By M K George

Someone asked a mountaineer, ‘Why do you climb the mountains?’ Pat came the answer, ‘Because they are there.’ Why do we talk of farmers? Because they are there, just beside us. Feeding us. And now on the bitter cold streets of Delhi protesting, risking their lives. They want the new set of farm laws passed in September 2020, with no discussion and no voting, repealed.

Count to be counted

Statistics always confuses. One data says, “70 percent of Indian rural households still depend primarily on agriculture, with 82 percent of farmers being small and marginal.”. Another says, “Approximately 60 percent of India’s population are farmers and they contribute 18 percent of India’s GDP.” In simple terms, every other Indian is a farmer and that too either a small or marginal farmer and if you add the landless agricultural laborers too, it may even be even two in three.

Now the farmers on the roads on the outskirts of Delhi protesting the new farm bills are saying that the new laws will harm them. The government and their spokespersons say it will help them. Whom do you believe? Like in many other contexts over the past years in India, what is needed is what Paulo Freire would call, critical consciousness. Or, in simpler terms, think with the same the mind of Gandhiji who says, when you are in doubt and you do not know what to choose, think of the Daridranarayan of India.

Think through the mind of the poor

Now if you think from the mind of the poor, you should listen to this data first. ‘As per National Crime Records Bureau, the number of suicides by farmers and farm labourers increased to 12,360 in 2014, against 11,772 in 2013. Of these suicides, 5,650 were farmers’ suicides. As of 2018, the Indian government has not published data on farmer suicides since 2015. Therefore, it is obvious someone does not want to talk about the poor farmers who are committing suicide. So you decide whom to listen.

As per the government, these three bills will help small and marginal farms by allowing them to sell produce outside mandis; allowing them to sign agreements with agri-business firms; and doing away with stock-holding limits on key commodities. And, it would be ultimately beneficial for the farmers.

But, the farmers have a reason to fear the three laws, which are for all practical purposes the takeover of farming by the corporates and the government washing its hands of its responsibility. The protesters point to Bihar, where similar laws were enacted 15 years ago. Those laws led to dismantling of the government-marketing infrastructure, with the number of sales centers declining by 87 percent. The markets never offered the promised better remuneration for the produce.

Farmers in Punjab sold their rice last year for the government-mandated price of $25 for 100 kilograms, while farmers in Bihar were forced to sell for $16 for 100 kilograms on the open market’ (Hartosh Singh Bal, NYT 15.01.2021)

If experience were the best teacher, from the above example alone would anyone want the farm laws? Then of course, there is the ideological argument where an authoritarian government, despite its democratic label, is aligning itself to corporate forces in order to establish their hegemony.

It is a question of trust

Ultimately, as Koustava Das said, “Even if some experts believe that the newly passed farm bills will improve India’s agricultural sector, trusting the government seems to be the real hurdle for the country’s farmers.” (India Today App 24.09.2020). A government that has over the years has not kept the promises ranging from lowering petrol price to money in the bank accounts of the poor or curbing black money for that matter, cannot hope that the poor will believe them.

The stacks are against the farmers

The David and Goliath story is being repeated on the borders of Delhi. The massive force of the Indian state, police, judiciary and bureaucracy stand with their full backing from the corporates against the weak farmers. The very scenario of this brute force added to the total control of mainstream media, cutting out of internet to the farmers on protest, we have a classic case of killing a fly with a rock.

Let us talk about the farmers

As in the case of many other issues in India today, we cannot afford silence. We need to talk. We need to talk to the ones especially who think with the corporates and the ideologically blinded, hoping against hope that they will see reason. There are those of us who are simple, verging on the naïve, who think that this is not our issue.

Journalist-agriculture-expert P. Sainath asks a simple question, “You thought it’s only about farmers? (No)…Every Indian is affected’ negatively. ‘The farmers at Delhi’s gates are fighting for the rights of us all.”

Remember, when we lose the right to dissent, we have already become slaves.