> 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
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?