Abstract
The recently enacted Farm Laws in India has led to widespread and vigorous protests across the country. It has been hailed as a watershed moment by the neoliberal market analysts and is compared to the 1991 economic reforms, based on the notions of liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation. A critical review of these laws and amendments needs to be situated in the larger narrative of commodification, wherein certain essential goods and services are appropriated and standardised and traded at market-determined prices. The present review intends to place these new laws in the broader policies and ‘projects’ of neoliberalisation of nature. A critical look at these laws shows that they have profound implications for social justice and environmental sustainability. It seeks to cross-question the food question and the peasant question by revisiting the ontological questions of what constitutes food and farming. It considers the new debate and the old vision of ‘food as commons’, and find that the new laws are, in fact, a continuation of attempts by neoliberal markets and states to commodify food and farming activities. Nevertheless, such attempts, for various reasons, face active resistance in the form of countermovements by the peasantry and enter the arena of political economy. The review argues that the present peasant resistance should be considered as part of the larger environmental justice movements.
Highlights
IntroductionAs the controversial farm bills- Acts- were passed on the floor of the Indian Parliament on 20 September 2020, without a deliberative and consultative process, in a blatantly undemocratic fashion (using a voice vote rather than a recorded vote, and after eight members of the Upper House were suspended without following the due process), violating federal principles (agriculture is in the state/provincial list under the Constitution), farmers from across the country were up in arms opposing them (Scroll Staff, 2020) .Thousands of farmers vigorously protested by blocking roads and holding up trains in agrarian states like Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh
As the controversial farm bills- Acts- were passed on the floor of the Indian Parliament on 20 September 2020, without a deliberative and consultative process, in a blatantly undemocratic fashion, violating federal principles, farmers from across the country were up in arms opposing them (Scroll Staff, 2020)
In 2019, farmers protested the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would have led to the slashing of import duties against the dumping of many agricultural products
Summary
As the controversial farm bills- Acts- were passed on the floor of the Indian Parliament on 20 September 2020, without a deliberative and consultative process, in a blatantly undemocratic fashion (using a voice vote rather than a recorded vote, and after eight members of the Upper House were suspended without following the due process), violating federal principles (agriculture is in the state/provincial list under the Constitution), farmers from across the country were up in arms opposing them (Scroll Staff, 2020) .Thousands of farmers vigorously protested by blocking roads and holding up trains in agrarian states like Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. States like Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have either brought in measures to counter the Central legislations or have explicitly stated that they would do so (except for Maharashtra, the other two states are ruled by the Indian National Congress (INC) party, the principal opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central Government). Analysts have criticised the lack of legislative scrutiny and procedural lapses in the Parliament as a ‘subversion of democracy’ (Sahu, 2020). As mentioned above, these Central laws violate federal principles, as agriculture is deemed to be a state/provincial subject under the Constitution (Yamunan, 2020). Punjab has brought out its own version of farm laws to counter the central laws (Anand, 2020), and Kerala has declared a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for a variety of vegetables and paddy to ensure procurement support for farmers (FE Online, 2020)
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