The fight over agriculture in India, and how Punjabis in Canada are supporting farmers
by Vandana K - Media Co-Op
February 1, 2021
Farmers are demanding repeal of new laws gutting agricultural protections, and Punjabis in Canada are supporting their protest The fight over agriculture in India, and how Punjabis in Canada are supporting farmers.
Listen, Hear Vandana K. discuss her article.
In September 2020, the Indian government passed three laws that farmers believe will lead to privatisation of agriculture and remove measures safeguarding them. The farmers’ protest first began the next month, October 2020, in Punjab and soon spread to other parts of the country.
Sukhwinder owns less than an acre of land. She is from Aiman Jattan, a
village in Hoshiarpur district in Punjab. Nine years ago, her husband
borrowed money from a bank for his farm. After a bad harvest, he found
himself unable to repay the debt. He grew stressed and suffered a heart
attack. His family was unable to afford his treatment and he died. Today
Sukhwinder earns a living by farming her land and selling milk from her
two buffaloes.
Sukhwinder’s story echoes far and wide across the rural landscape of India.
As per the 2011 Census of India,
54.6% of the country’s population is engaged in agriculture. There are
around 263 million agricultural workers, including cultivators and
agricultural labourers. According to the Agriculture Census 2015-16, 86% of farmers are small and marginal landholders.
Growing
agrarian distress has pushed farmers deeper into debt and poverty.
10,281 farmers committed suicide in India in 2019, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Punjab saw a 37.5% increase in the number of suicides from 2018 to 2019.
Major Singh, general secretary of the farmers'
union Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) recalls how the movement began at
the grassroots. “When the farm bills were passed in the Parliament in
September," he says, "farmers unions wrote to the district
administration demanding the laws be repealed. There was no response. In
October, we began to protest at toll booths, shopping malls and outside
the District Commissioner’s office. Yet there was no response from the
government.” On November 26th, farmers and traders called for a strike,
which was met with widespread support across the country. After that,
they gave a “Dilli Chalo” call (in English, “Let’s go to Delhi”).
All the protest sites are teeming
with people. The precautions of the pandemic - masks and social
distancing - are not the norm here. Many farmers this reporter spoke to
on January 25th said they are not afraid of getting coronavirus.
India saw the world’s biggest and perhaps strictest lockdown, as case
numbers rose steeply and more recently have declined. A recent report by Oxfam stated that the pandemic has increased existing inequalities in India. According to official data, 122 million people lost their jobs last year and over 150,000 people have died from Covid-19.
Fighting the new farming laws
The three laws passed by the government last year aim to change the way farmers produce and sell their crops in the market.
The
current system ensures that the government procures crops from farmers
through Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), popularly known
as mandi (meaning “marketplace” in Hindi). The government also pays a
minimum selling price (MSP) to farmers for key crops such as wheat and
rice.
The first new law allows private players to operate
parallel marketplaces outside the mandi to buy crops from farmers
without paying any taxes, and with no guarantee of fair prices. The
second law regarding contract farming allows private entities to enter
into contracts with farmers without any provisions to resolve disputes
between them in a court of law.
The third law lets private players
stockpile food items which are listed as essential commodities and has
caused concerns about hoarding and inflation impacting food security,
especially for the poor.
The law that overhauls the current
procurement system also seeks to remove middlemen or agriculture
commission agents, known as arthiyas in Punjab and Haryana, who operate
in the mandi. They often collect produce from farms, grade it and sell
it to big buyers.
Harjinder Singh owns a five-acre farm in Mohan
Majra, a village in Fatehgarh Sahib district in Punjab. He was at the
Singhu protest site with a group of fifteen other men from his village.
“The arthiyas are the farmer’s spine. If a farmer wants a loan for a
wedding in the family, medical treatment, seeds, fertilisers etc, he
goes to the arthiya,” he says.
The government has also
introduced a law to end subsidised electricity for farmers and made the
burning of crop residue a punishable offence, which farmers want
reversed.
Sukhwinder has not been able to repay the bank a sum
of 400,000 rupees ($7,044), the debt her husband left behind. “I cannot
pay interest on my loan," she says. “How does the government expect me
to pay huge electricity bills?”
Punjab has a high number of landless agricultural workers
largely from the Mazhabi Sikh community. They are Dalits, oppressed
castes who faced untouchability under the age-old caste system in India.
Gurwinder Singh, 23, a Mazhabi Sikh and a member of Punjab Radical
Students Union says, “The new laws will lead to destruction of land,
water and cause desertification ruining villages. We are asking people
to look beyond caste and unite together to protest against the new
laws.”
It is a common sight at the protest to see farmers
raising slogans and holding placards against Ambani and Adani, two of
the richest businessmen in India who own Reliance Industries and Adani
Group, respectively.
“Farmers believe that the whole intention
of these laws is anti-farmer and pro-corporate,” says Ranjini Basu, an
agricultural policy researcher at the India office of Focus on the
Global South, an activist think tank that works with peoples’ movements.
Canadian connections
There is a sizable Punjabi community in Canada and many have families back in India who farm. According to Statistics Canada, the total number of Punjabi-speaking citizens in Canada rose from 367,505 to 501,680 between 2006 to 2016. There are 18 Sikh MPs in the Canadian parliament.
Punjabi
Canadians are extending solidarity to the farmers movement through
demonstrations and sending funds. At Singhu, there are three stalls run
by United Sikhs (India), an
international humanitarian organisation with presence in 12 countries.
They distribute drinking water and essentials such as medicine apart
from providing counseling and physiotherapy sessions to ailing farmers.
The
Canada chapter of United Sikhs, based in Toronto, has been reaching out
to the local community to help farmers. “We tell people to speak to
their relatives in India and ask them to donate or volunteer on their
behalf instead of giving money to us. Many Canadians went to protests in
Delhi recently and gave blankets, tents and even washing machines,”
says Sukhwinder Singh, director, United Sikhs (Canada).
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has in general been supportive of Modi, spoke publicly in support of Indian farmers
on Dec 1, 2020. This earned a strong objection from India which termed
comments made by Canadian ministers “ill-informed” and “unwarranted.”
Indian PM Narendra Modi is known for his frequent meetings with world
leaders, including Trudeau. However, some hold the opinion that he
shunned Trudeau when the latter paid a visit to India in 2018.
Jagmeet
Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) has also extended
solidarity to Indian farmers. He recently posted a video
on Twitter calling on world leaders including Trudeau “to denounce the
Indian government’s violent response to these peaceful protestors.”
Liberal Party MPs such as Sukh Dhaliwal, Randeep S. Sarai and Navdeep Bains and Conservatives such as Tim S.Uppal and Jasraj Singh Hallan have also condemned violence against protestors through Twitter.
Members
of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have claimed that the
farmers' protests are supported by Khalistanis, a group who wants a
separate nation for Sikhs, a religious minority in India. BJP minister Piyush Goyal
also said "Leftist and Maoist" elements had infiltrated the movement.
Last month, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) questioned people
from Punjab about foreign funds received from the US-based Sikhs for Justice, a pro-Khalistan organisation, also active in Canada. The people being investigated say it was done to silence them.
What’s next?
There
have been 11 rounds of talks between farmers and the government which
have all been inconclusive. The Supreme Court of India appointed a
committee to look into farmers’ concerns and ordered a stay on the
implementation of the laws. But farmers are dissatisfied and have stuck
to their demand of repeal.
On January 26th, India’s Republic
Day, farmers decided to organise a tractor parade. They were granted
permission by the police to follow a fixed route on the periphery of the
city. But one section of protesting farmers deviated from this route
and reached the historical Red Fort. Violence erupted between police and
farmer. A farmer died, around 200 protestors were detained, 394 police personnel were injured and 25 police cases were filed against farm leaders.
A protestor hoisted a Nishan Sahib flag, which is sacred to the Sikhs, at the Red Fort. Many members of the BJP
claimed he had replaced the Indian flag and hoisted a Khalistani flag,
spreading misinformation. Telecom services were suspended at the protest
sites. The farmers unions distanced themselves from the violence and
appealed to all farmers to maintain peace.
In the initial days
after the Republic Day violence, the farmers’ movement acquired a
subdued tone. After an emotional speech by farm leader Rakesh Tikait, a
huge number of farmers arrived at Ghazipur. At Singhu, a small group of
people identifying themselves as ‘locals’ clashed with farmers, asking
them to leave. The farmers accused the police of inaction and claimed
these were ‘paid’ goons.
Over the last few days, the number of
protestors has again swelled. From the very beginning, farmers have
insisted they are in for the long haul.
Before Sukhwinder disappeared into the crowd at Singhu, she says,
Sukhwinder Kaur, a farmer from Aiman Jattan village in Punjab at the Singhu farmers protest
Major Singh (second from left), a member of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) with his fellow union members at the Singhu farmers protest
A relief camp run by United Sikhs at Singhu farmers protest gives out free medicines to farmers
Gurwinder Singh (first from left), with fellow members of Punjab Radical Student Union on his seventh visit to the Singhu farmers protest
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