PRINCE GEORGE — Two hundred fifty million farmers have abandoned their farms to take part in the largest and longest farmer-led protest in India.
The protest has been going on for nearly four months, in an attempt for the Modi government to repeal the three new reforms.
“There’s three farm bills which have been introduced by the Indian government. One being the APMC, they wanna eliminate the agricultural produce market committee. The second is the essential commodities amendment bill, And then the third is the empowerment and protection agreement,” says a Prince George businessman, TJ Grewal.
Grewal says, all three bills collectively envisualize trade area transactions, contract farming, and stocking in a way that makes them non-regulatory.
The bills passed had a complete absence of any kind of regulations and or regulatory oversight.
To date, countless negotiations between the farmers and the government have taken place, but they are coming to a dead end. This comes as the Modi government is agreeing to adjust the reforms. But the farmers are not accepting anything less than a full reform.
The government is saying the new laws will modernize the agricultural industry in India, but the farmers are saying it will destroy their livelihoods.
“There’s a fear among farmers that big businesses will indirectly have control over farm lands by receiving the farmers services that the government is talking about,” says Grewal.
College of New Caledonia political science instructor added that the Modi government has a tie to big businesses.
“The Modi government does have a reputation of being center right, and more on the side of big business, there are large corporations in India. That’s where Modi has gotten support financially for his campaigns to get re-elected.”
Beach says that is the reason why farmers believe taking away the government’s guarantees, and opening it up to big businesses is another move of Modi, to help out the individuals that supported him.
Despite lives being lost and wrongful treatment being done by the Indian government. Beach added the protest is not a humanitarian crisis.
“So far, some protestors have been beaten and at least one has been killed so far, but we’re talking about thousands of people protesting, so it really hasn’t gotten to the level, or at least the rest of the world hasn’t seen it yet, to where it becomes a major humanitarian crisis,” says Beach
Beach says it does have the potential to soon become a humanitarian crisis.
“So you’ve got people from the country, older farmers, thousands of people crammed into camps, are gonna be facing these rising temperatures, possibly a covid spike. It could be the perfect storm of conditions that these farmers are gonna be facing, and that could lead for a window of opportunity for the Modi government to impose a new lockdown and restrict the movement of the farmers, says Beach”
The farmers protest is nowhere near an end, and only time will tell whether the Modi government or the Indian Farmers win the battle.
