Rural India has been shortchanged from reaping the gains of freedom and national development by way of continuously adverse terms of trade between town and country. A visitor from another planet is likely to identify rural Bharat as a totally different country from urban India with its swish motorcars, glitzy shopping malls and big weddings – writes Dilip Thakore The latest stand-off between rural and urban India on the Punjab-Haryana border is yet another confrontation between Bharat’s impoverished rural majority and relatively wealthy urban India. Currently, thousands of farmers mainly from rural Punjab grouped under the banners of the SKM (non-political), BKU (Dallewal), Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and 17 other farmers’ organisations are on the march to New Delhi to press for legally guaranteed minimum support prices (MSP) 50 percent above the weighted average cost of production for wheat, rice and 21 other crops. Other demands include better sugarcane prices, pension of Rs.10,000 per month for every farmer and farm labour above 60 years of age, and India’s withdrawal from the WTO (World Trade Organisation). To prevent the entry of droves of farm protestors with tractors into the national capital disrupting administration and business, the Central and (BJP) government of Haryana have strongly barricaded the border with Punjab and large contingents of the police, RAF (Rapid Action Force) and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) to halt the farmers’ march to Delhi. Four rounds of talks between representatives of the BJP government at the Centre and farmer leaders to negotiate a compromise have proved unsuccessful at the time of writing. It’s pertinent to note that this movement follows massive protests of farmers three years ago in 2020, when grouped under the banner of the Punjab-based Samyukta Kisan Morcha, All India Kisan Sangharsh Committee and over a dozen other unions and associations, farmers congregated on the borders of the national capital to protest three Bills passed by Parliament. These Bills permitted the purchase and sale of agriculture produce beyond officially designated Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee premises (aka mandis); electronic trading of farm produce to create a national market; contract farming and empowered the Central government to regulate farm produce prices only in the event of extraordinary emergencies such as war and famine. Essentially these Bills were enacted to apply the logic of the highly successful deregulation and liberalisation of Indian industry in 1991, to the farming sector. However, they were fiercely opposed by the farmers’ unions who continued their protest on the Delhi border for over a year — during the height of the Covid pandemic crisis. This protest was supplemented with protests in Punjab, Haryana as also pro-farmer protests in Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Kerala. Railway services remained suspended in Punjab for over two months. The adamant refusal of the farmers unions to budge from their demand and continuous camping on highways encircling Delhi forced the Union government to repeal the three Bills in November 2021. Predominantly an agriculture economy which was by-passed by the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th…
