The three legislations namely,
Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) 2020,
Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services 2020,
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) 2020,
concerning farm produce and its sale have been passed by the Indian parliament and have become acts after signing by the President of India. It had raised a lot of hue and cry during its passage in the parliament and even now protests against the act acts are taking place. It is worthwhile to remind here that these provisions formed a part of manifesto of Indian National Congress from 2012 onwards. The other political parties mostly regional though some of them termed as national parties technically never seem to think in terms of country as a whole.
First of all, what is the extent of protests. The involvement of citizenry is almost at the same level as that of protests in the case of Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizenship, at best a couple of thousand people at various places. Yes, the polity of all hues (except the BJP) with their touts and corruption empowered cabal they have nurtured for almost seven decades is on the streets. There are media guys who feel their wings are clipped by the present ruling dispensation have used big big qualitative adjectives like massive, the nation on the boil etc. etc. for these protests. For their information, India has about 13 crore farmers/cultivators and a few thousands at some places in the country is a miniscule representation for a class. What is their motivation?
Agriculture has been a state subject, i.e. it forms a part of state list of our constitution, which essentially means that states are supposed to address all issues related to agriculture. An entry 33 in the concurrent list was made by the present union government in Jun 2020 which limits the power of states in agriculture and empowers the Centre by stating that both the states and union government can legislate regarding production, trade, supply and distribution of a range of foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials.
Since centre has come into the agriculture from Jun 2020, all the Woes of The Indian Farmer emanate from the failure of all state governments who have been looting the farmers ever since independence. In fact truth about these protests came out from one state politician from Tamil Nadu that these acts are an intrusion on the federal structure of India. Polity all over the globe and Indian polity in particular doesn't believe in powers unless a big earning opportunity is attached to it. Incidentally about Rs 25 lakh crores worth of agriculture is produced in India and sold in the Mandis of the country. Furthermore, the ratio of what a farmer gets and what a final consumer pays for any goods at best is perhaps as low as 1:4 and in many cases it can touch 1:6 and for perishables much higher. The Rs 25 lakh crore figure is in terms of price paid to the farmer. One needs to understand that for the state government bigwigs of polity, arhatiyas, commission agents and middle men, it is a game involving Rs 50-100 lakh crores annually and more than 90% in cash only. An extremely lucrative activity for black money earners and political funding. Farmer has nothing to lose, in fact he is going to gain only.
That exactly is the reason of so much agony thrust on Indian polity through these farm related legislations. If only these states ruling guys cared for the plight of farmers they would have increased the MSP in their states to the level of their liking and enacted legislations that all agricultural produce will sell only above MSP irrespective of the fact that it is bought by government or a private party. Polity of all hues has failed in not standing with the ANNADATA all these years and fooling him with hollow catchy slogans. Let us make a sincere beginning in the right direction to improve the lot of our Annadata with more and more of such measures to raise the earnings of farming community to give him a reasonable living standard.
