What Were The Controversies Of The Farm Laws That The Austerity Of The Modi Government Failed?

Taking a big decision on Friday, the Modi government announced to withdraw all three agricultural laws. There was a war between the farmers about the laws, farmers were standing on the borders of Delhi for a year, the roads were closed. Now the decision has been taken to end that disputed chapter itself. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country at 9 in the morning and as soon as he arrived, he gave the biggest decision of his government.

How did the austerity of the Modi government fail?

Farm bill Repeal News Update: Now the era of accusations and counter-accusations will continue to take place, but the question is why the austerity of the Modi government did not succeed. If the PM is to be believed, he and his government could not explain the farmers properly. But in reality, the protesting farmers had many reasons, due to which they were strongly opposing these agricultural laws. Now that it has been decided to withdraw this law, then now those aspects of these laws should also be looked at, about which the ruckus was being created.

Farm bill Repeal News Update: About three agriculture bills

All three agriculture bills were passed by the Lok Sabha on 16 September last year. After this, on September 20, Rajya Sabha also passed them. Since then, sporadic demonstrations started taking place in many places in the country, in Punjab there was a lot of heat. Till then the farmers had not come on the road, but the voices of protest were being heard. Some of the three laws that the government had brought were as follows-

The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020

Now in this law, the government had only said that farmers need not depend only on mandis to sell their food grains. They could even go out of the market and sell their crops at high prices. The government was arguing that this would open up more options for the farmers and reduce their dependence on the mandis. The government had also expressed the hope that due to this, farmers would get more money from private buyers. Now the government definitely projected this law in front of the farmers from this point of view, but the farmers performing their penance failed.

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Farm bill Repeal News Update: The farmers had clearly said about this law that if this happens, the APMC mandis will be abolished. Private buyers will have more power and they will be able to buy the crop at their own price as per their wish. The government has denied this claim of the farmers on every occasion, but instead of resolving the dispute, it got entangled. The farmers were not ready to believe that the concept of one market would benefit them.

In their eyes, as soon as this law is implemented, even without any registration, big private players will jump into the field and will be able to buy and sell the farmers’ crops without any rules. This aspect of the law made the farmers think that they would become puppets of private buyers and their oppression would begin, far from getting a fair price for their crops.

Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Price Assurance Contract and Agricultural Services Bill

Farm bill Repeal News Update: Now let’s talk about this second law, whose focus was on contract farming. If you want to understand in the simplest words, then this law says that your land will be given to a contractor or say capitalist for some time at a fixed amount and then he will also produce the crop according to his own and sell it later.

It has been told in this law that an agreement can be made between the farmers and that contractor so that the crop can be sold at a fixed price in future. The government had argued that as soon as this happens, farmers will get more value for their crops. It was also mentioned in the law that farmers whose land is less than five hectares will be given the benefit of this contract.

Farmers rejected Government’s Overture

But the farmers rejected this law of the government outright. There has not been a single aspect where the thinking of the farmer and the government has matched. If the government saw the future of agriculture in contract farming, the farmers were seeing it only as their oppression. His argument was that in such agreements, the contractor or capitalist who bought the land would always be considered more. Even during the agreement, the farmers will not get a chance to say much or talk. The farmers also said that big companies will choose those farmers through contract farming, which can benefit them, in such a situation, small farmers will be left behind and they will have to bear the loss.

At the same time, the farmers have also emphasized that if there is a dispute between this agreement, then the victory will always go to the capitalist because he can bring expensive lawyers, but the farmers will be left helpless. In such a situation, the government may have called it a far-sighted law, but the farmers did not believe in these claims and the PM’s penance failed.

Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill

Now this third law was also brought by the government thinking that there would be revolutionary changes in agriculture. The thinking was that potatoes, onions, edible oils, oilseeds and some other agricultural products would be excluded from the category of essential commodities. This meant that you would be able to stock these agricultural products as per your wish. The government will intervene only in case of war and emergency.

Reasons explained by farmers for repealment

But the farmers also did not like this logic of the government. It was opposed by saying that as soon as such a law is introduced, there will be a tremendous increase in the price of goods in exceptional circumstances. Farmers also say that due to this law, big companies can force them to sell them at their desired rate in the coming time. There is also a section of farmers who believe that with the introduction of this law, hoarding will increase and the government itself will not be aware that how much grain is lying in stock.

Now the summary of this whole controversy is that the farmers had assumed that only agriculture was being privatized because of these three agricultural laws. They also started feeling the danger that the government would destroy the mandis. The fear had also come that they would not be able to get MSP on their crops. Now because the Modi government could not remove all these apprehensions, even talks with the farmers were not successful, in such a situation their penance also remained incomplete.