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P Sainath, the founder editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India and former rural affairs editor of The Hindu, interviewed by Mitali Mukherjee (TheWire.in)

-TheWire.in

The journalist says that though there is a very clear pro-corporate intent behind the Bills, they may enable middle-men to wring an even harder grip on the farmers.

Amidst an uproar and stiff protest, three contentious farm Bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha on Sunday and Tuesday. The Bills seek to replace ordinances promulgated in June this year and were already cleared by the Lok Sabha.

The idea behind all the three bills is to liberalise the farm markets in the hopes that doing so will make the system more efficient and allow for better price realisations for all concerned, especially the farmers. The central concern of the Bills is to make Indian farming a more remunerative enterprise than it is right now. However, they have seen widespread protests – particularly in the states of Haryana and Punjab.

To understand why the Bills are being protested and what the points of concern for the agriculture sector and those who represent it are, The Wire‘s Mitali Mukherjee interviewed P. Sainath, the founder editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India and former rural affairs editor of The Hindu, on Monday. The following is a transcript of the interview, lightly edited for clarity and style.

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Thank you, Sainath, for joining in and speaking with me, it’s been a tumultuous couple of days and I want to address the three Bills, two of which have been passed in the Rajya Sabha now, and what the key, sort of, issues are around it. Because it seems for a lot of people who are defending it, they feel that there’s not that much wrong with it. So, let’s start with the first one Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Ordinance as it was, which some people also call the ‘APMC [Agriculture Produce Market Committee] Bypass Ordinance’. You know, explain, for people watching, what it means and why people within the farming community are uncomfortable with this.

I’m going to address what it means and what it is based on. Very briefly, these three Bills – one, you have this Bill that posits the APMC as the centre of the evil empire and you’re breaking the monopoly; you know, giving too much seriousness to the rhetoric of presentation and the defence by people – I heard similar defences by the very same people when this government went in for demonetisation, and after six months they’re all busy covering their tracks.

But, here you have, one Bill that posits the APMC  as some sort of hideous monopoly from which you are releasing, liberating the enslaved farmer, right? You have another on contracts, which, the entire bill is about written agreements but nowhere mandates written contracts, it does not mandate things in writing, it makes that voluntary. And you have one on essential commodities, which simply legalises hoarding by removing any stocking limits by very big people.

Now, the first thing, the idea that the APMC is controlling everything, it’s so stupid, simply because the bulk of transaction of marketable surplus and agriculture have always been outside the gates of APMC; most farmers – the vast majority, it varies region by region, but an incredible percentage of farmers – park their produce at the farm gate because they’ve already got ‘pre-contracts’, unwritten contracts with sahukars, with commission agents, with big creditors, so they’re anyway releasing there; they haven’t realised even the MSP that is possible at the APMC.

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