Agricultural Bills Cause an Uproar Among India’s Farmers

Indian farmers fear the new agricultural bills will make them vulnerable to exploitation. (Wiki Commons)

India’s upper parliamentary house, the Rajya Sabha, passed three bills this week concerning regulations for the sale and storage of agricultural produce. The bills include the Industrial Relations Code; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code; and the Social Security Code, which will loosen the rules around how farmers interact with private corporations like grocery stores. The bills have sparked protests from opposition party leaders and farmers across the country.  

The agriculture bills will loosen the rules pertaining to the sale and storage of farm produce by establishing a national framework for farmers to sell directly to private entities such as grocery stores rather than having to go through a middleman. Economist Ajit Ranade explained how these policies would help “unshack[le]” the farmer, as they will now have more freedom to trade with whomever they want; earlier policies had prohibited such trade.   

However, many farmers fear  that these bills will disturb the mandi system, which has acted to protect Indian farmers from the free market for years. The mandi system essentially amounts to a complex culture of developed relationships that provide the avenues for farmers to sell their produce. Integrating the three bills may make national trade easier and possibly more profitable for farmers, however, many fear that they will become vulnerable if the mandi system crumbles.  

Multan Singh Rana, a farmer from the state of Punjab, explains that “the government mandis will pack up meanwhile and after a few years, these players will start exploiting farmers.  That’s what we fear.” Many farmers suspect that direct dealing with the private sector will end in exploitation. “The government has left us at the mercy of big corporations,” said Rashpinder Singh, another farmer.  

Many members of Parliament also opposed the bills, but for other reasons. They argued in a joint letter to Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Venikah Naidu that it would affect “the livelihood of crores (millions) of workers across the country.” Furthermore, Parliament passed the bills in the absence of the opposition, which the letter declared “a great blot on our democracy.”  

While farmers across India protest, the opposition has moved resolutions to recall the bills for review and a possible vote. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said that the Parliament had violated the Constitution by passing the agricultural bills and supported the idea of returning the bills to Parliament for a vote. India’s government has had many policies in place to protect farmers and has made no indication that this will change, but some see the passage of these bills as “a death warrant for small and marginalized farmers.”