Millions of Indian Farmers are Protesting Authoritarianism Disguised as Capitalism
A version of this post, written by CEGA Affiliate and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Supreet Kaur, originally ran on NBC THINK on February 16, 2021.
Unprecedented protests are raging across India. Millions of farmers seek to overturn three farm bills aimed at liberalizing India’s agricultural sector. The need for reforms is urgent. Farmers are facing crushing debt, unsustainable groundwater depletion, and an epidemic of suicides.
Farmers themselves would agree: change is sorely needed. So why then are they protesting against their own deliverance?
Proponents of the bills argue they are simply being misled by propagandists. That view not only insults the dignity of those risking their lives on the highways of Delhi, it ignores the reality of the Indian economy.
Unleashing liberalization overnight does not guarantee free markets or efficiency. In India, monopoly power is commonplace. For example, in one-third of industry groups, a single company controls over 50% of sales in the sector. A mere twenty firms account for 70% of all corporate earnings (compared to 25% in the US). Farmers fear that these big corporations will step into the vacuum to snatch up market control, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation in the long-run. This is not a propagandist fantasy. It is a fear that stems from the government’s failure to curb market power in other sectors. The tight financial links between major corporations and the ruling BJP party only augment these concerns.
These fears have been further stoked by the content of the farm bills themselves. For example, the bills prohibit farmers from being able to take a company to court if it violates a contract. That this provision was ever included is impossible to defend, and raises understandable concerns about intent. The laws also completely lack the obvious safeguards that should accompany any massive deregulation. These include a regulatory framework and safety nets to protect growers against market volatility. These are necessary for farmers to take on the risks associated, for example, with switching to higher value crops. Such measures have consistently been recommended by prior government commissions. Their absence is puzzling if the government is serious about pursuing growth in a way that enables smallholder farmers to benefit from it.
The bottom line is that economic reform is undoubtedly needed in Indian agriculture. But it is naïve to assume that simply allowing for free markets will necessarily deliver them. It may, or it may not. For those who are already living on the brink of survival, this is a gamble that feels too risky to blithely undertake on faith alone.
Why aren’t provisions built into the laws that would leave farmers feeling protected — paving a middle path that could satisfy all sides? In a functioning democracy, these conversations would have happened during the legislative process, making the protests unnecessary. But under the right-wing BJP, India’s democracy is hurtling towards dysfunction.
The laws were rammed through during the pandemic without allowing for regular parliamentary procedure, and without consulting even a single farmer organization — undermining their perceived legitimacy. Implementing drastic policy changes without regard for democratic process is the new norm in the Modi government. In 2016, in a surprise announcement, the government abruptly suspended the use of major cash currency. This demonetization broke the back of the Indian economy overnight, with catastrophic results: national GDP growth fell by 13%, with the poor bearing the brunt. This government has shown a willingness to unilaterally enact sweeping policy changes that expose its most vulnerable citizens to potential disaster. The approach is as arrogant as it is cavalier.
The BJP’s increasing authoritarian bent is most blatantly on display in how it has reacted to the largely peaceful farmer protests. The police beat protesters while they slept on the streets, and right-wing nationalists have used violence to disrupt protest sites. The government suspended internet access for millions of citizens, and has cut off electricity and bathroom access for protest camps. Journalists like Mandeep Punia are being picked up and detained by the police. Protestors such as Nodeep Kaur are reportedly being tortured and sexually assaulted in jail. National media outlets — many of which have close ties to the government and are owned by the corporations that control so much else in the economy — do little to shine light on these activities. Even Twitter has bowed to government pressure by suspending the accounts of journalists, protesters, and sympathizers. The violent and sexualized threats against Rihanna, Greta Thunberg, and Meena Harris’ support of farmers reflect a pattern that emerges anytime Modi’s government is challenged. The government wants farmers to trust in its benevolence in designing laws that will benefit them, but it undermines this trust by repressing their dissent with indifferent cruelty.
The collective protest of millions of Indians — cutting across religion, caste, and income lines — is about much more than the farm bills themselves. It is a coming together of desperate people to resist being subjected to vulnerability that they fear they cannot bear. There is no doubt that improving farmers’ economic fortunes requires liberalizing agriculture, with a central role for the private sector. But it must be done thoughtfully and democratically. And it must be done in a way that recognizes that the supply side of the market is made up of human beings.
