Farmers Continue To Protest Indian Government’s Reforms

Pictured above: Farmers Protesting in India. Image courtesy of Ted Eytan.

By Madhavi Rao ’24

Staff Writer

In New Delhi, India’s 72nd Republic Day celebrations were underway, but in another part of the city, a group of farmers protested laws passed by the Indian government in September. This latest protest on Jan. 26 follows two months of peaceful demonstrations against three agricultural bills that have been widely received as harmful. The protest began when farmers on tractors broke away from the established Republic Day parade route and were met with harsh responses from the Delhi police. 

Since the Dilli Chalo (“Let’s go to Delhi”) march in late November, Indian farmers have camped outside the border of the capital city in protest against what have come to be known as the farmer’s bills. These reforms will essentially strip away regulations on farmers’ produce, making them vulnerable to the low competing prices of the free market. The New York Times reported that these laws have been suspended until the government can conduct talks with the farmer unions that are calling for the abolition of these bills. 

On Jan. 26, tens of thousands of the farmers who were camped outside of the Delhi border entered the city to take part in a planned Republic Day parade. According to the Indian publication The Hindu, the farmers were to drive down a predetermined parade route in tractors, as was agreed upon by the joint front of all protesting unions, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha. However, chaos ensued when some of the farmers deviated from these predetermined routes, though it is unclear whether or not this was intentional. Farmers on tractors who were not a part of the official parade broke down barricades at the city border and drove into Delhi as part of a demonstration, reported the BloombergQuint. 

The protests reached a peak when some of the farmers managed to reach Red Fort in the older part of the capital. The police responded strongly against the farmers’ dissent as the farmers were met with lathi, or batons, charges, water cannons and tear gas. The day’s events also led to a ban of internet and mobile services across the city. These violent interactions with the police resulted in the death of one protester, Navreet Singh, reported  CNN. 

In response to Tuesday’s events, Assistant Professor of History Abhilash Medhi expressed his discomfort with the prevalent narrative. “The Delhi Police's reaction to the parade and subsequent reactions within the media appear to fit rather nicely with what Ranajit Guha called ‘the prose of counter-insurgency,’” he explained. “In [this prose], the violence of protesters is used, first, as a ruse for retributive violence and, second, to delegitimize the protesters’ legitimate demands in the public eye. To me, that is the more interesting aspect of what played out [on Tuesday].” 

The blanket farmers union Samyukt Kisan Morcha denounced the protests, stating, “We also condemn and regret the undesirable and unacceptable events that have taken place today and dissociate ourselves from those indulging in such acts,” reported  Al-Jazeera. 

Prakruti Nikam ’22, an Indian student at Mount Holyoke, voiced her frustrations with the Indian media’s portrayal of the farmers’ protests. She said, “It’s very sad to see that the media in India have such polarized opinions since they have been forced to speak a certain way because of the government. They have repeatedly called the farmers’ protest[s] ‘violent’ and that is only to keep the Modi government happy.” 

“The farmers just want to be heard and they are trying to make a living,” Nikam continued. “The Delhi police have a history of violence when it comes to curbing riots and protests,” Nikam concluded, referencing the similar treatment of protesters by the police during the demonstrations against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019.

On Saturday, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi said in a statement to a meeting of legislative assembly leaders that the government’s proposal to suspend the farmer’s laws still stood. He said that the problem would only be resolved through dialogue with the government. As reported by The Hindu, Modi, reiterating a statement made by Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, said, “We’ve not reached a consensus but we are giving you [farmers] the offer and you may go and deliberate.” 

In response to Modi, Samyukt Kisan Morcha indicated that they are interested in holding talks with the government, but will stand by their demand that the bills be withdrawn, according to The Times of India. 

“I do expect a change in the way this government negotiates with farmers going forward. I would be surprised to see any overtures before the budget,” Medhi explained, speaking of the central government’s potential decision to provide the country’s farmers with financial grants. “The government might see the budget as a convenient time to make some concessions. Quite how concrete any of those concessions are remains to be seen. Knowing this government and its history with budgets, the overwhelming desire would probably be to hide behind promises and big numbers.”

Farmer Protests in New Delhi

Pictured above: India protest 2020. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.

By Aditi Parashar ’22 

Staff Writer

Tens of thousands of farmers from around India made their way to New Delhi 11 days ago, cutting off almost all entry points into the capital, according to The New York Times. The Dilli Chalo (“Let’s go to Delhi”) march is a protest against three agricultural bills passed in September 2020 that aim to make changes to the farming system and threaten the way 146 million farmers in India do business. According to the BBC, the protesters arriving in Delhi were accosted with water cannons, tear gas and violence by many paramilitary and police forces who tried to hold them back. 

The reforms would change key aspects of how produce is sold, priced and stored. The new policies would replace the Mandi system in which the government heavily regulates the prices at which agricultural products can be sold. While the Indian government claims that these reforms are necessary to salvage the agriculture industry, many of those employed by the industry —  40 percent of the workforce — quickly began to protest the changes. 

The government has said that the new regulations will provide opportunities for farmers, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling it a “watershed moment.” He also said that the new laws provide farmers more autonomy to set their own prices as well as to sell directly to private businesses, reported CNN. 

The farmers, however, remain adamant that the new laws are anti-farmer and pro-corporation by subjecting the farmers to the free market from which they have been protected for decades. 

Mewa Singh, one of the many protesters, told The New York Times, “Our land is our mother. It was passed on to us from our parents, who got it from their parents, and now Modi wants to acquire it and give it away to his rich friends.”

According to the Indian Express, the protesters want the government to either repeal their newly passed legislation or guarantee farmers a minimum support price for their crops by passing new legislation. 

The minimum support price is one of the biggest support structures to farming in India. It aims to set a guaranteed minimum price for commodities by farmers no matter the market conditions, which protects the community from fluctuations in price and imperfections in the market.  

Economists as well as agricultural experts have shown support for the farmers’ demand for a minimum assured price mechanism. Devinder Sharma, an independent agricultural expert, told The New York Times, “There is no evidence in the world where the market price has benefited farmers.”

Additionally, farmers believe that the new laws “will open agricultural sale and marketing outside the notified Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis for farmers, remove the barriers to inter-state trade, and provide a framework for electronic trading of agricultural produce,” according to the Indian Express. However, since state governments will be unable to procure market fees outside of the APMC market systems, farmers are afraid that this will end the current system, leaving them at the mercy of corporations that are then free to exploit them and their production capabilities. 

Many critics are apprehensive about how formal contractual obligations will work in the public arena due to the unorganized nature of the agriculture sector. Critics fear that farmers will be locked into contracts out of necessity and face a lack of resources for legal proceedings with major private corporations, found The Hindu. 

“I don’t believe anyone is buying the idea that these bills exist to help the farmers,” Kusha Chopra ’21 said. “The farmers are smart and know that the bills have been passed in Parliament to fill the never-ending greed of our dear prime minister’s friends. To leave an already complicated sector which sees so many suicides due to debt and unemployment at the hands of large corporations and [at the] behest of the free market is openly careless and foolish.”

Since the farmers have arrived in Delhi, there have been a series of talks between them and the government. As of Dec. 9, no resolution has been reached. 

“I think it is extremely sad, not only the way the farmers are having to fight for their livelihood in a country that thrives because of them, but also the way the government and its lapdog media has tried to discredit their hardships and movement,” Shreya Nair ’22, a Mount Holyoke student from India, said. “To call peaceful protesters, who are the reason you have food on your table, terrorists and anti-national on national television has [been] a new low, even for our sell-out media outlets,” Nair added.

The protesting farmers now have huge camps around Delhi’s border and are prepared to stay. They said they will not leave before the government repeals the “black law,” reported the BBC. The protesters say they are “prepared for a long battle — with trolleys full of rice and grains, and pots and pans to cook their own food,” the BBC continued.

Amnesty International Ceases Work in India Citing Years of Harassment

Courtesy of Flicker - Photograph by Bodo Tasche

By Madhavi Rao ’24 

Staff Writer

On Sept. 29, 2020, Amnesty International announced that it would be ending its operations in India. The human rights organization withdrew from the country after the government froze its bank accounts on Sept. 10, 2020, effectively ending its work there. This came after what Amnesty International has cited as years of harassment by the Indian government. In response, the government turned to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act as justification for its actions, claiming that the organization’s foreign funding violated the law. 

Executive Director of Amnesty International India Avinash Kumar stated, “The continuing crackdown on Amnesty International India over the last two years and the complete freezing of bank accounts is not accidental.” He claimed that the Indian government has been raiding Amnesty International’s offices for years and harassing the organization in an attempt to silence it, especially in reference to its work in reporting human rights abuses in the Delhi riots and the region formerly known as Jammu and Kashmir.

The Delhi riots, which started in December 2019, began after the passing of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Protests against the CAA were met with violence, and the situation escalated into riots, where a majority of the brutality was targeted at Muslim communities. 

Indian-administered Kashmir is the world’s most militarized zone, with 200,000 troops guarding 12 million civilians, as reported by Bloomberg. Kashmir is also the site of an excess of human rights violations, especially concerning dissent over the Indian administration. The tensions over the highly disputed territory were exacerbated by the change in Kashmir’s status from that of an autonomous region to a union territory on Aug. 5, 2019. This, coupled with telephone networks and internet access being cut off, increased concerns of human rights violations in the valley. 

Assistant Professor of History Abhilash Medhi said, “As much as organizations like Amnesty International and Human Right[s] Watch are important in drawing attention to what’s happening in Kashmir, there are fairly robust domestic circuits of information as well. In the valley and outside, more and more, Kashmiris have been creative in using the media to get their message out. This is something we can draw hope from.”

According to The Hindu, statements condemning the Indian government’s actions have been released by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.K. Foreign Office, and the European Parliament. The Indian government responded to these allegations justifying their actions as an attempt to stop Amnesty International’s illegal funding from foreign investors. 

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Indian government blamed the organization’s continued violation of the FCRA. According to the MHA, “Amnesty’s failure to comply with local regulations does not entitle them to make comments on the democratic and plural character of India.”

The FCRA, created in 1976, aims to protect India’s democratic process from foreign influence by prohibiting external powers from funding operations in the country. It is now being used to target NGOs, such as Amnesty International, which was said to have received funding from foreign investors. However, in a statement responding to these allegations and the freezing of the organization’s accounts, Amnesty International reiterated that all their funding was raised domestically.

“The FCRA was put into place to limit foreign actors from meddling in domestic political affairs. But now it is used as a silencer of dissent,” Medhi said. “This in itself is telling of a larger project. Exceptions to laws, such as that of the FCRA, have been created in an effort to delegitimize these organizations and their work with human rights.”

Amnesty International is one in a line of many organizations whose operations have been terminated. More than 20 NGOs, including Greenpeace, Compass International and the Ford Foundation, are under fire from the government regarding the FCRA, according to The Hindu. Kumar said in a statement released by Amnesty International, “For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent.”

Medhi said, “Their withdrawal from India is a worrying development. But it’s also part of a larger scheme. This process is occurring in slices, starting with NGOs and activists. What’s worrying is that if the current dispensation stays in power, this could happen to a huge chunk of the population.”

Escalation in Border Conflicts Leads to Deteriorating Relationship Between India and China

Graphic courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

By Amelia Luo ’23

Staff Writer

India and China, two nuclear-armed countries, have been fighting over the disputed border in the Himalayan region, the McMahon Line, since 1914. The McMahon Line is an ill-defined border constituted by rivers, lakes and snowcaps, according to the BBC. The instability of the bodies of water causes the border to shift year to year and has led to several armed confrontations between India and China, including one this year.

On June 15, heightened tensions triggered a clash between the two countries, leaving 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers dead. This was the first fatal clash between India and China since 1975, according to the BBC. 

The details of the clash are unclear. India accused China of “provocative military movements” near the border, while China denied these charges, claiming that it was India’s troops that engaged in “open provocation and caused the border situation to become tense,” according to The Guardian.  

After the 1962 war, both sides engaged in a competition of building infrastructures such as roads, telephone lines and airstrips. This infrastructure formed what is now called the Line of Actual Control. The LAC was intended to create a demarcation line in the hopes of easing tensions between the two countries. 
In 1996, China and India signed a treaty barring firearms and other explosives along the LAC. Senior Colonel Zhang Shuili, a spokesperson for the People's Liberation Army, stated that India's move “seriously violated related agreements reached by both sides, stirred up tensions in the region ... and is very vile in nature,” according to the BBC. In rebuttal, India’s government released a statement claiming that although the Indian army is “committed to maintaining peace,” they were also “determined to protect [their] national integrity and sovereignty at all costs.”

In 2019, India completed the construction of the new Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi Road to a high-altitude airbase in the Ladakh region near the LAC. This road has enhanced India’s ability to move armies and organize support more quickly in the event of a conflict. China was strongly opposed to this project, as they believed that the road was harmful to the country’s economic corridor to Pakistan and Central Asia, according to Al-Jazeera. 

It is unlikely either of the countries will be willing to back down. Nevertheless, the standoff could escalate tensions further if neither side gives way.

Wei Chao ’23, an international relations major, shared her theory on the Chinese government’s strategy while engaging in these conflicts. “I think the Chinese government deliberately sent off troops to test [India’s] bottom line in the border issue,” Chao said. 

On Sept. 10, foreign ministers S. Jaishankar of India and Wang Yi of China reached a five-point plan in Moscow, aiming to ease tensions and resolve the crisis. That being said, this period of conflict could be the turning point of the India-China relationship. 

China is one of India’s biggest trading partners; however, India has a trade deficit of 48.66 billion, which also contributes to the political tension between the two countries. With China and India’s relationship becoming more volatile, the Indian government is calling to reduce trade and economic ties with China. It recently banned more than 150 China-linked apps such as the popular video-sharing social media app, TikTok, citing security reasons. It also introduced restrictive measures on Chinese foreign direct investment. 

Lasya Priya Rao Jarugumilli ’23, a double major in politics and physics, shed some light on why India might view China as such a big threat to the country’s sovereignty. “India is very diverse in every sense. The only thing that is keeping Indians together is this togetherness,” Jarugumilli said. “Every piece of land is important to the whole country. … [It] is part of the soul.” 

 Jarugumilli believes the aggressive response also ties back to colonialism. “[It has] not been a very long time since independence. The freedom struggle is not that far,” Jarugumilli said. “People my age, their grandparents were freedom fighters, so it is still very connected with the reality of everyday life.”  

Looking at the future of the two countries’ relationship, it is very likely that the tension might de-escalate after the diplomacy engagement in Moscow, yet the tension could easily trigger a security dilemma with 50,000 troops on both sides of the LAC. 

Seeing the potential increase in India’s military expenditure, Chao suggested that “it could be possible that the Chinese government wants to use the border conflict to force India to spend more on ground forces instead of the navy.” Suspicion like this exists on both sides of the conflict, potentially leading to a future harsh hit on the economic engagement between the two countries.