Since more
than twenty days the farmers from Panjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and
many other states are agitating in and around Delhi. One Sikh Baba gave his life in support of the
agitation. More than twenty people died
in the biting cold of Delhi. There is no
slowing down of the agitation. The
entire world is talking about this agitation as being the world’s largest
protest by the Indian farmers.
The farmers
are agitating against the three farm laws the Modi government passed under the
pretext of doubling the income of the farmers.
The farmers are not convinced.
They see a bigger and mischievous design by the government to hand over
the farm sector into the hands of the Indian largest corporate houses.
The gist of
the three laws are as follows:
1. Elimination of all subsidies and
minimum support price for the farmers. Eliminate APMC, Agricultural Produce
Market Committee and Mandies (APMC Yards). Now the farmers can sell their product to
private traders and corporate houses.
This also means that any corporate house can procure food grains from
the farmers and stock in unlimited quantity in their godowns. Earlier it was illegal for private people to
hoard food grains.
The farmers will not get the benefit of the system of minimum support price.
Government used to fix minimum support price for several farm product to ensure
that the famers do not incur losses. Further farmers will not get subsidy such as
fertilizer subsidy and on the input for cultivation.
2. Introduction of contract farming. This means traders and corporate houses can make
an agreement with farmers to produce food grains and sell to the corporation. In case of dispute the farmers cannot have
recourse to the court but some local government official can intervene to solve
the dispute.
3. These corporations can stock any
amount of agricultural produce. This
could result in artificial scarcity and food prices to rise
Background:
Soon after the independence India had a massive food shortage. The Indian government was forced to import
food grains.
Indian
farmers were cultivating land under tenancy system where the cultivators were
not the owners of the land. The lands
were owned by the zamidars who collected tax from the farmers either in cash or
in food grains. The land owners were not
bothered if the drought had made it impossible for the farmers to cultivate the
land. If the farmer failed to pay corvee
then the landlord would take the land from the farmer and give to another, more
prosperous farmer who could pay taxes regularly. This let to a lot of farmers becoming
landless and were forced to work with other farmers for wages or migrate to the
cities to look for employment.
This system
was not able to increase the productivity of land resulting in food
shortage. The government announced land
reforms under which the land was supposed to be given to the tillers. Most of the government officials who were
responsible to implement land reform came from the landlord class and they
favoured the landlords and little came out by the way of cultivators owning
their land. Then there was a law of land
ceiling by virtue of which the land owners could not own more than a prescribed
limited acres of land. This too was
bypassed by landlords by registering land on fictitious names.
Indian
agriculture moved from the feudal tenancy form to capitalist form of
cultivation where the cultivators became owners of their land and they
cultivated by employing wage labourers.
This
transformation of agriculture into capitalist agriculture did not solve the
problem of low level of food production and the farmers continued to remain
very poor and exploited.
To over come
the precarious situation of farmers and low level of food production the
government of India undertook three programmes: 1. Building dams to improve
irrigation, 2. Green revolution by modernizing agricultural production and
introducing intensive farming in selected areas in the country, such as Panjab,
Haryana, Mandya, Kuttanad, Tanjaoor. 3. Farmers’ support programmes such as agricultural
cooperative societies, minimum support price and Agricultural Market Committees
(APMC).
APMC, is a marketing board established and operated by the
state government in order to eliminate the exploitation of the farmers by
intermediaries to whom the farmers could sell their produce at minimum support
price. This system was introduced to regulate the sale of agricultural
products. APMC was to ensure
remunerative prices for the farmers for their produce and timely payment.
In spite of these measures the farmers were always in
distress. The farmers have committed
suicides in large number.
1. There are relatively high proportion
of people involved in agriculture. 60%
of the Indian population and 45% of the total labour force is involved in
agriculture. There are high percentage
of farmers who are subsistence farmers who barely produce for their livelihood.
The middle farmers and the rich farmers employ wage labour, tractors,
harvesters and high yielding varieties of seeds and fertilizer and they produce
for the market.
2. The fact of the matter is agriculture
gives very low return. The farmers do not get the rent on their land as it is
not included in the cost of production.
The farmers’ average income per month is around Rs. Six thousand five
hundred only. The law of the country does not allow the owners of the land to
change the land use for nonagricultural purpose. But when the government
decides it will throw out the farmers and snatch their land and give to the
industrialist to build their factories.
The most
significant issue which relates to our present day farmers agitation is against
abolishing of APMC and Minumum Support Price.
The preset
day farmers’ agitation is an indication that the farming and industry are in
conflict with each other. It is an
attempt on the part of the corporates and industrialists to gain control on the
agriculture and subordinate it to industrial capital.
The gist of
the development that the present-day NDA government wishes to bring into effect
is to allow the corporate capitalist to gain control of the agriculture.
The system
of Mandies and the minimum support price is government’s responsibility to intervene
in the economy of agriculture to prevent it from going below the level of break
even.
Conflict
between Industry and agriculture:
The human
civilization started with agriculture. All the non-farm products were produced by the
craftsmen who were rooted in agriculture.
Industry came up out of the womb
of agriculture
In the
feudal society the only economic activity was agriculture. It was under the
control of kings and feudal lords as the peasants did not own the land they
were cultivating. The entire wealth of
the society was owned by the kings. People
produces only for consumption and for paying to the kings, warlords and feudal
lords. In the womb of agriculture, there
existed craftsmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers and oil press mills.
As the productive
forces developed in agriculture and with the craftsmen, they started producing
surplus. They began to exchange their
product. They used to take their surplus product to the religious pilgrim
centers to exchange or sell. Gradually,
these places became permanent local markets.
Gradually the craftsmen who did not need to remain in the rural areas in
the midst of agrarian society to product their good shifted to the centres of
market places and began to produce and sell in the markets. Gradually these
market places and towns became centres of production of non-agricultural
goods. After the industrial revolution
the history witnessed emergence of large industries.
Gradually
the owners of these industries required large plots of land to established
their factories. They began to encroach
on the land of the farmers. The history saw the eviction of peasants from their
land to make place for industrial development.
Up to this
day we are seeing the process of eviction of farmers, Dalits and Adivasis being
driven out from their land for the same of industries, mega projects and
urbanization -- the process of
extermination of farmers by the rising capitalism. They were driven out of their land to make
place for the emerging industrial capital.
We can truly say that the capitalism was built on the graves of the
peasants.
“In the
history of primary accumulation, we must regard as epoch-making all revolutions
that acted as stepping stones for the capitalist class in course of
formation. Above all, this applies to
those moments when the great masses of human beings were suddenly and forcibly
torned away from the means of subsistence, and hurled into the labour market as
masterless proletarians. The expropriation of the agricultural producers, the
peasants, their severance from the soil, was the basis of the whole process.”
K. Marx, Primitive Accumulation, Das Capital,
The ultra-Neo-liberal
programme of the NDA government:
In the name
of doubling the income of the farmer the NDA government is making a way for the
Corporate companies like Ambani and Adani to enter into farm business. There is a report that Adani is buying
thousands of acres of land in Haryana and building ware houses to stock food
grains.
Once the
corporate companies enter into agricultural production and procuring food
grains from the farmers, we might anticipate unregulated food grain
market. These industrialist will be free
to sell their stock any where in the world where they get maximum prices.
The
programmes of agricultural reform adopted since independence have failed to
bring about "the required changes in the agrarian stricture.
One report
further brings out the truth that,
“In no sphere of public activity in our country since
independence has the hiatus (gap) between the precept and practice, between
policy-pronouncements and actual execution, been as great as in the domain of
agriculture.” P.D. Ojha
I would lie
to quote an event that occurred in the year 1775
“In the
years between 1757 and 1766 the East India Company received 6,000,000 Pounds
from the native of India as gifts. In
the year 1769 and 1770, the English brought about a famine by buying up all the
rice and by refusing to sell it again except at fabulous prices.
In the year
1866, the one province of Orissa, more than a million Hindus perished of
hunger. Nevertheless, an attempt was
made to replenish the Indian State Treasury out of the price at which
necessaries of life were sold to the starving people.
This is also
very true about Bangal famine in 1942.
Churchil did not accept the fact of famine as Mr. Gnadhi did not die of
famine.”
The kind of
famine we have seen in the history is a permanent feature of our rural society
where huge number of people are living below the poverty line.
The first
most important change we are witnessing is that the state has abdicated itself
from its role in the market and in the economy as a whole. It had apparently shown being concerned only about
governance. In reality it turned out to
be busy with internal and external “security”.
It meant being busy with the military and security forces to defend big
business and multinational capital. We
have seen the use of force to carry forward the programme of industrialization
and foreign investment.
To sum up:
“The government’s understanding of the farmers’ knowledge in not only flawed
but also insulting”.
The major
thrust of the protest suggests the government’s steps are not in farmers’
favour but in the favour of big business.
Farmers understand the logic of the market driven by private interests.”
(Editor, EPW Dec 5, 2020)
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