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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Notifying Farming as an Essential Service: An Authoritarian Manoeuvre-SAHRDC

-Economic and Political Weekly 

The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to ban strikes by agricultural workers, leaving them without collective bargaining power.

SAHRDC is the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, New Delhi.

Union Minister of Power Veerappa Moily recently stated that central government is considering designating farming as an essential service to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon (Anand and Thufail 2012). On the surface, such a step may be advantageous – at the least it would guarantee electricity to support irrigation. However, in reality this could create major human rights problems.

An essential service designation invokes the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA),1 which vastly restricts the freedom of association and speech. It also implies the National Security Act (NSA), which permits the executive to detain, without any charge, any person perceived at risk for prejudicing the maintenance of essential services. While the goal of insulating farms from power loss and drought is indeed laudable, deeming farming as an essential service could cost farmers and farm workers their rights.

ESMA was designed to protect India from disruption of any particular service that would undermine “normal life” (Preamble of the Indian Constitution). The Act, which applies all over India with some limitation in Jammu and Kashmir (Article 1(2)), makes it illegal for any person working with an essential service to strike or incite or finance a strike (Articles 3-6). The penalty ranges from six months to one-year imprisonment and/or a fine between Rs 200 and 2,000.

The current Act includes postal and telephone services, railroads and other transport services, services related to aircraft and airports, port services, customs, mint or security press, the defence establishment, any union government service, any service within parliamentary jurisdiction that could “prejudicially ­affect” a public utility, public safety or “the maintenance of supplies and services necessary for the community” or that, if withdrawn, would cause “grave hardship on the community” (Article 2(1)(a)). Nothing in the legislation restricts the government’s power to declare a strike illegal or requires the government to ­offer its reasons for prohibiting a strike (Desai and Chandran 1989). Rather, as long as the government deems the ban on the strike expedient to the public ­interest, it can invoke its powers under ESMA. If named an essential service, the government can invoke ESMA to ban all strikes by farmers and farm workers, which would leave them with little collective bargaining power.

Major Concern

This should be of major concern to a ­sector that regularly suffers severe hardship. The cost of maintaining a working farm has increased massively with a rise in cost of labour, fertilisers, seeds, farm equipment and water (Kang 2012). Market prices for farm products regularly fail to cover production costs (see, e g, Awasthi 2007; Mukherjee 2011b; Srinivas 2012). To meet these losses, farmers of small and medium farms are often forced to take loans, frequently from moneylenders who charge interest at ­exorbitant rates.2 Eventually trapped in a cycle of debt, a huge number of farmers commit suicide (Sainath 2012).

The government’s efforts to aid farmers typically exacerbate them. In an effort to respond to the fluctuations in the market that depress crop prices, the government has established a minimum support price (MSP) – a guaranteed price for crops sold to the government. According to the agency monitoring prices, the MSP no longer covers production costs (Mukherjee 2012). While the Food Corporation of India (FCI) denies that it forces farmers to sell to the government,3 farmers complain that they are under compulsion to sell to FCI even when the market price rises above the MsP (Awasthi 2007). For example, the government has adopted policies – often with a focus on poverty and hunger alleviation – to restrict ­exports and/or to depress market prices to bring them below MSP, making it impossible for the farmers to make a profit or even cover the cost of production (see, e g, Awasthi 2007; Mukherjee 2011b; Srinivas 2012).

Paltry Compensation

Another crucial issue relates to land ­acquisition that many farmers consider unfair – so unfair that protests against it have often ended violently.4 Throughout India farmers accuse central and state governments of forcing them to sell their farmland at cheap prices and then leasing or reselling it to industrialists at a massive profit after increasing the land’s value by rezoning it for commercial use.5 Indeed, forced land acquisition is being practised for private, not public, good.6

When asked, by the Standing Committee on Rural Development reviewing the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011, “why should the State at all be involved in acquiring land, which is precious and scarce, for private enterprises…or even public enterprises”,7 the central government answered that its role is to protect farmers who “face threats from land sharks and are forced to sell cheap” (Kumar 2012). Yet farmers complain that it is the government that is forcing them to sell.

Farmers in India regularly strike to protest these conditions. For example, farmers have initiated strikes seeking loan waivers after a severe drought that led to foreclosures and harassments by banks.8 They protest land seizures,9 ­export bans on products whose prices “crashed” in the domestic market;10 they demand the government buy products directly from farmers11 and also provide price supports.12 Designating farming an essential service would allow the government to prohibit any or all of these strikes without explanation, which in the long run is likely to work against the farmers’ interests.

Plight of Farm Labourers

Farm workers are also likely to suffer if farming is designated an essential ser­vice. Farm workers are often underpaid as a surplus of labourers results in lower wages under poor conditions and chronic underemployment (Padhi 2007: 1). Many farm labourers become debt ridden; a situation that sometimes evolves into bonded labour – where a person promises to work off a debt – which is considered a form of forced labour (Srivastava 2005: 2, 10-11). Often, the debt bondage extends to family members as well (ibid: 13). ­Rural wage schemes intended to ensure these workers a minimum amount of employment have been adopted to help such labourers, yet these have also been criticised for undervaluing farm labour. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the government guarantees rural workers 100 days of work for one adult in each family at a fixed wage,13 which until recently was less than the national minimum wage (Balchand 2011). Rural labourers fought this discrepancy (Ponnusamy and Sebastian 2012) and won a court battle to require minimum wage payment (Balchand 2012). Overall, however, farm labourers find it difficult to bargain collectively because of physical distances among them as well as a lack of interest by political players who could organise them (Padhi 2007: 2). ESMA is likely to serve as a further disincentive to collective bargaining, which would restrict the ability of farm labourers to challenge their working conditions.

National Security Act

Deeming farming an essential service could also subject farmers and farm ­labourers seeking to undertake collective bargaining to preventive detention under the NSA. The ­NSA permits detention without charge for up to one year for any person “acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community” (Article 3(2)). Any attempt to protest, even if it stops short of a strike, could be deemed prejudicial to farming, now an “essential service”. As with ESMA, there is little to check the power of the executive to invoke the law. The standard for determining whether a person should be detained is purely subjective (Article 3(2)) and the courts have interpreted the NSA to ­almost wholly prevent them from ­examining the substance of the executive’s claim (Noorani and SAHRDC 2012: 22).

The designation of farming as an ­essential service could effectively strip more than 50% of India’s labour force (Planning Commission) of the right to association and freedom of speech. Farmers are likely to find it difficult to protest government price controls and forced land acquisitions while farm labourers are likely to be restricted from challenging unfair wages and working conditions. What is not clear is why the government cannot simply order that farms be guaranteed electricity without deeming farming an essential service, which comes with a burden on farmers and farm labourers that is likely to far outweigh its benefits.

Notes

1 Essential Services Maintenance Act 1981. Many states have similar legislation, including Maha­rashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan among others.

2 The government provides lower interest loans but many farmers do not qualify because they have defaulted in the past (Menon 2012).

3 Food Corporation of India available at fciweb.nic.in

4 “India: Uttar Pradesh Farmer Protests Spread”, BBC News, 9 May 2011; “Protests against Land Acquisitions Turns Violent”, The Hindu, 23 July 2012; “Pune: Police Shoot at Farmers Protesting Land Acquisitions Kill Six”, IANS, 9 August 2011.

5 Deswal (2012); “Court Scraps Singur Land Act, Mamata Suffers Setback”, Zeebiz.com, 23 June 2012; “Land Acquisition for SEZs – Are Engines of Growth Losing Steam”, LegalServicesIndia.com, 24 February 2012.

6 “Farmers Want Mopa Land Acquisition Stopped”, Times of India, 15 July 2012.

7 The Standing Committee on Rural Development (2011-12), “The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011”, Thirty-First Report Lok Sabha Secretariat (2012) (Standing Committee on Rural Development 2012: Para 3.19).

8 “Farmers Demand Loan Waiver, Begin Strike”, Times of India, 25 February 2012.

9 “Govt Plans Hospital, Land Losers Threaten Hunger Strike”, Telegraph, 26 July 2012.

10 “Onion Farmers End 10-Day Old Strike; Expect Govt to Lift Export Ban”, Money Life, 14 February 2011.

11 “Boycott of Turmeric Sales By Farmers Total”, The Hindu, 25 January 2012.

12 “Farmers Unions Call Strike against ‘Insensitive’ Govt”, The Indian Express, 30 January 2012.

13 “Farm Wages Have Risen Due to MGNREGA: Govt”, The Indian Express, 22 May 2012. Farmers complain that they cannot afford the ­increased cost of farm labourers under the scheme, consumers fear that this increase will raise the price of food. See, e g, Gupta and Sidhartha (2011); Mukherjee (2011b).

REFERENCES

Anand, Manish and P T Thufail (2012): “Farmers May Get Dedicated Power Supply”, The Deccan Chronicle, 5 August.

Awasthi, Surinder (2007): “Low Paddy MSP Irks”, Times of India, 23 October.

Balachand, K (2011): “Minimum Wages Likely for MGNREGA Workers”, The Hindu, 16 October.

– (2012): “Wage Rate under MGNREGA Revised”, The Hindu, 26 March.

Desai, Mihir and Jaya Chandran (1989): Imprisoning of the Unions, C G Shah Memorial Trust Publication, Chapter 3.

Deswal, Deepender (2012): “Farmers Seek Judicial Probe into Rewari Violence”, Times of ­India, 24 July.

Gupta, Surojit and Sidhartha (2011): “Farm Wages Rise Up to 43%”, TNN, 29 June.

Kang, Bhavdeep (2012): “Of Minimum Price Support; Rising Input Price”, Farmers’ Forum, 5 June.

Kumar, Narayana K P (2012): “How the Land Acquisitions Bill Will Impact Farmers”, Forbes India Magazine, 18 June.

Menon, Sreelatha (2012): “Farmers’ Pie: The Budget Ignores Farmers? Plight of Penury amid Abundance”, Business Standard, 18 March.

Mukherjee, Sanjeeb (2011a): “Rising Farm Wages Push Mechanisation in the Fields”, Business Standard, 6 December.

– (2011b): “Govt Plans to Lower Grain Price for Open-Market Sale”, Business Standard, 16 ­August.

– (2012): “CACP Reiterates Case for Big Minimum Support Price Rise”, Business Standard, 20 June.

Noorani, A G and SAHRDC (2012): Challenges to Civil Rights Guarantees in India, South Asia ­Human Rights Documentation Centre.

Padhi, Kulamani (2007): “Agricultural Labour in ­India – A Close Look”, Orissa Review.

Ponnusamy, S and M Sebastian (2012): “Farm Workers Demand Wage of Rs 132 under ­MNREGS”, The Hindu, 6 July.

Sainath, P (2012): “Farm Suicides Rise in Maharashtra, State Still Leads the List”, The Hindu, 3 July.

Srinivas, Nidhi Nath (2012): “Cotton Market Booms Due to Lack of ‘Policy Measure’ ”, The Economic Times, 6 August.

Srivastava, S Ravi (2005): “Bonded Labor in India: Its Incidence and Pattern”, Cornell University ILR School.