India is among the top economical affected nation over the pandemic this year , the main reason behind it is the public and private sectors are badly crushed due to lockdown but only the agriculture sector which keep India at some better position in term of economic and employment. India’s agricultural has about 18% contribution to GDP. but a new Bill called the three contentious Agriculture bill that were passed by the Parliament got the President assent on September 27.
How gradually the Spark turns into the Fire ?
On 10th of September the “ Bhartiya Kisan Union” and other farmer organisations sought permission from the Haryana government for a protest rally but the state government of Haryana denied them the permission in view of the corona virus pandemic and that a protest during this time would not be right, But the farmers did not pay heed to the government and a rally was organized in which more than 100 farmers rode their tractors to the site of protest and hence some called it the “tractor protest” because farmers were protesting with tractors and were raising slogans of “Save the farmers, save the mandis” The situations turned violent in some places and it is alleged that the farmers were lathi charged by the police
But why are there demands to save the mandi in the slogans of “Save the farmers, save the mandis”?
Let us first understand each terms involved into it .
Role of APMC
APMC ensure that farmers are not exploited by intermediaries (or money lenders) who compel farmers to sell their produce at the farm gate for an extremely low price.
All food produce should first be brought to a market yard and then sold through auction.
How much APMC and MSP is important for the farmers.
Nowadays, you must have tomatoes in your lunch , Right ? In these months (Nov-Dec) for 1 kg you have to spend 20 to 25 rupees per kg but in the months of June - July the price would be 70–80 rupees per kg .
Yes exactly, because of the season of production but you can get tomatoes in those days too because of the storage in warehouses, silos, and cold storages
Here they entered called Private players. Private player the industries (the Adani -Ambani groups) will have bought the farm product in harvest season, when prices are generally lower, and release it later when prices firm up. Small and marginal farmers will suffer the most as they depend immensely on the intermediaries to sell the produce. Because they will sell those tomatoes in 20 and buy it in 50 rupees after some time period .This is not rare, with in 2 days those player will kill the market structure with a smile.
Agriculture experts too share similar concerns that this could leave farmers vulnerable to possible exploitation at the hands of big corporate houses.
Once the food-grain market is created outside the regulated market (APMC), then it’s quite clear that there would be no MSP. “It is understood that when one is taking food trade outside the regulated market, and there is no regulation of that market, then MSP will not be applicable on that trade.
Only 6% of farmers actually sell their crops at MSP rates, according to the 2015 Shanta Kumar Committee’s report using National Sample Survey data. Thats why farmers are regedit to fix the MSP.
Always remember, APMC is a huge reason why India’s green revolution in the 1960s was a massive success.
Repealing the APMC Act apparently did not do wonders to Bihar
Theoretically, repealing the APMC Act should do wonders to Bihar, right? My home state is Bihar and let me tell you the data ,
Bihar’s Agriculture & Services sectors form 20% & 61% of its economy. Punjab’s is 25% and 50%.
7-8% of Punjab’s population is poverty, 33% of Bihar’s!
Bihar is the 2nd largest state by population (9.1% of India’s population), Punjab ranks 16th (2.2%).
Bihar has an above average land fertility compared to many states. However, what Bihar probably doesn’t have, and that Punjab probably does, is a sense of a larger family — a sense of pride, community and togetherness in its culture.
Remove Middle-Man agents is Good ?
Arhtiyas(commission agents )are the middle man between the farmer and the buyer but has a major role than said. In the Sushma Swaraj (a leading BJP leader and ex-Minister of External Affairs) words:
Agents is still helpful when to comes to selling the crops as Arhtiyas works as an instant buyer of the farmer’s crops which otherwise is a time-consuming process if sold directly in the government mandis or APMC because even after delivering the corps at the APMC mandis the payments for the same are not instant as the crops need to be auctioned and the final payments can take up to one or two months!
New act will end the Arhtiyas: Late Shri Arun Jaitley
Late Arun Jaitley on 6th september 2012 “ If you remove small Arhtiyas, small dalals then guess who would come into play? The big Dalals the Industrialists.”
The impact of the bill will eliminate the role of middle man and ultimately would shut their shops. Now after the Arthias closing their business farmers would only be left with the courtesy of the corporates as a way to selling-off their crops instantly for the same reasons mentioned above (selling at APMC is time-consuming and farmers need instant payments and also they don’t have storage warehouses). Now we all know how good corporates are when it comes to courtesy. These are the same corporates who expelled millions of employees in just a month when the pandemic started to takeover.
Contract farming
One of the bills also provides the norms to do contracts with the farmers for the complete land they cultivate and hence would be inviting to the large corporates into the agriculture sector and improving it with all the innovations that they come with.
You can take the example of Nashik where the Wine companies had not been paid the price of grapes grown by farmers in past by saying the quality is not good. That is the reason why farmers are being afraid if the company first shown his agreement to the contract of growing the certain amount of food and at the end if they denied to buy those farm product then farmer have to sell his farm land to get rid from the loss like Nashik farmers.
Why Farmers doesn’t want to be the system private ?
The protesting farmers believe that these ordinances would “corporatize “ the agricultural sector of India where big companies would be able to establish their monopolies over the agricultural sector of India and it would become easier to exploit the farmers A good, recent example of this would be when Pepsi sued some farmers in court in Gujarat most of the farmers in the country do not have the requisite knowledge to understand lengthy contracts made by the multinational companies and fight legal battles with them.
Most experts also say that the government is fooling people by claiming that these ordinances would impart freedom of choice because this freedom already exists with the farmers They can sell their produce wherever they wish to. if the market is left free for the businesses to earn profit as they wish to then overall, this will not be good for the society and the world because if businesses and big companies operate without the regulation of the government, then they will always think about their profits and if they are only focussed upon the profits, who is going to look after the environment?
How to demolish the protest by Creating propagandas
Government requested Delhi state government to let the farmers enters into Delhi so that city stadiums can convert into jail for the farmers and The Delhi government on Friday rejected the request of the Delhi Police to use the city’s nine stadiums as temporary prisons in view of the farmers’ ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest march.
Media to defame the farmers
You might be able to recall the important role that was played by the media in the anti corruption movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011–12 in emboldening the voice of the protesters and raising their voice in favour of the common man Today, the media is so sold out that it is playing the opposite role I am not saying the media was not sold out back then . It might have been the same back then, but the extent to which it is sold out today has crossed all limits Instead of bolstering the demands of the protesters, the media is busy in defaming the protesters They are being branded with different names such as Khalistani, urban naxals and Congressi funded .We all know that BJP-RSS had a very important role in the anti corruption movement of 2011–12. But, the media did not highlight that fact or exaggerate it to say that the protest was BJP funded or that the BJP supporters were protesting.
It wasn’t so, right?
But today, if the Congress and the opposition parties are involved in the protest, then how can the protesters be labelled as “Congressi”?
Zee News was running a hashtag #FarmersProtestHijacked and implied that it is being supported by ‘Khalistani people’
#AandolanMeinKhalistan
Times Now is running a hashtag #KisanKanoonClash and said that opposition is “inciting the farmers”
and blamed the farmers for being responsible for another mass gathering that could lead to COVID increase. But they are least bothered about the spread of COVID19 when the BJP leaders assemble in Hyderabad for municipal elections in Hyderabad
CNN News termed Dilli Chalo a ‘war cry’ and asked “Who is misleading farmers?”
In News18 India, Amish Devgan’s prime time show carried taglines such as “Has the Congress incited the farmers?”
Infact the word “misled” was used very frequently on every news channel and it was put across that the farmers are protesting only because they have been misled.
This post went viral in which a person is seen wearing a green turban and it was alleged that he was a Muslim who was disguising as a Sikh to participate in the protests against the government.
Many have posted a picture of a man wearing a green turban and claimed that a Muslim man disguised as a Sikh took part in the agitation. Kunwar Ajay Pratap Singh, a Twitter user who is followed by Prime minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, shared the picture and questioned, “He is a farmer?” He also attached a screenshot of the man’s Facebook profile which shows that his name is Nazeer Mohd.
Fake :
However, a fact check by the Alt News found that the Image being shared predates farmer protests,This way, completely fake news is being spread to discredit the farmers and instigate people in the name of religion.
Reality :
The photograph being circulated was posted by Nazeer Mohd on his Facebook profile on April 8, 2020.
In another incident, BJP’s Priti Gandhi, who is the national in-charge of BJP’s social media has tweeted a 15-second video clip from her official Twitter handle where a group of sikhs raising pro-khalistan slogans. Mrs. Gandhi claimed that the video is from farmers’ protest and that they are raising pro Khalistani slogans. Hence the protest is Khalistan sponsored for sure Several people believed that But in reality, this was an old video. And it was not even shot in India. It was shot in the UK
This is our media who have well known achivement of the misguide any protest under the country against government , whether the protest was on no paper of jee and NEET, CAA -NRC , Doctor nurse of NDMC hospitals at Jantar Mantar over salary dues. So if you are planning to join protect in upcoming days be aware of the media and the IT cells .
Government requested Delhi state government to let the farmers enters into Delhi so that city stadiums can convert into jail for the farmers and The Delhi government on Friday rejected the request of the Delhi Police to use the city’s nine stadiums as temporary prisons in view of the farmers’ ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest march.
Government encouraging tax-free private trade outside the APMC mandis so that farmers can smell the bread and easily enter into the rat trap. Like JIO did with us Indian and led to the shut down of Vodafone ,Docomo, and many more here JIO is the private Mandis and the Vodafone is APMC. The private mandis make these notified markets unviable, which could lead to a reduction in government procurement itself. Farmers are also demanding that MSPs be made universal, within mandis and outside, so that all buyer (government or private )will have to use these rates as a floor price below which sales cannot be made.
