"Big fish eat small fish and big industries will eat us now," said Rakesh Vyas, a farmer from Delhi, the capital of India.
Thousands of farmers in neighboring states like Punjab and Haryana have now clashed with Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party-led government over the repeal of three market-friendly laws. Taken together, the controversial reforms will erode the rules on selling, pricing and storage of agricultural products - rules that have kept Indian farmers out of the breathless market for decades.
For almost a week, protesting farmers, along with their families and friends, have been firing water cannons and tear gas, suffocating the capital's borders. They have set up camps, cooked in the bitter cold and slept in the open. "This protest is unique. It is not driven by politics or religion
Farmers in India have been boiling for some years. More than half of Indians work on farms, but agriculture accounts for one-sixth of the country's GDP. Declining productivity and lack of modernization have long hampered progress. The size of the plot shrinks, as does the income from farming. Prices can be wildly erratic and intermediaries make cartoons and make huge profits.
The government exempts them from generous subsidies, income tax and crop insurance. They are guaranteed for 23 crops and the debts are forgiven when they are unable to repay the loan.
At the root of this anger is the deep distrust of Indian farmers about market reform.
Farmers in India are mostly small or marginal: 68% of them own less than one acre of land. Only 6% of them get guaranteed price support for their crops, and more than 90% of farmers sell their produce in the market. In the words of the economist, more than half of the farmers have "not even enough to sell". Uncontrolled private trade of crops is allowed in the populous and poor northern state of Bihar, but there are few private buyers. India’s bigotry in contract farming is large, working mainly for a few commodities in limited geography.
Not surprisingly, the income for a large number of farmers is declining. According to the 2001 Economic Survey, the average annual income of a farming family in more than half of the Indian states was Rs. 20,000 ($ 271; £ 203).
For a long time, farmers have been selling their produce in government-controlled wholesale markets or "mandis" across the country. It is run by committees made up of farmers, mostly large land-owners, and merchants or "commission agents" who act as intermediaries for broker sales, storage and transportation planning and financial transactions. The new reform promises farmers to have less confidence in these markets and improve their income.
Improving agriculture in India is a complex challenge.
On the one hand, a large portion of the population - large and small farmers, and landless working on farms - needs to ensure a decent income.
On the other hand, there are established questions about food safety and the impact of agriculture on the environment.
For example, farmers in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra need to keep more subsidized, waterlogged crops like wheat, paddy and sugarcane away from depleting groundwater. Farmers have benefited from overflowing stocks and poultry due to these crop fluctuations.
It is then a challenge to move people from farming without a challenge to a factory job. But where are the jobs, ask some experts, who have said that this kind of change cannot be overcome by isolated reforms, especially in a country that is still dependent on agriculture.
When Shri Modi locked India on a four-hour notice to stop the spread of coronavirus in March, millions of unemployed workers fled the cities and returned to protect their farms.
Mekhala Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of sociology, says, "Freedom is about real and practical choices. Choices you can make. These are opportunities to expand and you need to do that by investing in agriculture and building sector livelihoods." And Anthropology at Ashok University.
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