Celebrating the 72nd anniversary of its constitution, India’s Republic Day parade was overshadowed by farmers and union organizers who have been protesting against the imposition of unfair farming “reforms” for over two months. As scenes of violence, police brutality, social unrest, and tractor rallies enveloped the Indian socio-political landscape, Republic Day became the backdrop to a long-existing conflict between the Indian people and the Modi Government.
The roots of this current conflict trace back to the impunity with which the BJP-led government used the pandemic to pass laws which favour donor corporations and big businesses at the expense of workers and peasants. The three new Farm-laws, which were implemented in September, and hastily put into temporary effect before hand, have been subject to immense scrutiny not just for their implications, but also for the seemingly undemocratic climate within which they were imposed. The Farmers Trade and Commerce Act, The Farmers Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and The Essential Commodities Act, constitute the three reforms touted by the Modi government to be a step towards liberalisation in Agriculture. It is these three laws which have united the farmer union umbrella organisation Samyukt Kisan Morcha with a number of Trade unions and activist groups in complete unison against the Modi Government.
What has followed from these developments is quite possibly the largest general strike in recorded history; as protestors sang the chants of Inquilaab, and raised the banners of revolutionaries such as Bhagat Singh, scenes of extreme police brutality and barricades across the National Capital territory of Delhi, and the exacerbation of extreme polarisations within Indian society, sprung into the public sphere. By the time of Republic Day, over nine rounds of negotiations have been held between union leaders and the government, and the apathy shown by the BJP has resulted in it facing one of the most difficult challenges of its regime, with the protestors settling for nothing other than a complete repeal of these laws.
A protesting farmer hurls back a tear gas shell towards police as they march to the capital breaking police barricades during India’s Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi on Jan 26. — AP
Farmers arrive in a tractor to attend a protest at Singhu. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Farmers gather as they take part in a nationwide general strike to protest against the recent agricultural reforms at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu on December 8, 2020. Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP via Getty Images
While details of the protests and the unity shown by people from different castes and religion is something to admire and write stories about, the implications and genuine grievances of the Indian populace, especially those hailing from the farming sector, need to be at the centre stage of any conversation regarding the current situation. Since independence, Indian farmers have been ensured state support for agriculture in the form of subsidies, better irrigation facilities, high yielding crop varieties, and other services which helped the farmers in adopting better agricultural policies. The setting of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and regulated wholesale markets such as the APMC, were designed to shield farmers from exploitation, and ensured remunerative prices for their products. The structural adjustment policies which have begun starting 1991 have rolled back many of these policies, exposing many small farmers to highly volatile market prices. Due to budget cuts and privatization, many Indian farmers have seen themselves drown in mountains of debt, and rates of suicide have increased at tragic rates. In such a situation where what the farmers need is a strengthening of their social protections, the little safety they have is being pushed back through laws which essentially provide greater opportunities for corporations and Agri-Businesses to contract with Indian farmers.
The result of this exposure to privatization is well known in India, since the precedents of such policies are present with the increasing role of the corporate sector in states such as Andhra Pradesh, where violations of contracts put corporations at advantages, and essentially enslaves the farmers to the whims of an extremely volatile free market. Poverty, unemployment, unfair prices, dispossession, even greater debt, mental stress, and social and economic inequality, inevitably follows.
Hence, it is very much in the interests of the hundreds of thousands of protestors all the way from Haryana to Punjab, to have these laws repealed, and to have their grievances heard. However, this one incident is not occurring in isolation; ever since the Modi government came into power in 2014, India has seen a stark shift towards right-wing economic policy which has seen a monopolization of telecommunications by Corporate donors to the BJP party such as Ambani and Reliance Jio; the increased profits of multinational companies such as TATA and Pepsi with the extensive rollback of labor laws, regulations, and environmental laws; the introduction of “electoral bonds” which allow anonymous donations to political parties (the fact that most donations range from 14,000$ to around 150,000$ suggests that the average Indian does not get a say in this process); increasing support for corrupt oligarchs such as Gautam Adani who have been saved from bankruptcy and contractually allowed to build airports in areas which have then displaced thousands of peasants; and of course, an extreme crackdown on dissent through assault on journalists, including respected journalist Paranjoy.
The examples mentioned above show just how explicitly the Indian state supports the corporate and pro-business sector at the expense of ordinary workers and peasants. As popular writer Arundhati Roy notes: “Political parties and major corporates function almost as a single organism.”
The party uses monopoly over the media and social media to allow itself to shape discourse in a way as to scapegoat minorities, and it has often shown itself to exploit genuine grievances by diverting it towards the populist and nationalist agenda of the party. Whilst it may be nationalist in the sense of the idea of a nation-state, the BJP has consistently shown itself to throw the ordinary people under the bus in support of multi-national and profit-seeking entities. This is evident from the fact that while the top 10% owns 77% of the wealth in India, around 2/3rds of the Indian population now lives below the poverty line.
On Republic Day, the protestors stormed the Red Fort, a historical monument in India. Throughout this movement, the Indian people have shown their strength and courage in the face of a highly securitised, facistic state apparatus which has undermined the constitution, and which has undermined the democratic values upon which the Indian state has prided itself on for decades. However, with a state that has the support of those with wealth, power, and the ability to influence discourse, is it possible for these protestors to have their demands met? Is it possible for the state to listen to its people at a time where the pandemic has plunged them into incomparable misery? Only time will tell the answers to these questions. For the time being, I urge all readers to delve deep into the crisis engulfing India, the intricate implications it has, and the deep structural deformities it shows of our current global system.
