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Avik Saha, co-founder of the Swaraj Abhiyan, interviewed by TheWire.in

-TheWire.in

In conversation with Avik Saha, co-founder of the Swaraj Abhiyan.

New Delhi: As the Lok Sabha passed three controversial agricultural legislations, the country witnessed an outpouring of anger by the opposition parties, who alleged these bills are “anti-farmer”.

Farmers and traders have been vehemently opposing the new changes brought in by the Central government, alleging the government wants to discontinue the minimum support price (MSP) regime in the name of reforms.

Minister of food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday resigned over the passage of these bills in the Lok Sabha, while pressure is mounting on BJP’s Haryana ally, the Jannayak Janata Party leader Dushyant Singh Chautala to quit.

The upper house on Thursday passed the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 with a voice vote. Earlier, it has passed the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill.

In an interview to The Wire, Avik Saha, co-founder of the Swaraj Abhiyan and the party’s point-person on agricultural issues, noted that these changes are a way to corporatise food production, supply and the food market of India.

He also said that in the name of reform, the government cannot abdicate its duty to ensure that the farmer and the producer get a fair price, and also ensure that food is affordable to everyone.

Edited excerpts of the interview follow.

* Termed as ‘historic’ by the BJP, are these moves really going to work for the farmers? Is it a question of short-term pain versus long-term gain or is what the government is doing conceptually flawed?

It’s conceptually flawed. I would be the first one to tell the farmers that go through some short-term pains for long term gains. We do sensible farm politics. We don’t do zindabad murdabad kind of politics. If the intent of the government was to actually structurally change the crop marketing of this country for the benefit of the farmers, we would have supported the government, perhaps

But here the intention is very clear. The writing on the wall, no matter how many times the PM tweets…. what is he essentially saying?

He is saying: ‘We understand that you need food security for your crops. We understand that we are not being able to give you price security – the government. But we found a solution. We are going to make this a free market so that you’re free to sell it to anyone. Because in a bigger market, you will have greater opportunity to attract buyers, and therefore, by the law of demand and supply you will get…’

This is what the message is clearly. I am speaking, let’s say, on behalf of BJP.

But the problem with lower prices was never because of the size of the market. It will always be because of the disparity between the contracting power of the parties. So, no matter how big you make the market, a poor farmer in front of 100 big traders will be at the same disadvantage that he is today.

So, the farmer will finally will not be able to get a higher price, but in the process of a quest for higher price will lose whatever security the farmer has today – which is the government’s compulsion to announce MSP twice a year, the government’s compulsion to purchase certain food crops (only two food crops) at MSP through the public distribution system, and government’s compulsion to step in and stop price crashes by market intervention schemes.

Now what will actually happen is this: all the trade will go out of the farm markets, which are imperfect markets and need a lot of correction. But it’s like saying that I have a boil in my leg and so let me just cut off my leg. So instead of correcting the imperfect APMCs, the government is taking all the trade out of APMCs. So, the whole process of price discovery will be gone.

Today I can tell you right now in a particular mandi in Karnataka how much chana is selling below MSP because it is put on a government website called “Agmarknet”. When the trade moves out into the open, uncontrolled, unknown market, there will be no “Agmarknet”. There will be no way of knowing.

So, in my view, the whole problem of farmers not getting price and this becoming an agitational issue and electoral issue is being tried by this government to simply make the problem disappear, and publishing the prices below MSPs anymore.

When you go through the Bills, fundamentally, as I come back to my original point, the intent is twofold. The intent is not written on the caption that this is good for the farmers and benefits the farmers.

The intent is first, the government’s abdication from the responsibility of being accountable for fair prices to farmers. Secondly, our fears will be proven right if they proceed with this “nonsense” that the market will be captured and monopolised by very large business houses.

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Image Courtesy: Swaraj India