Farm Laws Repeal - Losers and Winners

The Modi government caved in and announced the repeal of the farm laws, “a game in farmland corporatisation”, as Jagdish Rattanani termed it. Some were happy for the reason Pratap Bhanu Mehta mentions:

“The movement has forced the government to, uncharacteristically, eat humble pie.”

Is this a sign of the tide (finally?) turning, wonders Mehta:

“It emboldens civil society and social movements. This government has pretty much had a free run in containing or suppressing social movements.”

 

Or one could wonder if the BJP is just making a strategic retreat based on its bigger picture calculations (staying in power), points out Rattanani:

“The action comes close to key state elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab… New allies are waiting but won’t shake hands till the hated laws are out of the way.”

 

Or should we not be extrapolating this one topic, as Ashok Gulati says. Should this be looked at as one issue only – farming reforms? Perhaps there is merit to both sides, hard though it be to see in any political/politicized issue. After all, the farming sector does need reforms. But even if that is true, it doesn’t mean that Modi & Co came up with the right solution.

 

If this rollback leads to a restore-the-status-quo outcome, are we as a nation (or the farmers themselves) truly better off?

“The food subsidy will keep bloating and there will be large leakages. The groundwater table in the north-western states will keep receding and methane and nitrous oxide will keep polluting the environment… Unless one goes for high-value agriculture — and, that’s where one needs efficient functioning value chains from farm to fork by the infusion of private investments in logistics, storage, processing, e-commerce, and digital technologies — the incomes of farmers cannot be increased significantly.”

 

Even worse, has such a protracted protest and rollback created other consequences?

“There is also the risk that, chastened by this experience, no government will seriously think of agricultural reform. A version of the current status quo will endure for the foreseeable future, and that prospect is not a very comforting one either.”

 

Politics/politicization apart, while it’s clearer who the losers are (the government; the corporations (think “farm corporatisation”); and the tax-payer who foots the bill on subsidies that will continue), it’s far less clear if the farmers won – while it’s a ‘Yes’ for the short term, but for the long term – can their wages/standard of living ever increase in the current model?

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