Modi government should avoid testing stamina of agitating farmers as the issue is of threat to the very existence

 

Government should offer suspension of 3 farm laws to break deadlock with protesting farmers

Jagtar Singh

Ground Zero

The Narendra Modi government today again invited the protesting farmers within the previous framework and the same has understandably been rightly rejected by them. The logjam continues despite even the track II talks at several levels involving serving and retired bureaucrats and police officials from Punjab. The agitation against the three contentious pro-corporate farm laws is being commandeered by Punjab farmers who were the first to comprehend their likely disastrous impact  rooted in liberalisation policies being dictated by the World Trade Organisation to which India is a signatory.

Prime Minister Modi has been repeatedly propagating ‘benefits’ of these farm laws which, according to him, the agitating farmers have failed to understand as they are being misled by vested political interests, meaning the Congress. The farmers organisations, on the other hand, have maintained respectable distance from various political parties.

While the government continues to parrot the offer of amendments that had also been made by Home Minister Amit Shah (to amend even 99 per cent as per the farmer leaders present in the meeting) while the other side refuses to budge from the demand of dropping of the three laws.

There has to be some mid-point to break the deadlock, the initiative for which has to come from the Modi government.

The Supreme Court on December 16 had proposed a way out but that was half-a-step while hinting at the other part of the step. The livelaw.in uploaded a quote from the Bench that states, “The bench directed the SGI to form a committee comprising of the members of Government and Members of all Farmers Association of India to engage in talks and come to an amicable solution”. The Bench had also sought opinion of the government on ‘keeping in law in abeyance’.

This suggestion needs to be given the shape of offer in concrete by taking another step.

The Modi government should offer suspension of the three farm laws at least for two years along with the setting up of a committee including representatives of the unions leading the protest to formulate comprehensive farm policy. These three contentious farm laws relate to mainly the trade dimension of the farm sector and are perceived to be a step towards facilitating monopoly control of the corporates on farm sector that is source of livelihood and employment for about half of the population in India.

The talks should start from the offer of suspension and the outcome would depend upon the negotiators. The negotiators from the government side should have the power to take decision and should not be just confined to the role of the post office as is the case with the present official team.

The people who are directly part of the decision making exercise and those who are lobbyists continue to portray this agitation  as being led by the big farmers of Punjab. Such type of thinking can only be pitied upon. Going by the official record, 86 per of the farmers in Punjab are small and marginal. Despite 70 per cent of the water from Punjab rivers flowing out to neighbouring Haryana and Rajasthan, more than 99 per cent of the area under cultivation is irrigated. The productivity of wheat  and paddy in Punjab is perhaps the highest.  And above all, the state offers marketing infrastructure that is the best in the country. The incidence of farm debt is also the highest, so is the case of mechanisation. Farmers even with one acre of land have tractors.

The thinking of decision makers and lobbyists in this government is flawed, or it has been made flawed by some other forces.

These people need to visit Singhu or Tikri border, if not some remote village in the interior of Punjab that otherwise is a small state now to know the grassroot reality which would help them to carry out course correction.

The beginning needs to be made by the government by offering suspension of the laws for two years to end the deadlock rather than repeating the same amendments.

Sooner the Modi government realises that it is not some ordinary agitation, the better it would be.

The dynamics of Punjab functions between two extremes.