In the years between 1757 and 1766, the East India Company received 6,000,000 pounds from the natives of India as gifts. In the years 1769 and 1770, the English brought about a famine by buying up all the rice with the same money they had received from the very people, and by refusing to sell it again to them, except at exorbitant prices. Is the history repeating itself?
ALEX TUSCANO
Since the passing of the Farm Laws 2020 the farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and many other states are agitating in and around Delhi. One Sikh Baba gave his life in support of the agitation. More than twenty people died in the biting cold of Delhi. There is no slowing down of the agitation. The entire world is talking about this agitation as being the world’s largest protest by the Indian farmers.
The farmers are protesting against the three farm laws the Modi government passed under the pretext of doubling the income of the farmers. The farmers are not convinced. They see a bigger and mischievous design by the government to hand over the farm sector into the hands of the India’s largest corporate houses.
Uncluttering the three farm laws
1. Elimination of all subsidies and minimum support price for the farmers. Eliminate APMC, Agricultural Produce Market Committee and Mandies (APMC Yards). From now on the farmers can sell their product to private traders and corporate houses. This also means that any corporate house can procure food grains from the farmers and stock in unlimited quantity in their godowns. Earlier it was illegal for private people to hoard food grains.
The farmers will not get the benefit of the system of minimum support price. The government used to fix minimum support price for several farm product to ensure that the famers do not incur losses. Further farmers will not get subsidy on any input for cultivation.
2. Introduction of contract farming. This means traders and corporate houses can make agreements with farmers to produce food grains and sell to the corporation. In case of dispute the farmers cannot have recourse to the courts but some local government official can intervene to solve the dispute.
3. The corporations can stock any amount of agricultural produce (procurement in private hands). This could result in artificial scarcity and food prices to rise.
A Historical Perspective
Soon after the Independence, India had a massive food shortage. The Indian government was forced to import food grains. Indian farmers were cultivating land under tenancy system where the cultivators were not the owners of the land. The lands were owned by the zamindars, who collected tax from the farmers either in cash or in food grains. The landowners were not bothered even if a drought had made it impossible for the farmers to cultivate the land. If a farmer failed to pay taxes then the landlord would take the land from the farmer and give to another more prosperous farmer who could pay taxes regularly. This led to a lot of farmers becoming landless and forced to work with other farmers for wages or migrate to cities to look for employment.
Indian agriculture moved from the feudal tenancy form to capitalist form of cultivation where the cultivators became owners of their land and they cultivated by employing wage labourers. This transformation of agriculture into capitalist agriculture did not solve the problem of low level of food production and the farmers continued to remain very poor and exploited.
To overcome the precarious situation of farmers and low level of food production, the Government of India undertook three programmes:
1. Building dams to improve irrigation.
2. Green revolution by modernizing agricultural production and introducing intensive farming in selected areas in the country, such as Punjab, Haryana, Mandya, Kuttanad, Tanjavoor.
3. Farmers’ support programmes such as agricultural cooperative societies, minimum support price and Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC). APMC is a marketing board established and operated by the state government in order to regulate the sale of agricultural products and eliminate the exploitation of the farmers by intermediaries, and to ensure remunerative prices for the farmers for their produce and timely payment.
In spite of these measures, the farmers were always in distress. Large number of farmers have committed suicides and there is no end to it.
60% of the Indian population is involved in agriculture and 45% of the total labour force is in agriculture. High percentage of farmers is subsistence farmers who barely produce for their livelihood. Agriculture gives very low returns. The law of the country does not allow the owners of the land to change the land use for nonagricultural purpose. But when the government wants, it will throw the farmers out and snatch their land and give to the industrialists to build their factories.
The Farmers’ Protest
The farmers’ protest is against abolishing of APMC and Minimum Support Price. Farmers’ agitation is an indication that the farming and the industry are in conflict with each other. It is an attempt on the part of the corporates and industrialists to gain control on the agriculture and subordinate it to industrial capital. The gist of the development that the present-day NDA government wishes to bring about is to allow the corporate capitalist to gain control of the agriculture. The system of Mandis and the minimum support price is government’s responsibility to regulate agrarian economy and to prevent it from going below the level of break even.
Conflict between Industry and Agriculture
The human civilization started with agriculture. All the non-farm products were produced by the craftsmen who were rooted in agriculture. Industry came up out of the womb of agriculture.
In the feudal society the only economic activity was agriculture. It was under the control of kings and feudal lords, as the peasants did not own the land they were cultivating. The entire wealth of the society was owned by the kings. People produced only for consumption and for paying to the kings, warlords and feudal lords. In the womb of agriculture, there existed craftsmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers and oil press mills.
As the productive forces developed in agriculture and with the craftsmen, they started producing surplus. They began to exchange their product. They used to take their surplus product to the religious pilgrim centers to exchange or sell. Gradually, these places became permanent local markets. Gradually the craftsmen who did not need to remain in the rural areas in the midst of agrarian society to produce their goods shifted to the centres of market places and began to produce and sell in the markets. Gradually, these market places and towns became centres of production of non-agricultural goods. With the industrial revolution the history witnessed emergence of large industries.
Gradually, the owners of these industries required large plots of land to established their factories. They began to encroach on the land of the farmers. The history saw the eviction of peasants from their land to make place for industrial development.
Up to this day we are seeing the process of eviction of farmers, Dalits and Adivasis from their land for the sake of industries, mega projects and urbanization. This is a slow process of extermination of farmers by the rising capitalism. The farmers were driven out of their land to make place for the emerging industrial capital. We can truly say that the capitalism was built on the graves of the peasants.
The Ultra-neo-liberal Programme of the NDA Government
In the name of doubling the income of the farmer, the NDA government is making a way for the corporate companies like that of Ambani and Adani to enter into farm business. Once the corporate companies enter into agricultural production and start procuring food grains from the farmers, we might anticipate unregulated food grain market. These industrialists will be free to sell their stock anywhere in the world where they get maximum prices.
The programme of agricultural reform adopted since Independence have failed to bring about the required changes in the agrarian structure. One report by P.D. Ojha further brings out the truth that, “In no sphere of public activity in our country since Independence has the hiatus (gap) between the precept and practice, between policy-pronouncements and actual execution, been as great as in the domain of agriculture.”
Manmade Famines of the Past; and More in the Making
I would like to quote an event that occurred in the 18th century. In the years between 1757 and 1766, the East India Company received 6,000,000 Pounds from the natives of India as gifts. In the years 1769 and 1770, the English brought about a famine by buying up all the rice with the same money they had received from the natives, and by refusing to sell it again, except at exorbitant prices. In the year 1866, in just one province of Orissa, more than a million Hindus perished of hunger. Nevertheless, an attempt was made to replenish the Indian State Treasury out of the price at which necessaries of life were sold to the starving people. This is also very true about Bengal famine in 1942. Churchill did not accept the fact of famine as Mr. Gandhi did not die of famine.
The first most important change we are witnessing is that the state has abdicated its role in the market and in the economy as a whole. The government’s understanding of the farmers’ knowledge is not only flawed but also insulting. The December issue of the EPW articulates it well, “The major thrust of the protest suggests the government’s steps are not in farmers’ favour but in the favour of big business. Farmers understand the logic of the market driven by private interests.”
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Alex Tuscano is founder of Praxis research and training centre. He began a school near Bangalore to empower the rural children to be able to participate in nation building.
