Modi can’t ignore farmer protests roiling India
In India’s capital city, competing scenes. A military parade amid COVID-constrained pomp and grandeur to mark its Republic Day — the day its constitution came into effect — overseen by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Six kilometres away, farmers in tractors bearing down the historic Red Fort and hoisting flags as police sprayed them with tear gas and beat them with bamboo sticks. At least one person was killed.
Even as tens of thousands protested in New Delhi, many more arose in solidarity in Toronto, Brampton, Vancouver, New Jersey, London, Amsterdam and Sydney among other western cities, gathering under the rallying cry of #AskIndiaWhy.
“We’re asking why is India killing us?” said Toronto activist Nanki Kaur, who organized a car rally in Brampton. “Why is India subduing minorities? Why is India taking away the fundamental right to protest? What is India’s war against?”
Protesters are demanding the Indian government withdraw three farming laws that were rammed through parliament in September, but they are fuelled by a larger, longer build-up of social injustices, human rights violations and the steady erosion of democracy.
The U.S. showed how authoritarian leaders undermine democracy. To some extent that country was saved from its worst instincts because of Donald Trump’s own incompetence.
But a competent Trump? He would look like Modi.
Modi, who coasted into power before Trump was elected and now outlasts him, is the authoritarian who rules his nation by decree. He steamrolls the opposition by accusing its members of being unpatriotic and discrediting them with disinformation via his troll army. He woos the populace by exploiting a beloved but toxic narrative of mythical greatness — make India great again — and he stays in power by enriching his richest supporters; unfettered capitalism at its best.
It’s in this context that his government has passed major laws with minimal consultation and scrutiny. It passed a controversial new citizenship law in December. It stunned the world in 2019 by revoking the special autonomous status of the Himalayan territory of Kashmir and violently taking control of the state.
In September, after lobbying by big businesses, it passed three farming laws ostensibly to get rid of red tape and deregulate how small farmers sell crops to buyers, and to overhaul antiquated laws around who is allowed to stock inventory.
More than half of India’s farmers are in debt; more than 10,000 farmers died by suicide in 2019 alone. The new laws, farmers say, have left them even more vulnerable. Gone will be government-mandated minimum selling price that was a trading benchmark. Gone, too, will be the role of “middlemen,” also farmers, who would trade the produce and be allowed to stock inventory. In their place, large corporations who could squeeze out individual farmers and ultimately take over.
The laws open the way to extreme privatization of Indian farms, said Kaur, who is the daughter of Canadian farmers. “These corporations can stock and store materials, which would lead to inflation. Farmers would be unable to buy food for themselves.”
The citizenship law sparked months of protests led mostly by Muslim women who laid siege on an arterial road until the government cleared them away during a COVID-induced lockdown last March.
Kashmiris still live under the shadows of both a brutal military lockdown and the pandemic.
The latest farming laws were met with immediate protests that have given way to a siege of New Delhi since November. In what was likely the single largest protest in human history, more than 250 million people around the country participated in a 24-hour general strike in solidarity with the farmers.
Since then, tens of thousands of farming families have blocked arterial highways into the capital and set up camp with food rations, willing to stay for a year if needed. Modi has offered to amend parts of the laws, but the protesters want a total repeal.
The farmers, who have been seeking reforms for decades, say these laws affect not just landowning farmers but also farm labourers. India’s agricultural sector employs almost half of its workforce. The protests, led by Sikh farmers, are joined by nearly 500 farmers’ unions from around the country.
Modi may enjoy a cultlike following. But he has also unleashed a powerful resistance.
Unlike the Muslim protesters of the citizenship law whom the government could easily demonize as the enemy, farmers cut sympathetic figures. Traditionally seen as the beating heart of “real India,” they are now pitched against billionaires such as Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani — India’s own Koch brother — and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani.
It will be interesting to see how Modi, who projects himself as a man of the masses, accommodates these two clashing interests that serve him in different ways.
Meanwhile, more urgent concerns take precedence.
Kaur’s uncles, aunts and cousins have been camped in Delhi for three weeks. As is now standard, the internet has been cut off in parts of the city.
“I am a little worried,” Kaur said. “I saw tear gas being fired, people beaten with sticks. I haven’t got any phone calls. But they knew what is at stake here. We are people unbowed, unbent and unbroken towards any injustice happening, forever. That is who we are.”