The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has defended the bills, recently passed by Parliament, as reforms to help rid India’s vast agricultural sector of outdated laws and allow farmers to sell to institutional buyers and large retailers like Walmart.
The government insists that the new rules give farmers the option to sell their products to private buyers while still buying staples like rice and wheat at guaranteed prices.
But those guarantees have failed to appease millions of farmers who form an influential voting bloc in states like Punjab and Haryana.
Prime Minister Modi, who was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in 2019, now faces the largest protest from farmers just weeks before Bihar’s assembly elections.
As part of a nationwide lockdown called by leading Indian farmers’ organizations, farmers held demonstrations in many parts of the country and blocked roads leading to New Delhi using trucks, tractors and combines.
Farmer Karam Singh accused the government of trying to make traditional wholesale markets superfluous. Agricultural leaders say India’s more than 7,000 regulated wholesale markets have played a crucial role in ensuring timely payments to producers.
Singh said the new law has made nearly 85% of poor farmers in India, who own less than 2 hectares (5 acres) of land, vulnerable to being scammed by private buyers.
“The private sector will give us a good price for one or two years, but what about after that?” I ask. “The government should guarantee that the private sector will give us more than the government price.”
As in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, farmers held protests in the eastern states of Odisha and West Bengal.
Farmers’ bodies also organized protests in Gujarat.
The protests have remained peaceful, but most of the producers, who took to the streets in large numbers, did not wear masks despite the daily increase in coronavirus cases in India.
Authorities had to cancel several train services on Friday because farmers blocked the train tracks.
Police in several states have tightened security in the hope of preventing any violence, especially in New Delhi.
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