consistent with you beliefs on labeling groups?
That's pretty much all the government cosy media does -- handing out certificates about who is patriotic and who is not.
If members does an act in the name of an org and that is against the values of the organization. Its for the organization to clarify that their values do not match with the cations taken by these group. This is what the farmer protester groups did when violence occurred. This what they did when cell towers were vandalized.
The RSS on the other hand has stayed mum which in normal course of action will be and is taken as tacit support. Of course I don't read all of RSS's press releases. If you have pointers to RSS official press releases where they have condemned specific attacks I would be very interested to read.
> Are you labeling a religion as terrorist because of some of its people
You are just trying to avoid answering the question by adding extraneous and irrelevant diversions. Sorry wont bite your bait. BTW I was not aware that RSS is a religion.
This much I am willing to claim -- RSS is a silent approver of right wing acts of violence starting all the way from Gandhi's assassination to more contemporaneous cow slaughter related lynchings.
Unlike the farmer protests that have distanced itself from acts of violence and vandalism I am unaware that RSS has done that for the violence that has engulfed India in this govt, but am willing to be convinced otherwise.
The spokesmen of the government have frequently branded the entire protest and Khalistani and Pakistani. I am very tickled that you seem to be outraged not by the act of the government which has real implications but on the comment someone made on the internet. That might be quite indicative of where your sympathies lie.
I did not event bait you. I was replying to OP and you inserted yourself.
You got yourself tangled because you could not honestly answer the question. Since you became aware you are not consistent.
See OP mentioned RSS as Religious terrorists because of its members. So to the logical conclusion Hindus are terrorists because of its has organizations like RSS/Guj riots involved in it. So you just called a million Hindus terrorists. Anyway whatever makes you happy.
Yeah keep spreading lies if it helps. It really shows you and those that you support in revealing light.
This is very good because these chats and their logic is public and for all to see and make their own judgements. Thanks for making my job easier.
Pray enlighten me where I have been inconsistent without shoving your words on my mouth, and where I have called a million Hindus a terrorist.
You remind me of Sambit Patra the BJP spokesperson who was asked about the number of zeros that are in trillion when he was going on and on about Indias trillion rupees economy. All this Patra could respond with is invective that the person who asked the question should go and ask Rahul Gandhi -- a cheap rhetorical device used to clutch at straws when one does not have substance to offer.
This is very good because these chats and their logic is public and for all to see and make their own judgements. Thanks for making my job easier. - that goes either way. All can see that you are trying to diverge the conversation instead of answering.
You refusal to answer the question indicates that you agree with it. Else its a simple answer.
Let me ask myself that question. Do you consider a group of people a terrorists simply because some members indulge in it. NO I DO NOT.
That's it man. No grand conspiracy. No name calling nothing. Why not a simple answer. All are inherently biased. But that should not deter us in calling out inconsistently.
Which question have I refused to answer ? I made quite clear where I stand as far as the RSS or the farmer protests are concerned. I will say that yet again, RSS has over its history been a silent approver of acts of violence refusing to distance itself from such acts. The farmer protests had sections, possibly govt sponsored, who indulged in violence. The farmer protest bodies have condemned these harshly and distanced themselves.
On the other hand you have not yet pointed out where I have called millions of Hindu a terrorist or where I have been inconsistent. Its you who called me names (that I consider millions of Hindu a terrorist)
Religious flamewar, nationalistic flamewar, ideological flamewar, personal attacks, and tit-for-tat spats like this one are all badly against the site guidelines and off topic here. We ban accounts that get into this kind of thing. Please don't, regardless of which side you're on or how right you feel it is. It's not what this site is for.
Too deep. I don't like deep comments since it usually means its going nowhere. But assuming you are sincere in your effort to answer the question(Which question I have refused to answer ? I made quite clear where I stand as far as the RSS or the farmer protests are concerned.).
So once again, OP(not you unless you are alt!) said that RSS are religious terrorists because of their activities. Now as as i know they have not denoted a bomb which killed hundreds. But maybe the term applies because of some of their other activities like lynching(Though this happens to Hindus as well, do we then consider the other party terrorist. No answer needed. There would hundreds of comments while you divert away from answering :)
Here goes. One last hurrah
So do i label group of people as terrorists because of some of its members. NO.
For you. You can fill in the blanks.
So do i label group of people as terrorists because of some of its members. __.
Religious flamewar, nationalistic flamewar, ideological flamewar, personal attacks, and tit-for-tat spats like this one are all badly against the site guidelines and off topic here. We ban accounts that get into this kind of thing. Please don't, regardless of which side you're on or how right you feel it is. It's not what this site is for.
Except that RSS is actually modeled after Italian fascism, and this is not a secret or anything. I was actually being literal there.
Moonje in 1931 went to Italy to learn from Mussolini about fascist organization and ideology, to use it for shaping RSS.
Here is a quote;
"“The Balilla institutions and the conception of the whole organisation have appealed to me most, though there is still not discipline and organisation of high order. The whole idea is conceived by Mussolini for the military regeneration of Italy. Italians, by nature, appear ease-loving and non-martial like the Indians generally. They have cultivated, like Indians, the work of peace and neglected the cultivation of the art of war. Mussolini saw the essential weakness of his country and conceived the idea of the Balilla organisation.... Nothing better could have been conceived for the military organisation of Italy.... The idea of fascism vividly brings out the conception of unity amongst people.... India and particularly Hindu India need some such institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus: so that the artificial distinction so much emphasised by the British of martial and non-martial classes amongst the Hindus may disappear. Our institution of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of Nagpur under Dr Hedgewar is of this kind, though quite independently conceived. I will spend the rest of my life in developing and extending this Institution of Dr Hedgewar all throughout the Maharashtra and other provinces.”
“ If anything the Indian media absolutely loves to troll and embarass the government, “...” I would suggest the media in India is far freer of government influence than the mainstream media in the United States”
This above argument is a joke. A good majority of the mainstream media in India are paid for and/or afraid of the current government. There is plenty to be said about this but I want to stick with farm bill issue.
You say: “ current farmer protests, they are demanding that minimum price supports not be removed.” That is not the demand. The demand is to ensure that these new trading places outside of the mandis support the minimum price. The minimum price is a not a law but these mandis do follow them especially since the government also procures crops from the farmers. The farmers fear that with non-government buyers entering the market they would be less incentivized to buy them at minimum price. There are couple of links below that go into more of the nuances of the bill and what the farmers fear.
These articles are precisely the kind of trolling a lot of Indian media does.
There is a law that authorizes the government to set an MSP. That is precisely all an actual piece of legislation should do. Governments and administrative bureaucracies need flexibility to function. The details in any sane government are worked out by administrative rule making which is constrained by other laws.
This authority is used by the government and has been used by the government to set an MSP every year for 70 years with the MSP constrained by other legislation that also constrains other budgetary activity.
Or do you think instead parliament should instead figure out the MSP for 2050 now or maybe have a legislative session including a massive lobbying free for all by the buyers and sellers every year. I’d rather have the MSPs set in a rule based fashion with some limited and rarely used discretionary authority to change the rule based levels as is the case under the law now.
Under the law, all parties have to abide by the MSP, period and in any event even if they didn’t, which they have to do, the farmers can get the MSP at the mandis and directly from government buyers. Why protest? If the new buyers won’t pay up, don’t sell to them.
Have you ever in the history of the world, heard of any bona-fide business person acting in good faith, protesting a new buyer, who was previously prevented from buying their product by legislation, entering the market? The actual farmers, the vast silent majority, are, if anything happy to see this happen.
First one is giving the freedom to sell produce anywhere instead of designated grain markets. Sounds good? Until you realise that Grain Markets Officials were there kind of observers (at least in the spirit of law). Now Companies with teams of lawyers can deal directly with illiterate of private farmers. the las specifically gives only DM as highest arbiter in event of disagreement.
Second one is giving freedom to store produce as much as one wants. Sounds good on paper until you realise most of the produce (wheat, rice, veggies, anything) need special environment to store. Which private farmers lack & only Adani Ambani have access to those modernized silos. Guess who is going to buy it cheaply at harvesting season & then store it for months/years & release the produce to market to maintain the artificial scarcity? Sounds similar to modern diamond industry.
Third One, removing the MSP, Minimum Support Price. Anybody can pay as high as they want to buy the produce in open market. Ambani gave free 1GB internet for two years to drive out the competition in mobile network market. Its a known business plan in SV to bleed money to drive other competitors out. Ambani's competitors are small scale flour mills, shop owners, contartors, small scale sellers. Guess who will be out of business in 2-x years by Ambani's unlimited money & guvernment support?
If you think teams of lawyers are fleecing illiterate farmers, start a company and go buy produce from the farmers for 10% more. Nothing stops you from doing so. If you think the the private buyers won't honor MSPs, setup an NGO or file public interest litigation.
Do you realize how many inefficiencies are caused by pre-Independence and 1960s rules around how much food you can buy and store? Again, if you think they are cornering the market, buy or build a grain silo and compete.
India has the absolute lowest costs of mobile service in the world today. Jio remains the cheapest option in India and in my experience has by far the best service. Jio no longer offers free service but it's still cheaper than anyone else and is almost an order of magnitude cheaper than the prices offered by legacy mobile companies when they came on the scene. How exactly is Jio fleecing consumers?
Why shouldn't a better, cheaper service drive out the old players who can't compete at the same level? That's how market economies should work.
So do you expect to send the army in in Punjab like 1990s Kashmir? Why was Modi’s handpicked LTG Murmu suddenly transferred when he came out in favor of restoring 4G? You have to have a plan to restore it, even your SC says so, you can’t just gazette new ordinance every day and do “the beatings will continue until morale improves”
In a democratic country, if you want to change policy you need to get elected. If you are a civil servant, you can advise but if the elected decision makers decide otherwise you either execute the orders or you resign. Allowing someone who refused to execute legal orders and who publicly expressed dissent to be transferred in this situation is actually recognition that healthy debate is good and speaking out in a democracy should not be punished, particular when the dissenter is an otherwise extremely competent individual working in the best interests of the country. It's certainly not something an authoritarian would do. However, elections have consequences. In the elections in question, twice, a majority of the supposedly oppressed group, Indian Muslims, has voted for the current government. Unless of course you believe that female Muslims or those male Muslims who want to live in the 21st century shouldn't count.
The Supreme Court determined that as a general matter communications should not be restricted and that any ordinance to restrict communications needed to be on the basis of a determination that restrictions were needed that was reaffirmed periodically. The Supreme Court could have required the government to restore mobile access to Kashmir as of a specific date and the government would have been compelled to do so. They didn't, because the Supreme Court of India like most of the silent majority in India understands that a citizen's rights only exist so long as the State itself exists. All rights can be suspended in an emergency. A bill of rights is not a suicide pact.
The restrictions are not a restriction on any individual or group. They are a restriction on a geographic area. The majority of state citizens of Kashmir, certainly a majority of the residents and descendants of residents of Kashmir in the 1970s, today resides outside Kashmir. Most left due to terrorism. There are no restrictions on them, no matter their religion or political beliefs. Remember, there are areas in the US where no radio transmissions are allowed[1]. If you reside in Kashmir today, you are free to travel outside the state. If you do travel outside, you can use your mobile phone to your heart's content. If you aren't a resident of Kashmir and you travel to Kashmir, no matter your religion, ethnicity or other grouping, you can't use a mobile phone while there.
>because the Supreme Court of India like most of the silent majority in India understands that a citizen's rights only exist so long as the State itself exists.
There is basic structure doctrine, no? Otherwise why not just have Emergency again
> The majority of state citizens of Kashmir, certainly a majority of the residents and descendants of residents of Kashmir in the 1970s, today resides outside Kashmir. Most left due to terrorism.
No, all Kashmiris are state subjects. However virtually all pandits, about 40% of the population in 1970 and about 35% of other Kashmiris have left the state and that is a majority. Kashmir, the state is a pretty big place. It’s not just the valley.
Now you're telling me Pandits went from 40% in 1970 to 5% before 1990? Did Dogras in Jammu become Pandits now? Are you talking about Ladakh being hived off?
Hmm. Only in BJP Math Classes 40% out of 100% is a Majority, & 60% rest are minority. Because 40% is Hindu, & 60% is non hindu. All citizens are equal, but every Hindu is more equal than non hindu.
the hindu reports only 19 pandits were killed
> A total number of 38,119 families comprising 1,42,042 Kashmiri migrants were registered with the Revenue and Relief Ministry till now.
No No, you are a Sikh, so you will have value when they need to show off that they are a pluralistic country to the west.
I mean the BJP government passed a law that said "we will allow citizenship for minorities who are of all religions, except Tibetans and Muslims" Then in the next breath talk about how this is not targeting a specific religion.
I really do hope people argue the case, because at least for external observers the hypocrisy is clear.
No, they said all people who are ALREADY here (on it before 2014) and were promised protection and citizenship at the time of partition will have that promise fulfilled. Everybody and people of all kinds get citizenship using the same rule as before, there are no bans or changes.
You know, it's funny, then someone brings up Hazaras or Ahmedis and it's like that scene in Baadshah where the clock strikes 13:30 (not trying to invoke any baara baj gaye stereotypes by stealth sorry in advance)
> The Act only codifies into law commitments the Indian Government made when India split into India and Pakistan.
(Disclaimer: not an expert) As far as I understand it, the specific thing that is problematic is that the rule discriminates by religion. The original agreement did not, and even if it did, why would you want to take a policy enacted half a century ago and implement it unchanged without revising it to be less prejudicial?
To explain why the ACA was needed you first need to understand some history and facts on the ground.
Pre 1947, India was all of modern day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Afghanistan. When the country was partitioned, it was partitioned into Pakistan (modern day Pakistan and Bangladesh) which was set up as an explicitly Muslim nation with a state religion and an explicitly secular India which welcomed all religions. There was a massive migration of people which was extremely violent. It would not be exaggeration to call it a holocaust. Neighbors joined mobs and killed neighbors of the wrong religion, entire trains were burned. There was plenty of violence on both sides of the new border. As this violence was stopped, Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah made an appeal to people to stop leaving because the more people that left and hence abandoned businesses and jobs, the more the economy was hurt. As part of this appeal a promise was made that any Muslim who wanted to migrate to Pakistan at a later date would be permitted to do so and be treated as if he or she had migrated at that time and any non-Muslim who wanted to migrate to India would be treated the same in India. The promise was further voted on and approved by a precursor to the constituent assembly of India which setup the constitution.
As it turns out, at the end of the day, virtually all non-Muslims who lived in modern Pakistan left for India. Lahore, a city in modern Pakistan was 50% Hindu, 20% Sikh in 1945. Today it's 99% Muslim. In contrast more Muslims live in India today than in Pakistan. What this means in practice is that the non-Muslims who chose to remain in Pakistan were the ones who were relatively wealthy and/or powerful and often individuals with large businesses who decided not to leave due to a combination of wanting to protect their assets and a reliance on the promises made in case things change. As the years went on, many of these individuals wanted to get the hell out of Pakistan so they liquidated their property and came to India, often with large amounts of liquid assets. Now, if you are an enterprising, corrupt immigration official, they were great targets and they would often end up having to pay material percentages of their assets as bribes. These individuals have a further problem. Unlike Muslim refugees from Pakistan, when they left Pakistan, their Pakistani citizenship would be revoked so they were stateless and desperate. The ACA was primarily designed to solve this problem.
India has taken in and continues to take in plenty of Muslim refugees, far more than the US or the EU takes in. There is a recognition that the Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from India are to this date discriminated against in Pakistan as Mojahirs, entire sects of Islam like the Ahmadis, who choose not to ascribe to the harsh interpretation of Islam are classified as non-Muslim and then have to deal with frankly ridiculous treatment. However, when these refugees come to India, they are typically destitute. So there is no incentive to bother them to try and get them to cough up bribes. As a result there was no problem to solve.
Could something different have been done? Sure. But legislatures are sausage factories. The government needed to ensure that it had the votes for legislation that made it easier to immigrate from a country which has sent terrorists to India and taken over a major city and killed hundreds of people there and attacked parliament. And this legislation solved the actual problem and got passed. You can't let the perfect, particularly when the so called perfection is mostly cosmetic, be the enemy of the good.
Again, any refugee from anywhere in the world, of any religion can seek asylum in India. It's fairly straightforward to be allowed to live and work in India, far easier than anywhere in the West, no matter your religion or background. Refugees can get Indian citizenship by following a series of steps, typically in 12-14 years. The ACA does not change any of this. The ACA simply gives affect to the promise made in 1947 which was also voted on by the constituent assembly and is hence binding on Parliament that non Muslims who did not emigrate at that time from certain areas would be treated as if they had emigrated at that time if they emigrated at a later date. It creates a process by which these individuals, who still have to go through the same security checks etc as any other refugee from Pakistan can get citizenship in 5 years. Rather than getting permanent residence in 5 years, while still being stateless, they are granted Indian citizenship.
You do realize you are talking to someone with Ahmedi parents married in Rabwah whose forefathers belonged to Qadian? I never heard anything about CAB helping them. (and by the way, you spelled Mohajir wrong)
This is utterly incorrect. Indian press freedom itself dropped to 142, down from 136 in 2016.
It is a known fact that a majority of Indian channels are now completely beholden to the government.
Finally - the laws in question include a clause that prohibits access to courts for anyone with a dispute. Even people not affected by the laws are not allowed to bring a public interest suit to the courts.
The Indian courts are slow and bad. The Indian farm sector needs reform.
These are not those reforms, and this governments track record on execution of complex economics is terrifying.
It’s sad since the majority of the protest was peaceful. There’s even the usual sorry state where reporters actively told camera men to stop rolling when they accidentally captured police caning protestors.
The capitol insurrection angle is also a new line being tested in the media for consumption.
Ah yes, when we can't demonize them as minorities, or reflect on the largely peaceful protest, we return to "who will think of the ~~busses~~ I mean telecom towers!"
The ones owned by a company that has a lot to gain from these remarkable laws! I mean, property damage is a stones throw too far, given that the government has listened and responded, and created laws which don't remove access to courts for anyone with a dispute.
But yes, any violence to property is truly abhorrent. Incidentally, I am pro agri reform. I would never trust this government to execute anything though. Seriously, a bill which removes your right to legal recourse? Your only succor a tribunal run by the ministry?
Even then, they are not trying to redo the bills, they simply want to push it off to a later date.
To be honest I do hope everything they want passes, and that everyone who voted for them stays behind in the glorious country. I suspect there is no other way that the mechanistic, command and control mindset prevalent throughout the country will removed.
So sometimes the courts are corrupt and dancing to the tune of the industrialist or it’s the beacon of justice, when convenient? Sometimes in the same argument? I do agree though that clause was asinine.
Even if reliance gets to benefit, is the farmer being harmed for it? Poor farmer has a lot to gain from this bill. They get supply of funds right from by muting seeds and fertilisers to having assured income. Just paint the “industrialist” as the monster and destroy away?
What exactly are the demands of this protest? They seem to have changed a lot from the start. What about protesting when something actually has gone wrong and you can actually point to a loss?
> Even if reliance gets to benefit, is the farmer being harmed for it? Poor farmer has a lot to gain from this bill. They get supply of funds right from by muting seeds and fertilisers to having assured income. Just paint the “industrialist” as the monster and destroy away?
Do you miss out on the huge number of HN discussions talking about the damaging effects of monopolization by BigTech players? Now imagine if you're a farmer who can only sell to 1 of 2 conglomerates, both led by big shot industrialists with ties to the govt (which will also run the arbitration tribunal). So much "free market" right?
Mandi is a designated physical space, market, where any buyer & seller can transact; & government mandi officials will record & observe all transactions for data logging, & to keep the issues away. Nobody has monopoly, anybody can come & buy. Think of it as a kind of transaction between a craigslist buyer & seller at local police station.
If buyer & seller trust each other, like between my family & farmers in out village, we used to buy the produce directly from their home.
The mandi system is a monopoly in the markets space, where buyers and sellers have only one place to do commerce. Ambani, Tata and Adani would be a monopoly in the buyers space. Big difference.
You might be misunderstanding the US capitol outrage. It wasn't that people brandished weapons or killed each other - that's bad, and everyone wants it to stop, but it does sometimes happen.
The problem was that the Capitol was invaded while the Senate was in session, which made a bunch of lawmakers feel personally threatened. And when rich politically-connected people fear for their own safety, you'd better watch out.
Anyways, protests attack cops and cops attack protests in the US...oh, every few months? Such is life.
Even if this were actually true at larger scale (than at most a few isolated cases played up), the comparison of the righteous anger of starving farmers with that of propaganda-fed Americans is not really helpful.
If you’re someone outside India, please write to your representatives (or organize something) on matters like Internet access being cut off. We live in an age where this can be a matter of life and death.
It is standard practice in India to cut off Internet access in places where there are riots or riots expected to happen or for some nebulous “national security” concern. In fact, India tops the list of countries with the most Internet shutdowns in the last few years (you can check this out online).
In one state (where wired broadband penetration is quite low), mobile Internet access was disabled for several months even during the pandemic!
The government and its law enforcement agencies do not know of other ways to handle these and resort to more of a “control and crush” mode.
Maybe certain circumstances lead to certain decisions. What’s more shocking is that there’s no transparency on why access is blocked, who got it done, when the block will be lifted (and for what reasons). A democracy cannot thrive when the ruling powers along with law enforcement hold everything as a secret and don’t appreciate questions from the citizens.
It’s sad to see India becoming more closed and authoritarian.
Internet Freedom Foundation (https://internetfreedom.in) fights for digital rights in India. Follow and support it.
You missed out to mention the fact that the protesters first destroyed the cell towers and stole the generators and are now complaining about the internet being cut.
You missed out to mention that the cell towers were destroyed in punjab last month. I don't know what this has to do with internet being shut off in delhi
Yes some towers are shared, but that would be irrelevant if the targets of vandalism weren't. No other carrier other than Jio and Reliance have made a large noise about damages to their infrastructure. This makes me believe that the other carriers were not affected.
In any case the farmer protests have distanced themselves from such acts of vandalism and openly criticized them.
You failed (conveniently or not) to mention that that cell tower damage was in Punjab, about 350 kilometers away from the current protest site. Nobody stole the generators, but yes, the wires were cut.
> No cell tower == no cell service == no internet.
Are you implying that this internet shutdown in Delhi protest area has nothing to do with Government Orders?
No, first the towers in Punjab were attacked and when the company refused to replace the tower and cut service. The towers in Delhi was also attacked as protest. Jio is demanding compensation to replace the towers.
It's no cheap to replace a tower and someone has to pay up. The Govt has declined to pay for the tower. The protestors have blamed it on some rouge elements that infiltrated the protest. Some towers were managed by ZTE or some related Chinese entity that is also stuck in a limbo due to the Chinese ban and now they are seeking compensation for damaged towers as a way to recoupe their investments. Which is another reason why Govt wants to break this trend of paying for towers damaged by the protesters.
Ofcourse, none of this news can be authenticated. There are also claims that cell service was blocked in Delhi for the protestors as retaliation for destroying the towers in Punjab by the protestors. As the towers damaged in Delhi seems to collateral to the protest commotions rather than targeted attacks and less in numbers.
Would love to see a news source about tower damage in Delhi.
Even then, there are Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone (?) & some others too. Not every tower is shared. & private property damaged by any mob is I think never paid by government (that would take like million years). Most of this is insured.
I still believe that this was just a blackout ordered by Government. Same way it has ordered porn sites ban, & many other blackouts. I remember in 2018 my district in Punjab was blacked out of any network for 3 days, & when we drove across Satluj to Ludhiana, all networks were fine.
The current thing happening delhi is similar to the Occupy Capitol a few weeks ago. Of course this violence needs to be stopped, I mean it's the capital for gods sake.
India is not losing its freedom, but with the amount of population and rumour mongering on whatsapp/social media tamping down on the internet sometimes is necessary. Earlier before data become ubqiquitous, they used to clamp down on SMS.
Capitol Hill, a leader did a conference, & then followers had intentions to change the result of election (rightly or not).
Delhi Protest, nobody was even talking about any election results, there was no elections, there was no intentions or talks about changing the power to different hands/party/leader.
Only Extremist Hindus are not losing any freedom. All Other religions, castes, minorities, poor people are under constant attack in this BJP Rule, be it Beef Lynching, Cow Transporter Lynching, Valentine Beatings, CAA, NRC, JNU, Kashmir & many others.
I do not like shutting of Internet in any area but I am not the one responsible for maintaining law and order. Additionally, in the age of e2e apps, it becomes quite difficult to find the real perpetrators.
I completely agree with you. Some of us who are not in agreement with the parent comment are being downvoted. HN is a propaganda machine now. It's not a platform for debate anymore.
> Agriculture employs about half of India's 1.3 billion population
I am not familiar with politics in India, so my question is: how does the BJP manage to push laws that (seem to) adversly affect the interest of half of the population? Isn't that political suicide for the BJP?
They've become arrogant and seem to be of the opinion that their populist support, communal propaganda and sway on media channels is enough to counter any resistance they may receive.
This is a highly uneducated comment, Reliance is like Vodafone or O2, EE or 3G, they own mobile networks, can you imagine Vodafone going into farming LOL.
I believe you are uneducated. Not sure if you know or pretending to be ignorant - Reliance is a conglomerate. They are into a ton of businesses including Oil Refineries, Retail etc. What does Vodafone have to do with them?
> There was monopolies of mandis(farmer are restricted only to sell here) now government allows them to make contract or sell anywhere.
This is factually incorrect [1]. Only about 30% [2] of produce is sold in mandis.
Any anti-mandi law is essentially an anti-farmer law; because mandis act as a safety net for farmers. No farmer can negotiate good deals with big corp, and once the buyer side is monopolized (ala Jio); the farmer is forced into bad contracts. What the government should do is implement mandi reforms.
This is assuming that Mandis work as expected which is not always true. In reality, there is corruption and gaming the system. While these laws to incentivise alternative markets, they do not abolish Mandis.
I never claimed that they always work as expected. That is not an excuse to do away with them.
As for the shtick that they will not abolish mandis, that is already demonstrably untrue [1]. It is trivial to observe that big corp will utterly destroy them and then coerce farmers into bad contracts when they have no alternative.
As for your argument that the "free market" will improve the situation, for the record, it has been done before and has miserably failed. [2]
For posterity, I would recommend that you don't cite sources that are essentially blog posts with zero data or theory. I might as well cite the Communist Manifesto then. There is actual serious work on this matter.
The scenarios you cited may show that private Mandis are bad at protecting farmers but they do not involve big corps who have the capital to build storage facilities and facilitate farmers with farm related activities. So how did you conclude "big corp" will destroy farmers with this laws?
There's way too much nuance here than what your post suggests. Your post is a theoretical evaluation of the new laws, without looking at the on-the-ground happenings or the fallout effects from the new laws. Granted, the old mandi system is extremely broken, but the new laws aren't any much better. On the contrary, they facilitate the gradual takeover of control from the APMCs to government-tied cronies. These farmers already know it (and aren't "uneducated" as the Indian farmer trope goes) and they saw through the government ploy pretty much.
They stoke communal sentiments, pit Hindus vs Muslims, make it seem like the minorities are out to destroy the Hindus, and a vast majority of the population just laps it up.
They have a giant misinformation network, which has recruited everybody from bots to popular actors to popular sportspeople and they spread out misinformation in a highly organized manner. Very effective at spreading FUD which translates into votes come election time.
Even now, on Twitter and Reddit you'll find thousands of posts about how the protesting farmers are khalistani terrorists.
Goebbels would be proud of what the BJP have accomplished.
Doesn't help that the opposite party, Indian National Congress, is still reliant on old outdated minority appeasement tactics.
Both parties are guilty of spreading misinformation, but now-ruling party encashed the majority votebank first, and almost controls the popular narrative. Moreover INC doesn't have promising leadership, they are mostly exploited by Nehru-Gandhi family.
In most demographics, majority of people are conservative and it's just matter of time someone exploits it.
Modi's BJP is a power hungry party unlike anything I have seen. I doubt they care about anything (nation, economy, welfare).
The way it has been going on is that government announces something or passes some bill because they have to do something on a particular topic (say black money, taxes, Covid). However, they are incompetent or don't have the willingness or interest in actually carrying it out. So, these changes turn out to be catastrophic. They take toll on economy as well as anyone impacted because of the decision making.
Agriculture reforms are much needed in India. However, the government did it in hurry by-passing rules and without consulting farmers. I guess, they just want to do something so that they can let the marketing take care of the rest (that the goverment has done something for farmers - doesn't matter what or irrespective of whether it really helps them).
With these bills, the concern is that it will let private players take over and exploit farmers because of insufficient provisions to take care of farmers' interest. And then nobody will care (very much a risk because no one raises voice of oppressed which might show government in bad light because of the sold-out media). And the government will push narrative that they did the "reforms" (backed by fake data which is a hallmark of this government).
> Agriculture reforms are much needed in India. However, the government did it in hurry by-passing rules and without consulting farmers
That is false. These reforms are decades in the making with just about everyone opposing these laws now had advocated for it. Case in point, take a look at this tweet from BKU (the union leading these protests) - https://twitter.com/BKU_KisanUnion/status/110167401066691379...
In the above tweet, the farmers union is demanding that these vert farms laws should be implemented. Then after the government did that, they started protesting what they were demanding in the first place. And this is not the only incident.
So how come everyone demanding these laws is now protesting against the same laws? Common sense would dictate that the protests are not due to these laws. They are political in nature, where these laws are used as a shield to help legitimise these protests
Quite strikingly, the BJP government in power has been unable to produce a shred of evidence -- minutes, paper work etc of any of the purported meetings they claim they had with the farmer organizations. There has been RTI requests (its the Indian analogue of FOIA) for these and the government has been unable to put forth any supporting evidence.
Even RSS (BJP cadres) affliated BKS questioned why the bills were passed in hurry.
They suggested changes to the bill and commented - "We have serious doubts whether the current bills will serve any purpose to the farmers and it appears more of a tool for the buyers rather than the farmers."
I don't believe that the protestors have a moral high ground in this particular case. Many of them receive free electricity and all of them don't pay any taxes (no matter how much they earn). In states like Punjab, the farmers have entered a vicious cycle where they keep planting water-hungry crops like wheat and rice due to the Minimum Support Price that they get on those (the water table in this region is in danger). Plus these protestors are also against the laws that fine farmers for burning the stubble after harvest (which results in the infamous Delhi smog every winter).
Basically, it's a fight between two groups with vested interests.
This is not correct information that the new laws adversely affect the interest of farmers.
It hampers the middleman more than the actual farmers. North part of India has two states which have significant contribution to farming in India - Punjab and Haryana.
New laws allow the farm owner to directly sell the crop to the corporate without any middleman. In the above two states the trade is tightly controlled by middlemen. Hence the issue. In other states, very few people are protesting.
the same farmers will vote for BJP come election time, because Hindutva. Indian voters are increasingly single issue voters and the issue here is just religious fundamentalism.
Despite every misstep that BJP has taken, every economic blunder they have made and widespread increase in authoritarianism, its popularity has only risen.
One of the vilest BJP leaders, Ajay Bisht, who rules UP - one of the most backwards state in India is expected to be one of the upcoming PM candidates for the next election.
It doesn't matters he has made Up into a bigger hellhole, but because he is a "yogi" (saint/ one who does Yoga), he is BJP's posterchild and one of its most popular leaders.
The short answer is that the new laws benefit some farmers and burden others.
You'll notice that the protestors are mostly from Punjab - the BJP did not win in Punjab, so they don't have much to lose there by helping other farmers at the cost of Punjabi farmers. The previous system was more favorable to Punjab's farmers.
Modi first leader with majority in 30 years + populism + compliant media, i.e. generational opportunity to get things done. Regardless of how one feels about Modi + BJP he has power to push through big reforms despite dysfunctional nature of democracy at India scale. Whether intention is genuine or results are productive is another matter. IMO things will get messier until March, farmers incentivized to return to fields to work. Farmers also only bloc large enough to make Modi blink.
They counter for it pulling on religion and hyper-nationalistic views like banning beef, uniform civil laws (even though almost each religion has their own including Hindus).
Pre-independence, during the Zamindar System (Indian version of Feudalism). The Zamindar owned the land and the farmers worked on it and the Zamindar compensated them what he felt like. The farmers had no leverage to bargain and was pretty much the salve of the Zamindar. This was the Indian version of slaves.
Similarly after the Independence, the Zamindar System was abolished. But a market yards (mandis) system came up, here the farmer either owns the land or rents out the land from someone. But can ONLY sell the produce to the local Mandi. The Mandi has the upper-hand in deciding the prices and the farmer cannot negotiate as no one else is allowed to buy it from the farmer. The Mandi effectively became a new/mutated (keeping up with the Covid times ;)) version of Zamindar aka Feudalism. The farmers are still technically slaves of the Mandi.
As per the new law, the farmer has to right to sell the produce to ANYONE, including the Mandi. So, the Mandi can quote the price and if anyone bids a higher price, they can get it. If need be, me as a consumer can buy directly and legally from the farmer.
As for the minimum price protection, the mandi does offer that service and that service will continue as per the current system if you agree to sell to the Mandi. But in many states, the state government offers an insurance were the farmer can enroll in it and if the crop is damaged due to weather or locust (like it happened recently) or failed to get a promised minimum price, the farmer will be compensated.
In the state of Tamil Nadu (couple of relatives are involved in farming there), this insurance/financing is done via the Banks. At each stage, the bank gives money for buying manure & seeds. Basically you can take a loan from the bank to do agriculture and if it fails or you dont get the minimum promised price, the loan is written off. So, the farmer can do the agriculture without spending any money from their own pockets and in case of loss, the bank writes off the loan.
There are similar systems in various states, because of the Mandis there is no competition and the state govt & Mandis and do what they feel like. Now with the new law, the Mandis are facing competition. Basically they opened a protected market to competition.
As you asked, the BJP is pushing to implement this law in an Agrarian country like India is because they know that the majority needs this law and they can use this to get votes in the next election.
Right now the whole protest is from the single state of Punjab where you have the oldest and the richest Mandis. You cannot blame the Mandis for getting upset in damaging their business.
Plus states like Kerala with very low farming and they don't have a mandi system but is ruled by the communist party is just sending their party workers to protest, just because they dont want the BJP to succeed. Their opposition is to the party that is implementing the change and not the law. That is the same case with most of the opposition.
To me, this is like the horse traders protesting when the Automobile came out or the coin-operated telephone people protesting when mobiles came about or like the fossil fuel industry crying about the advent of Solar & renewal energy.
Once the mandis are gone, what prevents a monopolized market from then strong-arming farmers into bad deals? Farmers do not have leverage to negotiate good deals with big corps, and when the mandis eventually die away (simply due to this bill); they will be forced to enter into exploitative deals.
EDIT
> But can ONLY sell the produce to the local Mandi.
This is factually incorrect. Only about 30% of produce is sold in mandis. [1] [2]
I'm not sure if the Indian government does this, but in some countries the government breaks up monopolies and tries to prevent them from forming in the first place.
I think the new laws allow anyone to approach a farmer with a better deal, and if the farmer chooses, they can even try to sell directly to the end customers.
Indeed. I am against these laws because there are no such safeguards. In fact these laws take away the right to approach the courts in case of a dispute. Previously the state government could conduct raids in case hoarding of supplies were indicated. According to these laws the state governments cannot do that on the basis of rising prices till the scarcity pushes the price up by another 100%.
Agri needs reform, but that does not mean that the proposed ones are what is needed.
The Indian government actively colludes with big corp; forget about breaking up monopolies (see: Jio).
As for the claim that the new laws allow anybody to approach a farmer with a better deal; sure that works in theory -- but notice that 1) that only works if there isn't a monopoly that drives prices (consider Jio that successfully monopolized telecom in India and now effectively sets prices throughout the industry) 2) farmers would be contractually obligated to sell produce (which would be a long-term deal).
The issue might be alleviated if the government promises to enforce a minimum price on all contracts made, but it will do nothing of that sort.
As for selling directly to end customers, in my limited knowledge, that is not a thing in India.
Jio is not a monopoly by any stretch of imagination. My family is entirely on Airtel. No one has felt the need to switch. Among all my friends, only one person uses Jio.
I linked you to Airtel's Indian telecom business, i.e. the business in direct competition to Jio. The document you linked to says it's about "Operations in 18 countries including India and Sri Lanka", offering many kinds of services unrelated to telecom.
> Bharti Airtel Services Limited (BASL) engages mainly in selling of hardware for internet and satellite business.
Also please do elaborate on what sources of revenue that Airtel has that cause its 300M in loss while (as you claim) it makes profits in their telecom?
"Bharti Airtel Services Ltd. provides telecommunication services. The Company offers mobile, voice, and data services, as well as fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, and DTH services. Bharti provides telecom solutions for enterprises and international long distance service carriers."
> Also please do elaborate on what sources of revenue that Airtel has that cause its 300M in loss
Not interested. The bottom line is that Bharti Airtel Services, the direct competitor of Jio, is making a profit, contrary to your beliefs. Jio is not a monopoly.
Where are the mandis going? If they are non-competitive, they are out. But if they lose their non-sense and compete, they can be around. Also, the people working at the Mandis (Mandi employees), they are also free to start their own company that compete with the Mandis.
> what prevents a monopolized market from then strong-arming farmers into bad deals?
This law, which prevents monolopy. The current monopoly is the Mandi. How will be farmers be strong-armed to a bad deal if they have options to choose?
> This is factually incorrect.
My mistake, "But can ONLY sell the produce to the local Mandi at some states". Punjab is an example of were Mandis have complete power. While in other states like TN, Bihar, MP, UP and more have already changed the rule.
> Only about 30% of produce is sold in mandis.
that is a bit misleading as Mandis dont have prominence is all states. But in Punjab where they are there, no one is allowed.
thanks bythckr for your detailed answer. I got a better understanding of the very fragmented nature of politics in India; Wishing you all the best, and I really hope that eventually the Indian model of governance will be regarded as superior over the Chinese model (which, unfortunately, has been gathering a lot of fans recently) I think that in a way both India and China are leading the way for the rest of us, because your countries have to cope with a very large number of people and very complex societies.
> Where are the mandis going? If they are non-competitive, they are out.
They would be non-competitive because of the no taxation clause that the bill has -- allowing big corp to undercut the mandis. Not to mention that corps are known to take losses just to establish market monopoly (see Jio).
> But in Punjab where they are there, no one is allowed.
I don't understand why you cite the mandi as a monopoly, when in the existing system a farmer can choose to sell anywhere they want?
Let the big corps procure from the farmers, at a "competitive price" as you say. Why should they deserve tax breaks?
The fact of the matter is that the mandi is desirable and has contributed to the material success of Punjab's farmers. There is no doubt that there are inefficiencies and leakages, but to do away with them in deference to the gods of the "free market" is a bit questionable. Unrelated quote: "the quality of public education might not be very good, but that doesn't mean we do away with it".
It's not clear if the laws do "adversly" affect interest of all farmers. The laws target APMC's monopsony which has been already diluted by many states, which means that farmers are not totally dependent on APMC. Hence in many areas farmers are largely indifferent and in certain are clearly supporting the laws[1]. In Punjab and Haryana, the mandatory procurement by FCI(regardless of the demand) and the APMC system works to its maximum efficiency[2]. Hence the large scale support there.
As always for any polarizing topic in India on which the current ruling party has strong opinions, it's better to disregard Indian media, since they always carry a biased, pro government narrative.
These laws will eventually reduce the hold of middlemen a lot. Most of the law is sane and progressive, but middlemen are fomenting unrest as the farmer can sell his produce in the open market with these new laws.
They have a committed support from 33% that gives them control of the levers of govt (because first-past-the-post multi-party system), many times using extra-constitutional means.
The short answer is that it does not adversely affect that large of a population. Approximately 80% of the farmers in India are not at all affected by these laws. And this is reflected in these "protests". There have been no large countrywide protests in India. All of the protests have been centred around Delhi. And most of the protesters are Sikh farmers from Punjab.
And even if the general populace had a feeling about this, it mostly turned negative after the shameful happenings on 26th January (India's Republic Day, the day the constitution of independent India was applied). These "protesters" carried out a raid similar to the US Capitol attack. And with that, any public support evaporated exactly like in the US
Guys, you need to understand what media is showing in india is not true, as it is controlled by Govt and corporates. Media publish picture guy raising sword, but not explaining why. Media didn’t publish pictures about events that lead to. Day before govt supporters warned that they will tomorrow unless they vacate the protest site. Next day even police barricade in the view of warning , still they let govt supporters in and local senator arranged trucks dump stone piles close by. Govt rioters move in start stone pelting and police watching , infact escorting them eventually inside the protest site and rioters strat damage. Meanwhile police also fire tear gas at protest site even protesters weren’t attacking back as they know govt want to provoke them. Eventually one of guy picked up sword to scare the roiters to save women and others. That’s it, 6-8 police and government supporters beat him with batten mercilessly, strip him and took him. I can add all pictures if this platform allows.
Continuing to below comment, media is doing govt propaganda to scare people as well so that they don’t come Delhi. People are relying on social media as news source, and mobile communication. That’s why govt suspended these services in nearby places. gGovt has been trying to uproot the protest, even Supereme court said protest is people’s right.
I flagged this post and many others related to India since it seems to attract the level of discourse which doesn't really belong in HN. There's a camps of extremely pro and anti government views that both twist facts to suit their agenda.
Please don't post political, nationalistic, or ideological flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, regardless of which side people are battling for or how right they feel it is.
I get what you are saying, but this was a submission on political protests and the government's somewhat repressive measures against it - so it is hard to discuss it without politics .... perhaps this submission should have been removed in and not allowed to gain traction in the first place? Can I flag such such submissions that have a political undertone?
It's not a question of discussing it without politics, but discussing it without flamewar. That may not be easy, because people quickly get angry and attack each other, but it's definitely doable, and that's the bar that political discussions on HN need to clear.
The question of how to moderate politics on HN is a complex one because political stories are mixed: some are on-topic and some are off-topic. We can't exclude them all, but we can't include them all either. It depends on which stories contain significant new information and can support curious conversation. For more about this, see https://hn.algolia.com/?query=political%20overlap%20by:dang&.... Some good places to start are these threads:
Just sharing my perspective here - I noticed that US political posts are actually better moderated here than other non-US ones.
I highlight this because one of the difficulty I often face as a user on foreign social media networks is that the foreign mods are unfamiliar with our country's history (political or otherwise).
And so I find they often resort to the easier way of just removing the posts that have the most complaints, without realising that this is also one of the strategies used by the online troll army to suppress genuine criticism (all the "flagging" that you see for such posts are often online brigading by the troll army abusing the reporting tools).
In other words, the controversy is manufactured for something that isn't really controversial, and the mods are forced to step in because of the controversy and remove many of the posts, which is actully one of their goals. You unknowingly help them.
(Unfortunately, I cannot also offer a practical solution to this).
Almost all India threads that mention the Indian government and the ruling BJP have supporters jumping in to support their party. I assume this happens a little more when the parties are extreme right/left wing.
They arrive via whatsapp groups asking members for support and a link. Soon enough the targeted sites end up being downvote/upvote bot parties unless there is strong moderation.
The media in India is muzzled similarly unless you do propaganda. Individuals online are equally bullied, muzzled, and in some cases killed. The country has currently imprisoned a stand up comedian for jokes "he might" make because he is not of the right religion.
You're saying that people are creating brand new HN accounts to support the Indian government? I don't see that. I looked at all the comments by green accounts in this thread:
I am saying that this is the trend on all threads that are critical of the Indian government and calls out its propaganda. It's either that or down votes.
It is difficult to call out bad behavior by government.
You won't get a reply. For presenting any evidence like that on /r/india you would be promptly get banned. These guys ruined /r/india it's now full of anti modi bhajan 24/7. The only reason I still stick with reddit is because of some technical subs like /r/programming. Now these people aren't leaving even hacker news.
r/India is an anti-Modi partisan sub. The last I checked they were expecting Biden administration to interfere in India's internal matters. Not a surprise since we still have a good number of Mir jaffers and Jai chands in the country. The unfortunate thing is that's the first place where foreign redditors will go whenever they want to see something India related.
All that aside, it's still a good place to see some meltdowns.
> Genocides arent an internal matter anymore. Sensible world governments usually put pressure on deviant administrations elsewhere.
I am tired of seeing these prof-less posts of genocide (and Jio/Ambani) being posted in every India related thread on HN. If you claim that there is a genocide going on, then please post proofs of the genocide. If a genocide in the remotest region of China can have proofs, then surely the ones in India do too?
Sadly the Indian govt passed the laws without taking opposition and farmers in confidence. They passed the law very bluntly. Thats from where all this started.
It's very simple thing to solve but current govt want to make it political. They are basically saying MSP(Minimum selling price) is not affected. But farmers protesting why you include this in bill.
But because of govt ego millions of farmers are protesting for their own livelihood.
The bill was public. It was debated for a while, and anyone could have read it during that period if they chose to. There was none of the here is a 5000 page bill and you must pass it in 2 hours or the economy goes under like happens in the US Congress. They not only took the farmers into confidence, they took the opinions of the farmers into consideration and amended the bill. Each individual substantive line item being demanded by the protesters is already included in the bill. The bill literally cannot harm any actual farmer. It will prevent certain bureaucrats and politicians from receiving bribes from the buyers of produce and as a result will likely increase what the farmers receive by the amount of the bribe paid. They can quite literally only get MORE for produce than they get now, the bill obligates the government to guarantee this.
I don't think a single HN submission does this topic justice but the fact that there are so many small farmers to begin with is strange.
It's highly inefficient. It would be better if they get a city job and let a big agriculture company take over. This would increase incomes on both sides.
Having many small players is not by itself inefficient. The inefficiencies come from lack of modernisation which is (in large part) a direct result of the stasis induced by the kind of government meddling that these farm bills are trying to reform.
> It was debated for a while, and anyone could have read it during that period if they chose to.
You are playing semantic games here. Please post the records of Rajya Sabha discussions and the Lok Sabha discussions (these are the houses of parliament in India). Then lets compare that with the process and volume of discussion of other laws that were passed (barring abrogation of article 370, demonetization, CAA/NRC were more or less the same methods of sneaking in a law were applied)
Would this be legal in the US? It's one thing for a private entity to choose to not extend services to someone, but for the government to censor communication channels, I hope this would not be legal in the US?
It would be completely legal in the US to cutoff those acting illegally. The US also regularly compels private entities to do so. Warrants, subpoenas, national security letters, and other such mechanisms are means to compel public and private entities when the law is being broken. But that’s the key requirement, that someone is acting illegally.
India does not have free market in Agriculture. The sector itself is extremely subsidised. No political party has the capability nor will to touch those provisions.
The current farm laws are teeny tiny step towards that. The current ruling party would oppose them had they been introduced by previous Government.
As with every thread on India here, There are a ton of people who feel strongly about things, Including some Canadian citizens :)
With good reason. The free market is not effectively regulated against collusion in India. On the 'free' market, the middle men band together, fix prices, and the farmer ends up getting the short end of the stick. The mandis were originally established to prevent the farmers getting completely squeezed by scrupulous middle men.
In India there are Farmer organizations, labour organizations etc of all parties. The current agitation is by farmer orgs belonging to opposition parties. This is just politics nothing else.
Is it fair to say that the pandemic has brewed more protests than ever, not just in India but worldwide? It's not to diminish the issues, but the pandemic is adding fuel? Most countries around the world are facing protests all simultaneously after the pandemic (except China)?
The pandemic seems to be exposing the wealth inequality, which I think is the root issue here. The haves have even more and the nots bore the brunt. Judging by protests, approaching breaking point
Pandemic also brought more wealth inequality. Tourism, restaurants, brick and mortar shops, malls, theaters, airlines, etc. are affected by no malicious cause but because of the virus. The wealthy class did not cause this.
While, I think the wealthy should be heavily taxed and poverty must be abolished, I don't want to live in a world where there is zero wealth inequality. Also, wealth is not a zero sum game.
> Tourism, restaurants, brick and mortar shops, malls, theaters, airlines, etc. are affected by no malicious cause but because of the virus. The wealthy class did not cause this.
This is what the wealthy want you to believe. There's no scientific evidence that places with lockdowns did better with regard to either economic or health outcomes; the lockdowns and economic destruction they caused were entirely unnecessary.
Definitely. If people were employed and busy with either work or leisure activities, they would be less likely to choose to invest time into protests, particularly violent ones. The same is true for the George Floyd protests and all the numerous other protests we have seen - even if they did take place outside of a pandemic, the participation would be much smaller.
As with every war, you have "freedom fighters" fighting the "bad dictator" and you have "terrorists" fighting the "democratically elected leader", depending on who the media like that day - https://imgur.com/gallery/NQ67u .
Same here.. if elon/us government/whoever sides with the protesters, then starlink is the solution. If they decide that the farmers are "oposition funded extremists" (or whatever) it isn't.
Basically the only solution is the one that is independent on the government and international corporations... be it ham radio, wifi mesh networks, or some other kind of technology. Obviously all of that is easier in developed nations, where everyone can buy an extra router and a handheld radio for a price of a dinner at a shitty restaurant.
In reality its complex matter farmers have more to gain than lose. For my personal belief I support the farmer reform proposed by the governments, but there are many fake news and political propaganda acting against it. If its about Indian politics never trust what you see on Internet news most are fake.
There is a consistent trend. modi Govt pushed policies written by crony capitalists ambani adani. wenever the govt sees any public dissent they shut down internet and meanwhile push misinformation campaign on ambani owned TV channels. Half bake distorted news of the level no western democracy can even imagine. Mukesh Ambani directly or indirectly controls almost whole mainstream media who is modi main financier. Farmer protest is genuine, peaceful and succeeding so they shut down internet in state of haryana and at the protest sites. If some journalists tried to reveal truth, he is being jailed. Just like happened to mandeep punia today. The violence on 26th Jan was orchestrated with direct support from Indias home minister using delhi police and Trojan moles in the farmers, which farmers leaders have already declared to be working by conniving with modi govt.
Complete failure of this protest or its conversion into violence will most likely lead to civil war and discontent in Indian armed forces as majority indiam soldiers come from the agriculture families of North India where this protest is concentrated giving China further confidence to balkanize India. chinese army is already testing indian resolve in past 12 months. Failure of india today will lead us into Chinese century. Indian govt knows knows it all , but still working for short sighted profit game. It is direct threat to American dominance in world politics.
You can't use HN for nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which side you're fighting for. Since that's all this account has done, we've banned it. You've created several accounts to do this with—that's abusive, so please stop.
> I mean this is utterly condescending and racist.
There is nothing racist about the international community raising concerns about violations of basic democratic rights such as free speech and right of assembly.
> I think anytime anything happens to some minority in the the Great USA, us Indians also need to call our MP and ask them to create noise.
I would support Indians doing this. Please raise concerns with your representatives when you see human rights violations in any part of the world and ask them to speak about it in international forums.
In the past, India has done a commendable job in helping minorities persecuted by the CCP. Many Tibetian Buddhists were given refuge in India, including Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959. Contrary to it's history, India is staying mum on contemporary persecution of religious minorities in neighboring countries such as Rohingyas in Myanmar and Uyghurs in China.
> Basic democratic rights were not hampered, also right of assembly.
False. The government has repeatedly used Section 144 to deny the right to assemble and protest. During Hathras gangrape, not only did the government deny such rights to those who wanted to express solidarity with the victim and victims family by using Section 144. It turned a blind eye when the perpetrators milleu openly violated the section to assemble to show support on behalf of the accused. Why, because those are BJP's (the ruling party's) vote base.
The party IT cell head (Malviya) divulged the identity of the victim of rape although this is against the law. No charges have brought against Malviya or those who assembled in support of the gangrape accused in violation of Section 144.
> India has taken in Rohingya refugees just like Tibetan …
Since we are talking about this government could you point me to stats on Rohingya's given asylum in India. How many has been given asylum ? I presume you were speaking from a position of knowledge. On lack of a response I will update my assumptions about your good faith.
Not really. Lots of people worldwide were very concerned about the lies the past 4 years in US. Of course people write about their concerns. Lots of people care for Indians, the Chinese and Russians too!
Lots care, but while caring they are feeding into their own biases.
>>> Lots of people care for Indians, the Chinese and Russians too!
One of them is not like the others. India is not an authoritarian, one party system like the others. It was that for a few years when the congress held sway. Now it is a vibrant democracy. At the state level there are state parties and at the national level there are national parties which get elected. There is no authoritarianism here.
BJP may not come to power next time because of a myriad reasons. If they actually come to power it is because people want them to. Of course people may detract this saying populist (which has become a dirty word now), but whatever all the power to the people man.
I'm honestly not seeing two sides sorry. So a few people are breaking laws, you disconnect the internet? That's not two sides, that's only one side. If someone in my neighborhood is a criminal, they don't cut the power to my neighborhood and throw flair bombs at it. How is that the "other side"? Instead they just go after that criminal. To me it looks like a massive imbalance in power from one side over the other.
I am all for peaceful protests, the constitution has given every citizen the right to protest. But not at the cost of damage to the public property, rioting and violence. Jfyi, there is already case in supreme court of India to hear the grievances that they may have. But some political leaders are taking advantage of the situation to incite violence.
Please note, cops are human beings too, they have been asked not to use lethal force against the protestors.
How do you feel about the revolutionary war? Or the Jacobite uprisings? Or the troubles? Or the French Resistance? Or the Yugoslav Partisans?
I’m all for peaceful solutions too, but if you look through history you’ll find plenty of morally righteous violent resistance. In this case it seems inevitable to me. The aggrieved parties here mostly come from a place that was previously violently conquered by the Mughal Empire, then later violently won their independence to form the Sikh Empire, shortly after that they were violently conquered again by the British Raj. The British Raj was ousted by nonviolent resistance, but that’s an incredible anomaly in history, and was only really possible because the British had largely lost interest in holding the colony.
The result was the partitioning of India, which worked out terribly for a lot of people. Especially the Punjabis, who’s state was cut in half and split between Islamic Pakistan, and Hindu India. Hindu Nationalism on the India side of the border has lead to decades of often violent oppression of minority group in India. Why would violent resistance not be a morally defensible response?
I also find the international coverage of this issue quite funny. If you only read international sources you might come away with the impression that this conflict is just between “farmers” and the Indian government. If you read Indian sources you’re more likely to get the impression this is a separatist conflict between “Khalistani terrorists” and the Indian government.
So if this not a protest against the farm bill, they should drop the facade then.
> you’ll find plenty of morally righteous violent resistance.
Sure, but we should have a sense of proportion here. Supreme court is hearing the case and the Govt has agreed to put the new law on hold for 1.5 years. Why not wait for Supreme court's judgement?
How do you justify blocking highways for over 2 months causing great economic damage to your fellow countrymen, that too during COVID times when people are struggling to put the food on the table.
I have read the bill and I am linking it here (this is Govt. Of India website). There is nothing there that can justify the violence we just witnessed.
> So if this not a protest against the farm bill, they should drop the facade then.
The protest is against the farm Bill, which is seen as a further act of oppression against minority groups, from a government formed to serve only Hindu India. The agriculture industry in India is dominated by minorities, mainly Sikhs, and mainly Punjabis. The aggrieved parties here see this as an act of economic oppression, and if you want to make sense of the controversy, you have to view it in the broader context of Indian history, especially wrt everything that’s happened in the post-partition period. Tanks rolling up to the golden temple is still a very fresh memory for a lot of these protestors.
> I am all for peaceful protests, the constitution has given every citizen the right to protest
They have been peaceful protesting for literally months now. One bad incident does not mean anything and there is a lot of information about how the government goons infiltrated the protests.
If you are all for peaceful protests, you wouldn't single out one single incident but that's exactly what you are doing and I think it's malicious. Which you are free to do, but please don't pretend otherwise.
> One bad incident does not mean anything
Is it really? There are literally 100s of youtube videos of protesters damaging public property and attacking Police.
> Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella organisation representing more than 40 farmers’ unions, condemned those who had taken part in the clashes and said that “anti-social elements had infiltrated the otherwise peaceful movement”.
The organizers clearly condemned the violence. What else should they do?
Repeating what you conveniently ignored: one bad incident does not override months of completely peaceful protests, acknowledged by residents of the areas where they were protesting. And yet, you bring up just that one thing, which is very much in line with the government propaganda. The Republic link was the icing on the cake. Like I said, you are free to believe what you want but painting yourself as pro freedom of protests while ignoring the fact that they have been peaceful for months and singling out this one thing says a lot about your bias.
> Repeating what you conveniently ignored: one bad incident does not override months of completely peaceful protests
I am not the one conveniently forgetting violence at the Red fort. Let me ask you, why even protest when the Supreme court is hearing the case and Govt has agreed to put the law on hold for 1.5 years. Why violence & blocking highways? Why not take it up with Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court of India is going to listen to the farmers? The same Supreme Court that asked why and I quote, "why old people and women are kept in the protests" as if thousands of old farmers were paid money and brought in to the protests?
I repeat: protesting is a fundamental right. Farmers have been protesting peacefully for months. One bad incident is not reflective of the otherwise largely peaceful protests. You are ignoring this line.
You can drop the facade at this stage and stop wasting everyone's time. At least have the audacity to be genuine of your beliefs. To not be so is cowardly.
Why shouldn't the SC ask that question? They are not issuing a diktat. It's a large group and a certain degree of coercion, even if small, is likely involved. It's only now that it's coming out in open.
There's no need for personal attacks. You have conviniently ignored the link I shared that indicates coercion. While it's great that women actively participate in events in Punjab, a quick glance at the difference between male and female litery rates shows there's some distance to cover. Being better than UP and Bihar isn't exactly an achievement. My comment didn't even specially talk about Punjab. The protests also include people from other states and one of those has a really bad reputation for treatment of household women.
As for the SC, that's what we will get when there are strong rules around Contempt of Court.
I could have done better at the personal attacks but it's hard to tow the line when genuine grievances of peacefully protesting farmers are ignored for months and one negative attack is suddenly all that is talked about. That to me indicates malice and I cannot respond in good faith when that is done.
> a quick glance at the difference between male and female litery rates shows there's some distance to cover.
How is that relevant? You are pulling at straws here. Women work in the fields along with men. Anti-farmer laws affect both men and women, young and old. Supreme Court of India brings it up as if it matters, when it doesn't and clearly ignore the demographics at play, hinting at something without saying it. The literacy rate needs to be worked on but that's not the concern here.
How many people can you coerce to attend protests? Hundreds, probably at most. Not thousands. Some of the people have been protesting in frigid temperatures for months. Do you mean to say they are all paid? That doesn't even make sense and is logistically infeasible.
The Supreme Court allows seems to consider freedom of expression differently though, when it comes to granting bails to journalists in favour of the government versus cartoons that suggest contempt of court.
So no, I don't trust them to make the right call. Farmers should continue peacefully protesting, as is their fundamental right.
Notice in all this, you haven't said anything about: the right of farmers to protest and what they are protesting about.
because after 1.5 years the same law gets passed without amendments. This is a well known trick most authoritarian govts apply. If any law has immediate widespread resistance, just put it on hold for some time till the resentment dies down and new news cycle takes over. Then pass it up without much resistance.
Do you have strong, proven evidence for infiltration? Otherwise this seems like the typical false flag conspiracy we always hear when protests turn violent. The reality is even those acting peacefully are providing cover for those acting violently among their ranks. They also often incite that violent fringe to action, and condone or overlook their actions. Silence is violence, right? And remaining silent on those using violence to achieve political goals - the very definition of terrorism - isn’t acceptable.
Such things are typically reported by the media. One of the problems in India though is that the media is completely biased towards the government. The prime minister of the world's largest democracy has held exactly zero press conferences in 6-7 years. When he does, they are incredibly scripted where they ask him if he likes to eat mangoes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dUyQWcn1CA). He also does a poor job of answering tough questions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGAYL8dtic) so the media interviews he does give are more of a PR stunt for him where the "journalists" praise his qualities and ask him no hard questions.
Coming back to your question: the farmers have clearly said they denounce the violence in more than one ways. The other thing that is leading more credence to this theory is how the police treated the people indulging in violence. Evidence from the ground shows that the police shook hands and were generally very respectful towards them. This suggests infiltration. More sources: https://thewire.in/agriculture/day-of-clashes-with-bjp-spons...
> I am all for peaceful protests [...] But not at the cost of damage to the public property, rioting and violence
Which one is it? So I'm peacefully protesting... And then someone ELSE two street away from me breaks a window... Am I not allowed to peacefully protest anymore?
IF you were a cop, how would you differentiate between the two in that chaos? Your first objective would be to bring the situation under control before more people get hurt or more property gets damaged.
Just take a look at this video and tell me you will be able to differentiate. There are no "two" different streets here, just one big chaos.
It would help your case to present a better source. As far as I know from Wiki source discussions for India sources like 'Republic', 'The Wire', Op something? tend to have extremely lopsided representation of events and facts.
Fair enough but I am not sure which news outlet can be considered "credible" these days. FWIW, here is Time of India. You can search "Singhu border SHO attack", there are plenty of news portals reporting it.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/farmers-protest-in...
Pasting a Republic link is incredibly disingenuous because they frequently peddle fake news, not to mention, are extremely biased towards the current government, so much that their main person had access to sensitive intelligence information.
Republic is a hatemongering tabloid. Any comment citing it automatically loses all credence in my opinion. Might as use Kangana Ranaut tweets as citations as well.
> Choosing such a bad source by default pretty much wipes your credibility out.
I would buy your argument if the Republic was the only news channel reporting it.
I am not here to prove my credibility, I am stating a fact that the incident happened. I have no affiliation to any of the news channels, all I am arguing is violence was uncalled for. If you want to ignore that incident just because I cited a source that you don't like, you are welcome to ignore my comments and move on.
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But you do fail to mention that the true democracy passed the bill without proper discussion and also with a voice vote even when the opposition asked for a division vote. Then there is the thing that even when the said governement is willing to discuss, they are not really ready to compromise.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and I don't want to go on to a full length rant here on HN on a political post. But I believe that the media should always be against the government first. And not like Indian media which are dubbed as Godi media because it is so biased for the government, even reporting fake news at times.
Remember The first morale of Buddhism is to keep your critics near you who will always help you improve. It’s good if critical media surrounds the government.
This is common around the globe any media which questions the government is considered biased, in India more so.
No need to look for media see UN and research report on India’s development on Human Development Index (HDI) which covers mal-nutrition, infant mortality, education and healthcare it has slipped continuously in last 5 years even before pandemic. Economic development i.e. livelihood is also in downward spiral before pandemic and made much worse. Indian neighbouring countries like Bangladesh did much better. Marginalisation of most minority community is accelerated. So the current ruling party in India use religious sentiments, divisions and false pride as tools to gain majority support.
Blaming Gandhi, Nehru, Pakistan and foreigners for misery of India and its downward spiral and shooting the messenger with accusations of falsehood has become a practice and a weapon of choice in current Indian ruling establishment.
>> BBC is heavily biased against India esp. against current government.
I don't buy this. I think BBC is far more factual and has a lot more integrity than most other media sources - unless being factual is what makes it against the current Indian regime.
Fact:
1. Ruling party in India is affiliated to right wing called RSS. RSS has planted their cadre at public services decision making posts such as Police head etc, even Governors ( who can override a province’s elected govt), and President of India.
3. It is clearly visible protest was peaceful for 2 months, and now Govt is trying incite violence and eventually excuse to uproot it by force.
3. Democracy is now questioned as judiciary as Election commission is also under govt influence.
Humanitarians around the world should support Indian farmers.India is a so-called democracy, in fact the rights of minorities and oppressed people are greatly oppressed here.Let's fulfill our duty as human beings and become the voice of Indian farmers.
Just don’t bother trying to understand Indian politics, especially if are living outside the country. It is a mess beyond any understanding and just a waste of time.
Lived in India in the 1980s - going there on a spiritual journey (yes, I know) and stayed for a few years.
When I left the country, two events had occurred for which I don’t think I’ll be able to see that country in a good light ever again.
The first was the anti-Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi’s murder. Politicians were compliant, including the newly elected PM Rajiv Gandhi who at the time famously said “When a tree falls, it’s normal for the earth to shake”. Of course, I haven’t even touched on the events leading up to this, most notably the destruction of the Golden Temple. I spoke to people who saw the riots first-hand, and it tainted my view of that country forever.
The second was the Indian intervention in neighboring Sri Lanka. The oppressed Tamil minority were waging a war against the government. India sent in its forces, in the name of brokering peace and then killed thousands of innocent civilians. The Indian man’s propensity for rape was on full display, as the Indian “Peacekeeping” Force (IPKF) weaponized rape against the same populace they came to protect. For what it’s worth, India was humiliated a la Vietnam, and lost thousands of soldiers.
The rape issue is also very apparent in modern day Indian society, but I’d rather not open that can of worms in this thread.
In either case, after witnessing these happenings from relatively close, I gave up on all hope for that country. Too many rotten apples.
Both the things you are talking about were perpetrated by the Congress party. The current crisis is also their gift. Why are you generalizing the country based on that? It seems you just witnessed these things but never understood why they happened and who were the perpetrators.
I posted it expecting downvotes.
On the surface, yes I am generalizing the country. But really - and perhaps I should have made it more clear - the reason for my disillusionment were structural/cultural issues:
- Willingness to oppress people, and keep the oppressed down when you’re supposed to be helping them. Current events are very relevant to the past events.
- Party-over-people politics and crippling corruption - regardless of party
- Hindu extremism (brahmanism to be specific) - current government is very much guilty of this
- Rape and weaponization of rape - cultural issue across India. Will not be fixed for a long time - it is engrained in the fabric of their society.
The IT cell head of the current ruling party -- BJP, openly divulged the identity of a teenager rape victim. This is against the law. No charges have been brought against him. Not that this is in any way surprising because the accused belong to BJP's vote bank.
Question: Is there a pre-colonization “Indian” culture? I’m thinking not. The British unified disparate cultures, kingdoms, and races for ease of administration/exploitation. The country is so large - but more importantly- so different, that I don’t see how these tensions will disappear anytime soon.
Religion vs culture is a subtle but important difference. Religiously, India is not very diverse, but culturally- that is, along ethic, language and racial lines - it is probably the most diverse country in the world. I never claimed the Brits united India culturally (except perhaps over a shared hatred of the colonizer?), but rather administratively (which continues today)
1. It's true that media is controlled by Government now. It wasn't the case before this government came into action.
2. It's also true that existing power nexus like these farmer brokers who are spearheading the protest. You may ask where they get their money from go continue the protest? Basically from the existing network of exporters of fruits, vegetables, grains etc... These farmering group head ask for bribes and favours and then sell government subsidized produce to select companies who rendered those favours.
But they make it as if this movement is to save the interest of the poor farmers, it's not. It's to save their own interest, they'll lose their power to ask for bribes like gst commissioners, custom officers have lost in last few months thanks to the government's faceless medium of interaction with the average citizen, no officer can put influence on a person now and convince them to offer bribes.
3. It's true that the government has brought reforms and removed medieval practises like triple talaq and polygamy for the Muslims but at the same time played hypocrite by banning beaf in multiple states. This doesn't look good at all.
Is it going in good or bad direction? Well if I compare to the governments round the globe, this government isn't really that bad. It's very hard to govern a country as large and diverse as India where multiple groups of different ethnicities and religion are trying to step on each others head to undermine others interest and fight for their own.
Many things have improved in infrastructure since this government came.
4. While they brought GST with goal to remove multiple taxation on good and services at every step of value addition. They've brought taxes on fuel to high, which if you look closely is also a "multiple taxation" at every step of production. So what gives? It means government simply failed to fund itself without this excessive taxation in production.
> It's also true that existing power nexus like these farmer brokers who are spearheading the protest. You may ask where they get their money from go continue the protest? Basically from the existing network of exporters of fruits, vegetables, grains etc... These farmering group head ask for bribes and favours and then sell government subsidized produce to select companies who rendered those favours.
Can you please address the issues highlighted by the farmers instead of speculating on where they obtain funding from? In particular how will the passage of the farm bills prevent this practice that you claim exists? As I see it, it would just allow large players to gobble up the competition (ala Jio).
In current case it’s not somewhere in between, it’s just my way or highway kind.
If you understand the nuances, India has many special laws for every community like Muslim, in India there is a Hindu marriage act which has many inconsistency so your point 3 is not correct. All those reforms are targeted at specific community to promote a narrative which follows dictatorial style to follow a specific Hindu way of living (inspired by Nazi, supremacy of Aryans).
India is in a downward spiral on every measure which matters like mal-nourishment, infant mortality , poverty (i.e. HDI), education, economic development, healthcare even before COVID-19. This is made worse by the pandemic. This is not somewhere in between enough research and UN data is available to verify it. Neighbouring countries of India did much better in many parameters.
Current protests of farmers are a result of disrespecting India’s diversity and consensus based approach. If you look at the actual text of the reforms there are two sides and government should have put this text for consultations and than accommodated the changes. They didn’t go through the process, just diluted it and rammed through the reforms taking advantage of pandemic lockdowns.
You can read many accounts how constitutional safeguards were diluted or twisted to pass many so called reforms, this is the reason of widespread prolonged outrage. There might be some vested interest trying to take advantage of this, but that’s due to authoritarian non-consensus based approach.
So Hindu and Christian marriage bills having different divorce timelines is the same as keeping Muslim women at the mercy of Muslim men where they can text a divorce? What kind of sick propaganda are you peddling in this whole thread? Can you name one civilised society where triple talaq and polygamy exclusively for men exists? It’s unfortunate that we can’t agree on this just because of our political leanings.
India. The Indian approach to multicultural laws has its own merits, which I have seen lauded in German law journals.
Indian divorce laws were moved forward for a few communities at a time - till at one day the courts said "The laws are such for Hindus, Muslims and for Parsees. The fact that they have not been reflected in Christian practices is also incorrect so we hereby update the Christian divorce code"
Over the years the laws in India have been moving forward and reforming, in parallel to how the country has been evolving.
Sure, so what is your point exactly? That local customs trump women’s right to be treated as humans? Really, please look into the practices and then tell me you could ever want that for another person. By that logic Hindus should still encourage/force widows to burn at the pyre with their dead husbands.
It was truly disgusting to see the entire left lobby, the self proclaimed champions for human rights shamelessly protesting the repeal of triple talaq.
You seem to be conflating the issue back to the usual axis of islamaphobia. So why aren’t marital rape laws not enacted in India?
Or for that matter how come there was such a furor when the court decided that all Hindu pilgrims regardless of gender could visit Sabarimala?
Do note - the vast majority of Indian laws have moved progressively despite political pressures. The divorce laws in India were regularly opposed by political parties for example - including the BJP.
Any progressive movement in laws have been by your vilified liberals. The only reason triple talaq is on the BJP radar is because it dovetails with their happy topic of islam bashing.
Laws in America and the west did not recognize gay marriage, until the idea carried enough cultural weight for it to be enacted.
India on the other hand, is a combination of modernity and medievalism (gotra). The progressive work in our courts and laws is precisely because Ambedkar and a slew of people fought for it.
Otherwise our laws would be far more basic than you would like to believe.
In this government we already instituted laws to persecute minorities. Imagine where we would be if it weren’t for the years of work by your hated “liberals”.
When I think of media groups with anti-govt stand, NDTV and Telegraph are the only ones I can think of. Every one else seems to be part of the govt - media nexus or is central leaning.
Whole of media, all of the literary intelligentsia are left leaning. What are you talking about? NDTV, Hindu, Telegraph, Indian express, Deccan Herald all of em are against the BJP government.
I am not railing against these media houses, it is their choice, but this meme that the government is controlling whatsapp, facebook, media etc needs to stop.
No one talks about what congress was doing with cambridge analytics, its like everyone thinks they are the underdogs now. Congress ruled india for 60 years. In fact they were the system.
You have totally bought the government misinformation on the protest when you say:
> It's also true that existing power nexus like these farmer brokers who are spearheading the protest.
No. These protests are organised by the opposition political parties of India through the farm unions they run or are affiliated with, not by brokers. And they are happening to address the legitimate grievances of the farmers.
Farming in India is done by millions of small farmers. That is why the broker system thrives (along with highly regulated market places) as it is easier to deal with brokers than with so many millions of farmers to procure in large-scale. Ofcourse, like in any economic system some people do find ways to abuse the system, but the regulated marketplace do ensure that farmers can get by (not thrive, but barely survive - the current system does need reforms and the farmers have been demanding changes for a long time too).
The new farm laws dismantle this regulated marketplaces, in the guise of "fixing" the broker system, but cleverly replaces them with corporates instead (by advocating and strengthening laws for contract farming in the favour corporate).
This makes the whole thing even more worse for the farmers, as their bargaining powers are further reduced. Many indian farmers are poor and uneducated but the government thinks it's completely ok to let them get into contract farming with corporates without any safety net or support.
This is why the farmers are demanding the repeal of the farm laws.
The government is hamstrung and chooses to be arrogant out of fear of appearing to be "weak" against the opposition, and so doesn't even engage with them. Matters have reached this level because the farm laws were undemocratically pushed through using the government's brute majority, without any proper discussions in public or parliamentary committee or even in Parliament.
In both the US and Europe, contract farming has seen the consolidation of farms under few corporates. Many political parties understandably do not want that to happen in
india too.
With the mandi system, the farmers never made money. It was always the mandi (the middle man) who made money. These mandis also can hoard and drive up the prices, They have total control over the supply. The farmer orgs currently protesting are all opposition backed orgs. so all of this is political
You talk as if selling directly is so easy - how will they do that without a middle-man for distribution? It's not like every neighbourhood in India has a farm next door! And the farmers can't afford to waste time selling a few kilos to many, when they produce 100's of kilos of produce!
What Modi's government has done is to cleverly replace the brokers with corporates as the middle-man, in the guise of "reforms".
The buyers will now prefer the "contract farming" route to procurement, as the new farm laws has tilted the power in their favour. With the broker (and dismantling of the regulated marketplace) out of the picture, the corporates can now take even more advantage of the farmers. (Note that the brokers also manipulated the market on behalf of the corporates earlier, but eliminating them is now more favourable for them as they have managed to bribe the government to write the laws in their favour).
Nothing had been eliminated. Mandi is there. Msp is there. The law provides additional avenue for farmers. They now have multiple choices. Sell to individuals users, corporates, mandis create their own like milk corporation.
MSP is deliberately not specified explicitly in the new farm laws. Dismanting regulated marketplaces, in favour of corporates and contract faming have made it redundant and only gives an illusion of choice -
- Farmers cannot sell to individual users at a scale because they don't have any distribution networks.
- Weakly regulated mandis are as good as free market with no real protection.
- Contract farming with corporates shifts the balance of power away from farmers as they do not have the capability to negotiate on equal terms with them. This is made worse with the new farm laws deliberately favouring the corporates.
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