Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Thousands of farmers marched towards the national capital on February 13 to press for their demands, including the Minimum Support Price(MSP) [1]. But as the farmers from the province of Punjab made their way to Delhi, the police stopped them at the Punjab-Haryana border and attacked the peasant marchers with water cannons and tear gas.

Following the failure of discussions with government officials on February 12, groups like the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) [2] and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) [3] staged the Dilli Chalo march, also called the Farmers’ Protest 2.0. Alarmed by the farmers’ actions, the Indian government enforced Section 144 [4] and surrounded the capital with barbed wire, concrete boulders, and shipping containers. The situation brings to mind the farmers’ 2020–21 protest against proposed farm laws, during which they managed to garner national support despite challenges such as the COVID pandemic, repression and extreme weather. Following blockades and acts of resistance, the government finally repealed the laws due to the farmers’ resilience.

It seems that the current protest poses a challenge to the BJP government ahead of the general election. If the opposition can successfully campaign for an MSP with a legal guarantee, they may receive an extra boost ahead of the parliamentary election.

 The renewed agitation

The movement’s evidence of a resurgence of dissent holds the potential to forge an extensive political and social coalition among social movements.

Massive demonstrations by Indian farmers in 2020 and 2021 heralded a turning point in the political landscape for the nation’s social movements. The Indian government’s hasty adoption of three “farm laws” in September 2020 served as the initial catalyst. Their broad ramifications and the absence of broader debate or consultation sparked a fierce backlash from rural movements and farmers’ unions nationwide.

The Indian government was compelled to repeal the three “farm laws” in November 2021 due to the effective protests against them. The farmers’ demonstrations, which coincided with the government’s use of the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to ram through extensive neo-liberal economic reform, were a significant win for social movements in India.

An authoritarian government that has otherwise attempted to repress popular resistance to its majoritarian nationalism and neo-liberal programmes made a substantial concession when the laws were repealed. Thus, the Kisan Andolan (farmers’ struggle) has shown that it is possible to challenge the government’s notorious strategy of undermining social movements, suppressing dissent, and enforcing repression. Expectations for further political struggles are raised by the widespread solidarity that emerged throughout the more than year-long protests, particularly among rural producers and across the rural-urban spectrum.

On February 21, the Haryana Police’s persistent deployment of tear gas against farmers who were protesting clouded the sky above the Shambhu and Khanauri crossings at the Punjab-Haryana border in thick smoke. It also brought prominence to the dangerous political shadow that was cast over the country, as the government’s recurrent use of violent retaliation against organised citizens exposed its dictatorial tendencies. In light of this, the extraordinary mobilisation of thousands of farmers who marched on New Delhi on February 13 in support of the MSP demand, not only represents the defiance of a marginalised group in the establishment of an economic goalpost but also an embedded, far more consequential objective: the openly rebellious and audacious rejection of the controlling instincts of a strong-arm government.

The movement’s evidence of a resurgence of dissent holds the potential to forge an extensive political and social coalition among social movements. The BJP’s frenzied response and its desperate attempt to not only contain the farmers’ movement at all costs but also to discredit it might be explained by the fundamental nature of the movement and its implications for the political system and society in the short, medium, and long terms.

With thick barricades at every entrance to the capital, the police have so far prevented the farmers from reaching the nation’s political hub New Delhi. Relentlessly, the demonstrators have set up camp in two locations, Khanauri and Shambhu, a short distance from the police station by a dirt road. The length is impassable due to concertina wire and shipping container trenches. The police reacted harshly to even the smallest attempt to cross across, as they did on February 21.

 The government ignores farmers’ demands

The demand for a law to ensure MSPs for agricultural produce is at the heart of the demonstrations. The government sets support prices for over 20 crops each year in an attempt to shield farmers against sharp price declines, however, the implementation is still problematic. Just 7% of farmers who grow rice and wheat profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a company’s activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. from state agencies’ support-level purchases of those crops. Protesters demand that all farm produce be included in the government’s legally binding support prices.

In addition, they want debt waivers for peasants, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, and compensation for the families of farmers killed in the 2020–21 movement. Even if the government says it is open to speaking with the representatives of the farmers, its well-honed public relations apparatus is working non-stop to portray the demand for MSP as unfeasible from an economic standpoint. However, farmers in India are reminding the public that one of the main reasons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to power in 2014 was his promise to guarantee a 50% profit over input costs in addition to doubling their income by 2022. Four rounds of negotiations between the administration and the leaders of the farmers’ union concluded in deadlock in February. Over the next five years, the government promised to buy whole lots of cotton, maize, and pulses at MSP, but the farmers refused to accept trifles.

 The agrarian crisis

The Indian peasantry continues to struggle for survival amid a chronic agrarian crisis caused by three decades of neo-liberal reform.
The agriculture sector is a crucial aspect of the Indian economy, with around 60% of the population engaged in agriculture, contributing approximately 18% of the country’s GDP GDP
Gross Domestic Product Gross Domestic Product is an aggregate measure of total production within a given territory equal to the sum of the gross values added. The measure is notoriously incomplete; for example it does not take into account any activity that does not enter into a commercial exchange. The GDP takes into account both the production of goods and the production of services. Economic growth is defined as the variation of the GDP from one period to another. . However, farmers face numerous challenges, from acquiring inputs to marketing and post-harvest activities, which can directly or indirectly impact their lives.

The Indian peasantry continues to struggle for survival amid a chronic agrarian crisis caused by three decades of neo-liberal reform. This crisis manifests in various ways, such as crop failures, leading to low or negative incomes, indebtedness, underemployment, dispossession, and even suicide.

The root of this crisis goes back to the days of British colonial rule and the failures of the Indian state since 1947. Although new factors have emerged, old ones continue to persist. The crisis began to explode when the government deregulated the banking sector, issuing licenses to new private banks that competed against public sector banks.

The public sector banks, unable to compete with the new private banks, closed their rural branches, and credit for agriculture was transferred elsewhere, notably to the growing financial sector. Agricultural credit contracted, and farmers once again turned to informal informal sources of credit.

 Attack of global and domestic capital

After India joined the World Trade Organization on January 1, 1995, quantitative restrictions on agricultural imports were relaxed. Indian farmers, many of whom cultivated only a few hectares, were put in competition with large multinational agribusinesses and farmers from developed countries who cultivated thousands of hectares and benefited from substantial government subsidies.

The government not only allowed agricultural imports but also reduced subsidies to Indian farmers, putting pressure on them. The rising cost of fertiliser translated into higher cultivation expenses. Farmers bought costly seeds and insecticides as a result of massive public relations operations by private sector companies promising bigger yields and profits, which increased cultivation expenses without significantly increasing yields.

This was demonstrated by the cultivation of cotton in the semi-arid regions of the Deccan Plateau [5]. Farmers were encouraged to grow cotton for export, but the lack of strict agribusiness regulations resulted in the sale of phony seeds and excessive pesticide use, neither of which shielded the farmers from successive crop failures brought on by pest attacks. The decline in global cotton prices over time precipitated a severe agricultural crisis in this area, leading to an increase in farmer suicides. Public spending in rural areas fell precipitously. There was no increase in surface irrigation after 1991. Because there were no repairs or de-silting, the area served by the canals dropped by a million acres. Consequently, the incomes of farmers increased by a mere 1.96 percent per year between 1993–1994 and 2004–2005.

 Dramatic consequences

Small and marginal farmers are primarily affected by the agrarian crisis.
A prolonged agrarian crisis was caused by rising expenses, poor global market prices, and crop failures. The government has been cutting consumer food subsidies since 1991, which has negatively impacted millions of Indians’ access to food. In India, the number of undernourished individuals rose by around twenty million between 1995 and 2001. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of Food Insecurity in the World report from 2003, 214 million, or 25% of the 842 million undernourished people on the planet at the time, were in India. During the same decade, at least 25,000 farmers committed suicides due to financial despair.

Small and marginal farmers are primarily affected by the agrarian crisis. Affluent farmers have been able to protect themselves from the full impact of the crisis by leveraging global markets in important industries, such as aquaculture and horticulture. They were able to tolerate losses in lean years and had the resources to make investments. The large farmers have not been as badly treated by liberalisation as the rest of the agrarian society has been.

 Debt driven suicides

The number of farmer suicide deaths rose even higher in 2022. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) most recent data [6], as of December 4, 2023, there were roughly 11,290 suicide cases reported nationally in FY 2023. This represents a 3.7% increase over 2021 when 10,281 fatalities were reported. Data from 2020 shows that there has been a 5.7% growth. Data from 2022 indicates that suicide is committed by at least one farmer in India per hour. Farmers are dying by suicide at a rate that has been climbing since 2019 when NCRB records revealed 10,281 deaths.

Based on NCRB data for 2022, India’s agriculture sector has not been performing well in recent years. It made note of the fact that drought conditions were reported in many areas and that standing crops were harmed by sudden, intense rainfall. Problems were multiplied by skyrocketing fodder prices and lumpy skin diseases that didn’t make it easier for cattle farmers.

The NCRB statistics showed a troubling trend: agricultural labourers who were dependent on farming for their daily livelihood committed suicide at a higher rate than farmers and cultivators. Agricultural workers made up at least 53 percent (6,083) of the suicide deaths among the 11,290 farmers.

This is significant because, over time, farm wages have become increasingly crucial to the income of the average farm household, rather than agricultural production. This was highlighted in the 77^th round of the National Sample Survey, published in 2021, which included data on land and livestock held by households and an assessment of the situation of agricultural households [7]. The study revealed that the majority of an agricultural household’s income (4,063 rupees, or 45 euros) came from payments received in exchange for agricultural work. Agriculture comes last, followed by livestock farming. The latter has declined precipitously, from 48% in 2013 to 38% in 2019. Farmers’ incomes have generally not increased much. The survey, based on the latest government statistics, shows that the average monthly wage in 2019 was a paltry 10,218 rupees (113 euros). In 2012-2013, it was 6,426 rupees.

 Dance of Death

Studies have shown a correlation between climate change-related disasters and suicides among India’s agricultural workforce. Droughts have also become more frequent and widespread in the country. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, almost two-thirds of the country was at risk of drought by 2020-2022. Meanwhile, a study published in May 2023 revealed that years marked by a shortage of rainfall were generally marked by an increase in the number of farmer suicides. A sweltering heat wave at the start of 2022 led to unusually high temperatures in April and May, harvest time. This resulted in widespread crop losses, particularly for wheat.

With terribly low farm incomes, indebtedness in the sector is growing. A serial death dance engulfs the countryside.

According to a report by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the heatwave affected the country’s wheat output as well as the yields of fruits, vegetables, and animals in at least nine states. The International Institute for Environment and Development produced research titled Urgent preventative action for climate-related suicides in rural India, which examined the relationship between the number of farmer suicide deaths and the deviation of rainfall from average levels.

It is in this context that the farmers have hit the roads once again. With terribly low farm incomes, indebtedness in the sector is growing. A serial death dance engulfs the countryside. There are no signs that the calamity on the farm is getting any better, with income either staying the same or declining.

 The debate over MSP

The day the protests started, a well-known English daily [8] released an article citing official sources that estimated the astonishing 121 billion US dollars as the cost of implementing MSP. Legalising MSP for 23 crops, according to several pro-establishment agricultural economists, is impractical because of the enormous financial burden and the fact that the government already provides subsidies for agriculture.

Nevertheless, both assessments are unfounded. The main goal of the numbers being thrown around as the financial cost is to create a fear psychosis. Farmers are requesting that the MSP be set as the minimum price below which trading Market activities
trading Buying and selling of financial instruments such as shares, futures, derivatives, options, and warrants conducted in the hope of making a short-term profit. is prohibited. It does not imply that all purchases must be made by the government. Furthermore, estimates of the additional cost from independent sources range from 18 billion US dollars according to a former Chairman of the Karnataka Agricultural Prices Commission to 2.53 billion US dollars as reported by CRISIL [9]. It’s a common mistake to state that agriculture receives a lot of subsidies. According to reports [10] from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, created in 1960. It includes the major industrialized countries and has 34 members as of January 2016.

http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/ ), Indian farmers have been losing money since 2000. Among the 54 main economies examined, India is the only one where financial support for agriculture losses is absent.

 The MSP, a social choice

The idea of MSP is rooted in a moral contract between farmers and the state

The Farmers’ Commission [11], also referred to as the Swaminathan Commission, of the Central government, has proposed an enhanced formula [12] that the farmers want to be used to make the MSP declaration more lucrative.

The Indian government recognizes the need and legitimate desire of farmers to obtain a minimum price for their produce. It has set up a system for determining and announcing this price, even if it is imperfect and controversial. It also recognizes that it must “support” farmers with a floor price, even if it doesn’t do so legally. It seems that as long as the MSP remains theoretical - an IOU that is never cashed in - nobody seems to have a problem with it. As soon as farmers start demanding - or worse, expecting - the state to honour its commitments, problems arise. At this point, the very concept of MSP is called into question.

The idea of MSP is rooted in a moral contract between farmers and the state. A poor post-colonial state faced with a demographic explosion has a moral and political duty to feed its population reasonably and sufficiently. The production and sale of food was not a typical economic activity, subject to market supply and demand.

There is also an economic reason, even if we disregard the moral justification. Farming is a necessary but risky activity. Moreover, the majority of Indian farmers are marginal and small-scale, and they generally practice rain-fed FED
Federal Reserve Officially, Federal Reserve System, is the United States’ central bank created in 1913 by the ’Federal Reserve Act’, also called the ’Owen-Glass Act’, after a series of banking crises, particularly the ’Bank Panic’ of 1907.

FED – decentralized central bank : http://www.federalreserve.gov/ agriculture, which has its drawbacks. Agriculture is one of the sectors most exposed to production and marketing risks. The farmer has no control over any factor or variable, including weather conditions, inherited land and the vagaries of national and global markets.

Given the many vagaries of farming, supply logically varies, while demand is largely constant due to the low elasticity of demand. This translates into price volatility. In addition, income elasticity is lower in the food sector, meaning that demand for agricultural products grows more slowly than the economy as a whole. These factors make it essential to intervene to guarantee producers fair prices.

Finally, the MSP has an ecological justification. Indian farmers are likely to be among the hardest hit by climate change, which could lead to a 25% drop in their incomes. They need support to cope. Farmers need to diversify their farming practices, but they can only do so if they are confident that the new crops will generate respectable incomes.

Current supply policy encourages unsustainable dependence on wheat, rice and sugar cane. A comprehensive MSP will encourage farmers to diversify and move the country’s agricultural economy towards sustainability. A detailed discussion of the economic, financial and technical arguments in favour of MSP is beyond the scope of this article. However, various calculations show that it is perfectly possible. What’s more, a bill to legally guarantee MSP already exists. In 2018, some 30 farmers’ unions collaborated on the preparation of a bill on the legal guarantee of MSP under the auspices of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (All-India Coordination Committee for Peasants’ Struggle). Interestingly, almost all the 21 political parties in the INDIA bloc [13] were involved in drafting the organization’s legislative framework.

 Whither farmer’s movement?

The movement’s social diversity can and has inspired movements around the world.
The effervescence on the Punjab-Haryana border is reminiscent of the protests of 2020, when farmers marched to the Delhi border in reaction to three controversial laws. However, it is unclear whether the farmers’ movement can expand in the face of rising Hindu nationalism and Modi’s current legitimacy.

Several unions intended to continue the agitation until official guarantees Guarantees Acts that provide a creditor with security in complement to the debtor’s commitment. A distinction is made between real guarantees (lien, pledge, mortgage, prior charge) and personal guarantees (surety, aval, letter of intent, independent guarantee). regarding the MSPs were established, even after the Modi government declared in November 2021 that the three laws would be repealed. The SKM leadership as a whole, however, has decided against this. The SKM, which is currently leading the fight, is a residual coalition. The government’s ferocious response is an open admission of its terror of its citizens, in the face of non-violent protest.

The successful farmers’ protest of 2020-21 has evolved into a broader movement calling on the government to take immediate action to solve the structural agrarian problem and preserve rural livelihoods. The movement’s social diversity can and has inspired movements around the world.

Indian farmers are not isolated: farmers’ demonstrations are breaking out in Bordeaux, Warsaw, Cardiff, Brussels, Madrid and other European cities. Tractor owners burned bales of straw, invaded town squares and parked their vehicles in front of legislative buildings. However, no country blocked farmers’ access to the capital as India did.

 Towards a political showdown?

For reasons that go beyond the immediate, India’s political elites are very concerned about the farmers’ protests. Indeed, calls for social justice from marginalized groups risk reducing the appeal of Hindutva (Hindu hegemonic ideology) and, consequently, its ability to unite diverse Hindu voters by sustaining communal divisions within society.

This poses a danger to the BJP’s electoral calculus, as it has broadened its support base from the privileged castes to include various caste groups from the “Other Backward Classes” (OBC), who have no historical links with the party. Understanding this fault line, the Congress and other opposition players have shaped their election campaigns to prioritize the concerns of the OBCs. If his party wins the elections, Rahul Gandhi has assured the OBCs that he will explore the possibilities of improving their quotas in public jobs and education. Whether deliberately or fortuitously, a sea of farmers camping out in the streets for several weeks, even months, before the general elections - due in the next two months - helps the opposition in its gamble, as it gives more substance and shows the urgency of its social justice agenda, drawing attention to inequality and economic hardship.

Modi’s main objective is therefore to prevent the movement from spreading beyond Punjab, as it did in 2020-21 when farmers in western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana joined it and gave it greater strength and scope. The problems we face are not unique to Punjab. Farmers in other states have voiced similar complaints, pointing out that in the absence of legal safeguards, the government’s MSPs are nothing but window-dressing.

The government is aware that the use of excessive force against non-violent protesters could jeopardize the Prime Minister’s carefully constructed image of a leader positioned on the side of the underprivileged and oppressed. This is why he has turned to his favourite tactic, namely racist demagoguery and the attempt to portray the demonstrators as supporters of Khalistan (the name of the state claimed by Sikh independence fighters in the Indian state of Punjab), to prevent any objective and impartial assessment of the protests.

It is in this context that Indian farmers need our support and solidarity. It is also important that the working class actively supports the farmers’ movement. This will not only strengthen resistance but also help workers to take advantage of the situation and win their demands. Only then can we deal a serious blow to the fascists in power.