April 26 marks the completion of five months of protest of Indian farmers against three farm laws. Since November 26, 2020, hundreds of thousands of farmers and workers have been in their continuous sit-in protest at different points around Delhi border. At one point the line of protesters is four kilometer long. To date, more than 400 protesters have lost their lives mostly through heart attacks, accidents, extreme weather and some suicides.
The farmers are demanding the repeal of three laws that the right-wing nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi enacted without due parliamentary procedure last September. They also seek the legalization of a national Minimum Support Price index, an assured price fixed every year by the government, on farm produce across 23 crops.
Modi government is worried that if it is forced to withdraw the farm bills under pressure of the farmers' movement, it may inspire people's struggles against other elements of neoliberalism imposed on India by the World Bank - such as cut in education and health subsidies.
The farm laws are a key element of the entire neoliberal reform package being rammed through by the Modi government, at the behest of the imperialist powers led by the USA, and the World Bank and IMF international financial institutions controlled by these countries.
In 1991, the Indian government signed an agreement with the World Bank agreeing to implement a Structural Agreement Program. Important conditionalities of the loan were:
1. Changing the basic orientation of economic policy to benefit corporate houses, both domestic and foreign.
2. Reducing subsidies for all sectors, from agriculture to the social sectors like education and health.
3. Gradual privatization of these sectors.
4. Removal of government controls on profiteering, even in essential social sectors.
For agriculture, the implication of these conditionalities is that the imperialists want the government to end all subsidies to agriculture, including procurement of farm produce, pushing small farmers to ruin, and gradually corporatize agriculture.
Not surprisingly, Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in January that the new measures will reduce the role of the middlemen and enhance efficiency. "We believe the farm bills do have the potential to represent a significant step forward for agricultural reforms in India," Rice said at a news conference in Washington.
This is perhaps the longest protest in the world.
Meanwhile the key demand for the repeal of the three controversial farm laws has spread far and wide. While at the start of the movement it was strongest in Punjab, it has gained a lot of strength since then in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as also to a lesser extent in several other states like Rajasthan. A national-level support base has been created.
Internationally also the overall response is positive. Several Indian-American protests were held in support of the farmers, with rallies being held outside Indian consulates in San Francisco, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York City, Houston, Michigan, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.
Several American Congressmen from both the Republican and Democratic parties voiced support for these protests, including Josh Harder, TJ Cox, Doug LaMalfa, and Andy Levin. In December 2020, seven Congresspersons wrote to the Secretary of State, asking him to raise the issue of the farmers' protests with India. The Congressional Research Service published a report on the farmer protests in March. Bob Menendez and Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to the President Biden about the protests, urging him to discuss the farmer issue with the Indian government.
On 7 February, Sikh farmers in California's Central Valley funded a 30-second ad that ran during Super Bowl LV in support of the protesters in India. In February 2021, Trevor Noah ran a eight-minute segment on the farm protests.
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