The agricultural reform Bills have led to a new political scenario leading to NDA partner SAD to quit the Narendra Modi government. The bills were passed by a voice vote in the Rajya Sabha on Sunday amid a major unwanted ruckus by the Opposition members who trooped into the Well of the House, shouted slogans, tore the rule book and damaged the presiding officer’s mike to register theirs protest.To add to this one of the MPs manhandled a Marshal. The opposition MPs started picketing on the allegations of violating the procedure of passing the bill depicting typical pseudo secularism. In my opinion; Marshal was just performing his duty and misbehaviour with him certainly would have a bad impact on the psyche of the individual and his family. Besides this what about social impact on his family members especially his children?
However coming back to main issue of agricultural reform bills, the monsoon session is being held in the midst of the Covid pandemic where social distancing norms have been enforced. This was the first instance of a protest in the Well of the House in Covid times and violating social distancing norms had certainly set a bad example in minds of common man.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been reiterating his resolve to double the farmers’ income by 2022 and these bills are one of the many steps in that direction. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Prime Minister described this moment as a “watershed moment” in the history of Indian agriculture asserting that the passage of the bills will ensure complete transformation of the agriculture sector and empower crores of farmers. The bills have been designed keeping in mind the interests of 86% small farmers of agarian economy of Bharat. The Parliament passed two bills related to farmers and the sale of farm produce granting liberty to farmers to sell their products outside their respective states and mandis without losing the minimum support price (MSP) protection.
But, the pseudo fear that has been planted by opponents of this bill in minds of agitating farmers is the point that once the prevailing hegemony of the APMC collapses, private commission agents will dictate price. Agitating farmers and farmer leaders fear that once private markets are set up outside the APMCs, the APMC will have few buyers. This is because a key feature of the new legislation is that in the ‘trade areas’, the new markets– no market fee, cess or levy shall be charged to the farmer or the trader. So, they fear that the new legislation paves the way for dismantling the APMC structure. Once that happens, the fear is that the ‘open markets’ will operate as oligopolies where a bunch of traders come together to set a price no trader goes above. The argument in favour of allowing private markets to flourish is that this will eventually benefit the farmers as it will mean that ‘free trade’ will take place and the market will move closer to the perfect competition thus ensuring that the farmer gets a just price for her crop.
The government is trying hard to convey to farmers that procurement of crops that fall under the minimum support price will continue as earlier and other alternate ways are for their betterment.
Further, the ruckus reated on passage of the farm Bills on the pretext of violation of procedural lapse for passage of bills could have been avoided in the Upper House and concrete steps should be taken to restore the spirit of Bhartiya democracy which is backbone of Bhartiya society since advent of human being on this holy land. Let us be with our PM Narendra Modi in journey towards self reliant Bharat by financially empowering our farmers who are backbone of Bhartiya economy since ancient times.
Sukhdev Vashist is a writer on issues pertaining to Nation, Culture and Politics.
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