Farmers protest in india

[jayakris]

I think I read more than 200 farmers died in the protests. And, the protests will have an economic toil on the country's economy most possibly. Having said that, I like checks and balances. Although I support the changes largely, I also support the farmers coming out and protesting. Some movements/issues, etc. do not have an immediate payoff. In the long run, if you protest, people will be careful not to trample on you. I think having a strong opposition is important.

I also liked the protests to the extent of creating the checks and balances; especially now, as the opposition is just nonexistent. What I didn't like was the Indians and the expats of Indian origins who tried to paint a picture that this was some sort of human rights abuse and all that BS that really hurt our country's reputation a little bit. To say that this was all undemocratic (or that this whole thing indicates India's losing its democratic credentials) is/was patently absurd. It only showed the anti-national views of those who peddles that story-line. It's not like the Government has been causing the deaths of the protesters. I don't know if even one death can be attributed to Government action or inaction. It's disgusting, what kind of liars our country's leftist "intelligentsia" can be.

[prasen9]

I did not mean to say that the government killed people directly. It was a result of the chaos.

I live in an area where the same issue is going on in the U.S. West Virginia is devastated by the moving away from coal. Appalachia generally (southwestern PA, Southeastern Ohio, etc.) has been hard hit by the demise of coal. Yet, we need to do this in order for the betterment of the world. What we need to do is to take care of these people to the extent we can. Much easier for a rich country but even here we have not done a good job retraining and providing mental health and other support. In some sense, it is extremely hard to retrain a 50-year farmer. It is indeed a tragedy but I do not really have a solution that i can suggest.

Trump has used this issue and taken lying to a different level. He did diddly squat for coal anyway but they got taken by his lies.

[rajitghosh]

Here is my take on the farmers protest in India. At one time as part of my profession I used to visit farms regularly in Punjab and Haryana (in fact almost all over India). A few things that stood out in those farms make for a very sorry reading. These farmers did not care for the environment at all. To increase yields they would put excess fertilizers (urea), pesticides and exploit groundwater. Punjab and Haryana don't get a lot of rain nor do they have a lot of irrigation (at least in Punjab the Bhakra Nangal and Indira Gandhi canal water) is mostly dedicated for the desert areas of Rajasthan. Haryana has some irrigation from the Yamuna canal. At the end of it the crop that grows is unhealthy. This is sold at MSP to FCI. FCI takes huge loans to buy this crop. Finally the crop is either distributed through the PDS network for the poor to eat it and die or it is left to rot in the godowns. Huge real estate is consumed by rotting grains from Punjab and Haryana. The middlemen make hefty money earning commissions from FCI. The farmers go to the extent that tehy sell crop when there is moisture in it. This increases the weight getting them more money. An effect of this is the crop rots early. FCI doesn't care about the quality of the crop. They only need to procure as per Government mandates and taxpayers end up bearing the brunt of it. If these laws come the buyers may start checking the quality that may force these farmers to grow edible crops. That no one wants. In fact I have seen in Punjab there are separate plots where wheat is grown for family consumption. That wheat is organically grown and has low yields.
Contrast this with MP or even UP. The crop is grown with far lesser use of fertilizers, pesticides and ground water. As a result the yields are low. But the crop is of good quality. Companies like ITC that sell Aashirvad atta buy this wheat after checking for moisture. They pay the farmers MSP. The farmers are happy and come and honestly sell their crop. Hence you don't see farmers from other parts of the country joining in the protest.
If you go to AP, Telangana and TN, rice procurement is quite organized there and there are no such malpractices. So they don't need to bother about these farm laws.
It is unfortunate that someone like Greta Thunberg who is supposed to be a champion for environmental causes is blatantly supporting environmental damage in Punjab and Haryana. The poor girl is probably not aware of what is going on.
Overall if these 2 states stop growing rice and the poisonous wheat that they grow the country would benefit. There is no shortage of rice and wheat in India.
If large areas of rice and wheat are diverted to growing pulses and oilseeds the country would immensely benefit but farmers in these states are not willing to do that as these are high risk crops. Again MP farmers are more honest. They have huge acreage of soybean. Similarly Rajasthan farmers have huge acreage of mustard. In fact the sarson da sag of Punjab has become a myth as they have considerably reduced growing of mustard.

[jayakris]

Lots of details, rajit. You confirm the opinion and suspicions that we have all had, with first-hand details. That this whole riot is actually not because the Government made a wrong choice, but because Punjab knows the writing on the wall, whatever the Govt says. They know very well that their party will be over once the nation learns the truth that they have been dancing at the expense of the rest of the country. The party that started in the late 1960s with our Congress government, which 50 years of central Governments did not have the guts to end by belling the cat. So when the Government says that the MSPs will remain, the Punjabis know that it cannot remain for too long. The truth will prevail and it will end. They know the truth that they are sure the rest of the country will now know.

Again, the leftist economists and pundits who are so quick to support them, only because it is a Modi Government that is doing the right thing, are whom I am most mad at. I can understand the farmers in Punjab, but not these worms who support them, who are fully okay when Khalistanis from abroad are on an anti-India spree, making use of clueless anti-Modi Indians who play into their unjustifiable crusade. Oh no, we arrested the clueless activist woman who worked with Greta. How could we? Such human rights abuse! Indian democracy is dying. Blah, blah...

[suresh]

Groundwater depletion in Punjab: Time for a major policy overhaul

This issue is well known. Punjab overtook Andhra Pradesh as the number one rice producer in the country a while ago. Groundwater levels in Punjab and Haryana have been falling due to overuse of ground water. Multiple crops in a year is another reason.

[prasen9]

I was with you fully except the last two lines. Nobody should be arrested because they protested or because they made some toolkit and distributed them. It is an abomination of the worst sort that that person was arrested. The court said as much and was absolutely correct. It is indeed a grave threat to democracy that that protester was arrested. The government failed to plan and contain the protest using legal ways and as a result started autocratic tactics to quell the protest due to their failures wrt providing security to law-abiding citizens. I hope that it never happens again but this government has shown scant regard to freedom of speech, which at least I value greatly. This is what makes the government scum and not the bill per se. Thank god that we have a functioning court to save us from the fascists.

[jayakris]

I was with you fully except the last two lines. Nobody should be arrested because they protested or because they made some toolkit and distributed them. It is an abomination of the worst sort that that person was arrested.

I understand, and normally would oppose such arrests, but I will stand with the Government on this until the activists in India stop their double standards and one-sided leftist-only thinking. Otherwise I would be arguing with you that the Government should not arrest anybody for the kind of things that the activist lady did with Greta.

The thing is that the same standard should be used to object when the Pinarayis and Mamatas arrest people at will for all kinds of flimsy reasons. Heck, Mamata had the central Government's Covid team essentially arrested and escorted out of WB for going there to tell her to get her act together, once. And I have not forgotten how many people were arrested and put in jail for weeks without even a charge (section 144, I suppose) in Kerala for simply standing near a temple and protesting their temple's traditions being encroached upon by a Devaswom board and its daddy-Government filled with communist non-believers who wanted to send women into that temple (which Hindu women opposed, by a prohibitive majority). None of the custodians of Indian democracy was talking about democratic values and freedom of religion eroding in India when communists did that.

These are all actions and reactions. My support for the Government on the activist-arrest matter is also for the sake of some checks and balance. The activists also need to use their brains a bit, and need to have some fear of being arrested and questioned. Otherwise they will go on with one-sided support for only leftist ideas and minority-coddling. That is also needed to preserve democracy.

[Omkara]

Today if the current environment persists, India story might get derailed in a similar way. And Jay, no excuses. What's happening is really unfortunate.

[Sorry Omkara, I screwed up, and deleted your post in reply to Prasen's... Instead of quote/reply, I clicked on the Moderator edit button, and ended up editing and killing your post. Only have the above one line you said. You had said more - that you hated Communism and had issues with what happened in WB, and with Lalu in Bihar, which really derailed the places... My fault ... Jay]

[jayakris]

Today if the current environment persists, India story might get derailed in a similar way. And Jay, no excuses. What's happening is really unfortunate.

But what *IS* happening? The police is still with the state Governments... What is Modi, BJP, and the central Government doing to democracy? Some other examples? If the opposition dies by themselves and causes a dilution of democracy, who is to blame for that?

It is more the non-BJP state governments that I find to be into so much more of police excesses and taking anti-democratic actions than the BJP state Governments (Kerala, Maha, WB, most prominently). I just cannot accept that what we did with the farmer matter comes even close to attacking Democracy. Not at all.

I remember real attacks on democracy. That is what we had during Emergency. The central Government controlled the excesses then. I remember emergency. I remember an engineering college student in Kerala being taken to a police station, tortured and killed (by "slow-rolling" his thighs - one of the most gruesome ways to torture) for simply singing a parody song mocking the Congress chief minister at a college function, during Emergency. Are things of that kind happening now, directed by Modi like was done by Indira and Sanjay Gandhi?

So, what do you find as the problematic environment now, that Modi has created, Omkara?

I will agree with your principles (and I do with Prasen's too). My problem is that I don't see things of the kind that your worry about, happening at anywhere near the levels to be concerned about! The opposition and the leftist media constantly saying this, will only make voters feel that there is an "agenda against Modi/BJP through lying and misrepresenting facts". Voters don't like lying. More often than not, they find the opposition and activists twisting facts much more than does the Government. That is only going to take more votes away from the opposition, and it continues to happen. What the Modi/BJP opponents are doing is not the way to generate strength for an opposition. Stay truthful, and generate an ideology that is based on the concept of an open society, and true equality, with some pro-nation ideas too, for an opposition. That is not happening.

Have a group of people that stay truthful to facts, do not twist it to suit their needs, and take on Modi/BJP, and I will support them (but that may cause them to at least moderate their anti-majority biases that they don't even realize). I don't see even a single leader of that truthful kind among public activists or the opposition politicians. The farmer agitation was a classic case in point. People know this in India. That is why they go with Modi/BJP rather than the liars. I know it is not good in Democracy for the public to give the ruling party so much support, but I can't blame them.

[jayakris]

^^^ I hasten to add that BJP as a party, are no slouches in lying, exaggerating things, and misrepresenting facts. Their social media cell eats up the opposition on that!

[Atithee]

Farm laws have been withdrawn today.

[prasen9]

Sad. But, maybe political reality. I do support state involvement in taking care of the poor but random sorts of subsidies that distort the economy and do not really produce things is useless waste. I had high hopes of the government at least reducing the subsidies and they have done it to some extent. But, getting rid of useless, wasteful, and convoluted laws is badly needed. I think Modi learned that he needs to do things in a way such that people will accept things. PR master (champion of vote-getting PR) needs to figure out this type of policy PR.

I am just now reading Jay's deleting Sumanta's post where Sumanta talked about hating communism in WB. Were the so-called communists in WB really communists? [I think not.] I'd like to hear what people have to say. They are just another corrupt political party focused on self-aggrandizement. Specifically, what in communism do you hate? I think instead of blanket statements, if we slice and dice, we will get to agree on the basic principles.

Personally, I think all the -isms in their pure form are useless. And, maybe we just need pragmatic utilitarianism.

[Omkara]

I hated those people who called themselves communists in Bengal. I don't know what went wrong. May be there was something wrong in the ideology itself or maybe the way it was implemented in Bengal or worse still, as you say, the politicians just used the ideology to get to power without worrying of consequences. Not matter what was wrong, WB industrial scenario remains bleak and hurts it's people. During my engineering days I, the hostel staff( cook, cleaners etc) all spoke of communists principles. Obviously you had to get them high on bangloo (people who had it would relate) and then debates were intense. But in years to come, they all became TMC party cadres. The principles just vanished.

Coming to the farm laws, I liked them. Every party in India promised the same. So I indeed feel bad that they got repealed. But the silver lining is that the government got a dose of its own medicine. Let me elaborate. Like all parties, the current party in question wanted to win all state elections. Nothing wrong in that. It's like hero honda aiming to have 100% market share. They at peak had 67% market share in motorcycles but it's still good. But hero achieved that piggy backing on Honda's technology, delivering dependable two wheelers that last long and give good mileage. Mr Brijmohan Lal munjal, added to the distribution and awesome production capabilities which ensured that the dependable technology reaches millions at affordable price. The result (67% market shares) was just a reflection of this amazing journey.
Our party on the othe hand has a odd strategy. If they get majority in a state it's great (guj, up) Else they partner. Once they grow in stature, they kick the partner away (Bihar/maharastra). Where they don't get partner, they just buy the required MLA's to form the government (ktk, mp). This alienated them. They weren't playing a fair game like the munjal's.

Hence, when the farmers protest erupted, other found a good way to give it back. The laws were good, but misunderstood. Worse still, there were many who would lose their monopoly. These people have amassed wealth using agri law loop holes, which the laws wanted to remove. So the funding was always there for these protests, from those who were set to lose this monopoly.

In the end we just lost a good reform and it's not coming back soon.

[prasen9]

Agree with you fully. The communists were not communists. As you saw, they all went into TMC or BJP. I mean BJP!!! That means they have no ideology except what can I do to get power.

Yes, the land reforms were good. Maybe the only thing good that they did. Which is perhaps one thing more than anything good the other parties did. Has Bengal improved since the communists have been out of power. Not really that much. So I hate all politicians, communists, non-communists, etc. Oops, well, except myself.