Abstract
This paper looks at the three controversial agriculture laws revoked by the Government of India in 2021 and the widespread agitation by farmers across the country. In this regard, this paper examines the reasons behind the legislation, its probable consequences as well as the reasons for the revocation of these laws. It delves into the intricate dynamics of relationships between castes and class operative within Indian agriculture and their impact on the movement. It also gives the way forward in reform of agriculture but now with farmers’ welfare in mind, as much as decentralization, inclusion of people in policy-making, and better markets. The repeal is an opportunity to rebuild a better agriculture sector of India with more balanced and sustainable policies.
Keywords: farmers, farm laws, protest, reforms and agriculture.
Introduction
At the end of the year 2021, the Indian government nullified three contentious farm acts that had led to massive protests nationwide amongst the farming fraternity. It has been a great reversal in the farm laws and signifies how sensitive the government was and is to the common man’s grievances. Agriculture has continued to be the backbone of the Indian economy since the very beginning and forms about 16 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the country in 2020-21; it provides employment to about 70 percent or above rural households, who are directly or indirectly reliant on agriculture for their sustenance out of which about 82 percent fall under the category of small and marginal farmers. However, the sector has been contending with numerous obstacles, including reduced productivity, insufficient investments, and poor supply chain management. To tackle these issues, the Indian government enacted three contentious farm laws in September 2020: the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. These statutes sought to liberalize the agricultural market by lifting various restrictions on the marketing, stocking, and pricing of agricultural products.
The government asserted that these laws were designed to enhance the market access for farmers by permitting them to engage in trade without licenses or stock limits, thereby promoting increased competition and subsequently driving better prices for farmers. While the aim of the ordinances was to liberalize trade and expand the pool of buyers, deregulation might not be enough on its own to attract additional buyers. Nevertheless, these laws were met with strong opposition from various farmer associations and political groups, who argued that they would erode the existing framework of state-regulated markets and expose farmers to exploitation by large corporations. The government recently withdrew the three farm laws after a year of protests by farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh, in November 2021. This development has big implications for the agriculture sector and the larger Indian economy as a whole. It is pertinent to attempt an assessment of the impact of such repeal and also to identify measures that could overcome the current impending crisis encompassing the agriculture sector.
Research Methodology
This research paper will involve a mixed mode of qualitative as well as quantitative research techniques. While the former involves in-depth studying of relevant literature, including academic journals, government reports, and media articles, for developing a thorough understanding of the farm laws, the logic behind their implementation and repeal, etc, and the latter involves analyzing the relevant statistical data from reliable sources like Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, National Sample Survey Office, and NITI Aayog.
Review of Literature
The repeal of the Farm Laws has sparked robust debates and conversations among scholars and policy experts. Numerous studies have explored the possible effects of the laws being repealed on different parts of the farming industry. The publication, “New Farm Acts: Understanding Their Implications,” by NITI Aayog, conducts a thorough examination of the reasons behind these laws, their potential effects, details, and obstacles that these laws presented. The writer, Ramesh Chand, an eminent member of the NITI Aayog, states that these reforms were overdue for rationalizing Indian farming and for the welfare of farmers and the whole agrarian scenario in the country.
- Rationale for Policy Reforms
The proposed policy reforms aim to deal with some significant problems plaguing the farming sector in India. While the 1991 economic reforms were revolutionary to some extent, agriculture was kept outside the ambit of reform, and the income disparity between those engaged in agriculture and others started widening. These reforms will go a long way in correcting the imbalance between what the country needs and what it can produce, thus rectifying surpluses in certain products and scarcity in certain others, like edible oils and pulses. These reforms aim to fix the disparity between what the country needs and what it can produce, it also addresses excess in certain products and shortages in others, like edible oils and pulses. It also seeks to lower the costs of moving goods, which currently make up about 15% of the value of farm products, helping to make Indian goods more competitive in the global market.
By taking advantage of the faster growth in areas like horticulture, dairy, and fisheries, where the government plays a smaller role compared to cereals, the reforms plan to help small and small-scale farmers move into higher-value crops by offering them stable markets and prices. These changes also focus on fixing the problems caused by the fragmentation and inefficiency in the market that led to big differences in prices due to oversupplies in some places and shortages in others. By increasing food processing with a steady supply of good-quality raw materials and making it easier to trade agricultural products across state lines, the changes acknowledge that most food is consumed outside the state where it’s produced. Moreover, the changes aim to bring back private investment in farming, which has seen a big drop in recent years, and to pay farmers better than what’s currently covered by the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system, which only helps a small number of farmers and crops.
- Origin of Policy Reforms
The campaign for modification in the existing policies began in the year 2000, as the government worked to persuade states to revise their Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts. Even though model acts such as the Model APMC Act 2003 and the State/UT Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017, were introduced, only one state, Arunachal Pradesh, decided to implement this model act. This depicts the lack of widespread acceptance of such acts which led the central government to step in and make changes across the country to modernize how agricultural products are marketed.
- Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 (FPTC Act)
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Act of 2020 includes statutes that let farmers sell their products outside of APMC markets, making it easier for buyers to directly purchase from the farmers, and open up online platforms for trading purposes. Chand classifies the states according to the amount they charge against the market fees. He thinks that the States charging less than the average amount which is around 1.5 percent or less of the market fee would not find any competition with the enactment of the new Law. Still, a state charging very high fee of 5-8.5 percent needs to reduce it to be competitive with the private sellers. However, states with high fees (5-8.5%) need to lower them to stay competitive with private sellers. In this way the law makes legal what’s already happening outside of markets, cuts down on middlemen and the costs of moving goods, creates chances for rural young people to start businesses, and helps small farmers sell their products directly to consumers or big buyers.
- Aftermath on Minimum Support Price (MSP)
Fear was that these new legislations would ultimately bury the Minimum Support Price system. Chand contradicts this by saying instead the government has been taking steps lately to shore up the MSP system. Additionally, he feels MSP as a fixed price through legal intervention is not a sustainable option and refers to earlier failed attempts made in various states. Instead, the new trading law improves the chances of private traders paying MSP by removing charges and other fees.
- Farmers’ Empowerment and Protection Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020
This existing farming act enacted in 20 states is simplified and improved by the Farmers’ Empowerment and Protection Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020. It guarantees fixed prices for farmers through pre-production agreements with agribusinesses, thereby enabling farmers to secure access to necessary inputs, technical assistance, and infrastructure provided by these sponsors. This legislation bans corporate farming and protects the rights of farmers to own their land, it also sets up a system for resolving disputes through district and local authorities. It encourages farmers to venture into growing crops with higher value by reducing the risks associated with market and pricing.
- Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020
The Essential Commodities Amendment Act basically explains the stock limits on the set essential goods through clear guidelines on price triggers. The government has the authority to step into the market, as seen in the recent decision to impose stock limits on onions even if the policy is designed to encourage private investment in agricultural infrastructure, storage, and transportation by offering a stable regulatory framework.
Accordingly, these reforms could revolutionize Indian agriculture, increase the earnings of farmers, enhance exports, and draw in investments only if executed properly, it also tackles persistent pleas from agricultural experts, stakeholders, and political groups for the opening up of agricultural markets. The achievement of these reforms hinges on collective action, sustainable approaches, and the empowerment of farmers through comprehensive policy development. It is crucial to maintain continuous oversight, assessment, and decisions based on evidence to ensure the reforms’ success.
With the repeal of farm laws, some other articles and opinion pieces also tried to bring out the political and social dimensions of the laws and their repeal. Some have welcomed the decision of the government, as by listening to the concerns of the farmers and keeping their welfare premiere; others have termed it as a populist measure that might hobble long-term reforms in the agricultural sector. In contrast, we see an intersection of both the positive and negative aspects of this protest in Jens Lerche’s analysis in “The farm laws struggle 2020–2021: class-caste alliances and bypassed agrarian transition in neoliberal India”. Lerche provides a nuanced Marxist class-caste analysis to understand the diverse social forces that coalesced against the farm laws in the 2020-21 protests. He finds these within the wider processes of changes in Indian agriculture and economy under the neoliberal regime.
- Class Structure in Agricultural India
The running argument throughout is that the classical “agrarian question” has simply been bypassed in contemporary India. Rather than capital accumulation and surplus extraction through the transformation of agrarian relations, those of financialization and urban-centric economic growth have pushed agriculture into a marginal role. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped major shifts in the social hierarchy of India’s agricultural population throughout history. Lerche outlines the various social ranks – the wealthy capitalist farmers, the small-scale producers of goods for sale, the agriculturist workers, and the largest group of workers lacking land ownership (often labelled as Dalits). Their financial reliance and solidarity have evolved over the years. The introduction of agricultural laws presented a critical threat that brought these different social groups together temporarily. For capitalist farmers, corporate entry endangered accumulation from large-scale farming and agri-trading. For petty producers and farmer-labourers, dismantling state procurement undermined their access to subsidies and food security. Crucially, Lerche argues this broad unity was enabled by the declining primacy of agriculture and increasing casualization of the rural work force over recent decades. More households crossed farm and non-farm livelihoods in “classes of labor”, making their interests converge, at least in part, on the defense of farm laws.
- Caste Structure in Agricultural India
On the question of Dalit landless worker’s participation, a critique has been raised on this convergence from the caste perspective. It can be shown that there has been a rise of caste-based violence and land conflicts between Dalits and agricultural-owning castes like Jats despite economic distancing from these ties. Lerche claims that the primary concern of these protests is towards the interests of the dominant castes, particularly the Jats, in pursuing extreme demands such as land redistribution or the abolishment of labor exploitation. However, this movement away from economic ties resulted in unforeseen alliances between the Dalits and farmers, with groups like the Bhim Army and leaders of farmers drawing inspiration from Dalit figures such as Ambedkar. Despite these developments, the involvement of marginalized groups did not question the dominance of these groups. Even though 18.5% of the rural population is Dalit, most being landless and employed as oppressed workers for dominant castes such as Jats and Yadavs, these protests did not champion the call for land redistribution or the abolition of labor exploitation by farmers.
- Gender Dynamics in Agricultural India
The mobilization of women from marginal farmer and labor households, especially from the Dalit communities afflicted by economic distress, was very visible. Radical Dalit and Leftist groups like BKU Ugrahan played an important role in mobilizing this due to their ability to professionalize farm laws with issues of survival at the household level. However autonomous feminist agendas on their own did not drive this mobilization; it was mobilized essentially by concerns of economic survival-just one expression of deeply engrained patriarchal structures. Though the public presence of women was naturalized, there was little scope for questioning some basic norms of patriarchy given the men’s domination. There are a few silver lines though, for example, autonomous Dalit women’s groups like ZPSC did attend the program to assert their own rights over land.
Overall, Jens Lerche calls the protest as a unity forced by economic threats under neoliberal policy shifts and facilitated by agrarian transition dynamics. However, he argues that this is unlikely to persist given the movement’s inability to resolve deep class-caste contradictions and radical demands.
Methods
The paper tried to answer the following research questions –
- What were the broad focus areas and aims of the three farm acts that the country passed in 2020?
- Why did not such laws to resist the kisans and result in countrywide agitations?
- How do class and caste influence the protest of those laws?
- What were the socio-economic effects of these laws and their eventual repeal?
- What lessons does this experience convey to induce a rethink in future agricultural changes by Indian policymakers?
The following is a list of potential disadvantages and risks of misuse associated with these laws –
- Corporate Exploitation:
Agricultural producers were worried that the removal of regulations would enable big companies to take advantage of them, paying them less for their crops.
- Weakening of APMCs:
The regulations posed a threat to the government-controlled Agricultural Produce Market Committees, which have historically acted as a protective measure for agricultural producers.
- MSP concerns:
The main concern that came to the forefront was that the scrapping of MSP, which is essential to keep the financial condition of farm professionals in good health would be phased out.
- Risk to Small Producers:
With these changes, small and local farmers who predominantly depend on local sales and MSP were hit hard, therefore facing increased economic inequity.
- Market Uncertainty:
The enhanced possibility of higher market segmentation and inefficiency might subsequently be related to unsettled prices and extreme disparities across areas.
Limitations
The chosen methodology for analyzing farm laws and their impacts was such that a detailed study of primary sources—government documents, policy analyses, and data from protests—went with the use of secondary sources like scholarly articles and media reports. The methodology was itself subject to certain limitations.
- Though this method elicited the main issues and responses, there were some possible biases introduced by reliance on secondary sources and any of their own biases in interpretation.
- The analysis could have been enriched with direct interviews of affected farmers and policymakers to give first-hand insight.
Suggestions
The following pointers are suggestions that pertain to a range of issues that the farm laws and the broader agricultural sector have brought into sharp focus. These are as follows:
- Reforms in the Public Distribution System:
With the help of the review of NFSA, leakages, the inclusion of pulses and edible oils in the Public Distribution System, procurement of food at the local level, and deletion of bogus ration cards, etc can act as a roadmap for the upcoming reforms.
- Farm Law Amendments and Repeal Options:
An addition should be made in the legislation to trade only in interstate trade and the states should be provided with the flexibility to make amendments as per their requirements. These include suspension of the controversial farm laws for Consultation purposes and repealing and re-establishing the laws in question only after consultation;
- Policy and Platform Reforms:
The suggestions encompass implementing a food systems strategy, aligning all policies with enhancing agricultural earnings of the farmers, and sustaining cooperation initiatives to tackle hunger and malnutrition, focusing on health, water, and education areas.
- Market Reforms:
Some of these recommended reforms are contractual terms for middlemen, pruning APMC commodity lists, and trading competency enhancement.
- Compensation and Support to Farmers:
It makes provisions to preempt income loss resulting from policy changes, along with ensuring a soft transition for farmers.
- Recommendations:
Most of them are decentralization to states of MSP/PDS programs with flexibility given to the state in charge while fixing the issue price. These are policies, which will promote equity in agriculture, deal with urgent farmers’ challenges, and facilitate food security, as well as their general livelihood improvement. It is vitally important to create an atmosphere of mutual trust, transparency, and open exchange of views so the concerns and views of all sides are taken into account and addressed. Other than this, constant monitoring and evaluation of policies and reforms will be important to see if things are going as expected and whether some changes are required in light of changing circumstances or ground conditions. It can be facilitated by technology, data analytics, and evidence-based decision-making to arrive at such policies.
Conclusion
It is important to appreciate the fact that, reforms in agriculture form a multi-dimensional procedure, which in its implementation, takes into consideration the various needs, concerns, and views from different stakeholders in the implementation of agricultural reforms. Repeal of the farm laws makes one understand the importance of policy making that would involve the farmers and their unions as well. Lessons are loud and clear; while heading into the future, the country should learn from the experiences in the creation and thereafter nullification of the farm laws, as learned from the same, and then draw a roadmap for a holistic, sustainable endowment of the agricultural sector. The strategy should harmonize the modernization of the sector, attracting investments, and the welfare and empowerment of farmers, with a focus on small and marginal farmers, who constitute a large share of the farming workforce.
With the repeal of the farm laws, a window of opportunity has opened to redraw the course of the agricultural landscape in India today. Basically, it is by addressing the existing challenges to farming, encouraging sustainable practices, as well as empowering farmers that the nation would be able to unlock the true potential of agriculture in creating the conduits for an enriched and self-sufficient future. In a nutshell, repealing the farm laws has been a very defining moment in the history of Indian agriculture because it brings onboard the approach of having policies that are more inclusive in nature and which would, otherwise, be able to solve the multi-dimensional challenges facing the operational aspect of the overall sectors. But by collaborative and sustainable practices, and empowerment of the farmers, there may be a ray of hope for India to move towards an agriculture regime that is resilient and prosperous, where food security and the gains in the lives of farming communities are guaranteed.
- Anusree Nambiar
O. P. Jindal Global University