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farmers in india are angry and protesting controversial new laws they say their livelihoods and big corporations would benefit prime minister not enjoy a change is needed let us both intensify what would he do this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. for the past 3 weeks tens of thousands of indian farmers have been protesting against new ugly culture. they say the changes

will have their livelihoods by making them vulnerable to big corporations but the government insists the regulation of the industry is badly needed police say at least 25 people have died several of them from cold weather as farmers continue to block highways and camp on the oscars of new delhi or friday. prime minister narendra modi offered to hold further talks as weeks of negotiations failed to reach a compromise modi says the farmers are being exploited by opposition parties which she says support of the new laws when they held government. i just want ease in the life of farmers i want their progress and want to modernity in the agriculture sector political parties should stop misguiding farm of it's been over 6 to 7 months since the farm laws were implemented but now suddenly games

are being played to plough one's political land through a web of lies. elizabeth has the latest from the indian capital new delhi. prime minister modi said that everyone has been demanding reforms in the agriculture sector and he said that previous governments that opposition parties have been wanting to pass the same laws but haven't been able to he said that those parties who are now stoking the protests and that they're jealous of him for possibly laws which they weren't able to but he doesn't want credit for the law was he just wants to make farmers happy he also asked opposition parties to stop using farmers for political gain well that's not going to go down well with farmers these protests have been going on for 3 weeks now they're very much a grass roots movement and they are people who lead with tens of thousands of farmers if not more continuing to block 3 major highways into the indian capital

region and this week they had some good news from the indian supreme court which was hearing petition seeking the immediate removal of farmers of protesters from highways but the supreme court said the farmers have a right to protest as long as they're not damaging any lives or property the supreme court also asked the country solicitor general to form a committee with farm union leaders and the government to resolve this dispute of the say that they're not open to that that they've had their own talks with the government they reject the government's proposed amendments and say that nothing short of a complete repeal of the 3 farm laws will do because they say that the laws were passed without any consultation with farmers that they will push through parliament and that they inherently favor a large corporations over pharmacists. let's introduce our panel in oxford in the u.k. an associate professor of development studies of the university of oxford. to

hinson have a member of the janata party also in india in google on our own kama professor of the institute of social sciences when we're come to you or. i when you look at the laws introduced by the government about ugly culture you get the 1st impression that this is something that could help the farmers charge the course but this is not the way the farmers themselves see it yes absolutely it is no laws have been and gone down surely through all my church of far this summer and now into the window of the government for us to introduce under the shadow of lock down. then took the matter to the pilot moment where the opposition was not allowed to have a show of hands are this eco insisted on the voice support and the opposition are equally resented there's this protested this but we've been by them and are outside

parliament there are the opposition to these laws has not been duped into account which is why we had the situation on the streets now the farmer has you know deregulation and liberalisation of agriculture with no serious doubts and the government seems to want to ram these through and it was it has this new liberal model of market dozing in mind to him do you see the impasse broken any time soon with the prime minister saying i'm moving forward with the plan and with the farmer saying this absolutely no way we will go for a compromise until the laws are scrapped by the government. well these foreign reporters who are waiting to happen for the last 15 or dealer sent every 200 to could buy tea at some point of time or the other has supported it even the previous owner agriculture minister showed up a lot has supported the previous in fact at the present job to protest who belongs

to the congress mr brander singh he has supported in the past now you know all of the apprehensions and all of the concerns of the of the farmers have been addressed in a very detailed proposal given out by the government on the 9th of december some dental the issues which have been raised by them virgin blue m.s.p. concerns about m.s.p. pricing which includes concerns about corporates in the private sector. taking over the land all of these have been addressed but unfortunately the the protesting farmers have not come back for a clock and now it's come to a point where you know it's a it's a very autocratic protest where they want to follow up on laws to be repealed or to get out that we need to understand that india isn't reformist more than the same way that you can't go and do all of the tax reforms majestic increase in the last 5 years you're going to do the g.s.t. we are we have a very open mind when it comes to discussion but it comes from negotiations when it comes to addressing the concerns of the public which which in fact the prime

minister has repeatedly emphasized but when it comes to the hybrid unfortunately the congress the government won't give in to that kind of a casualty to act like we're planning to do this program which is basically says ress some of the concerns of the farmers are ruined. in series why would the farmers the afraid of the notion of bypassing government regulated markets silly selling the own produce directly to the clients and dealing with private companies instead of going through middleman. so you know we have to appreciate the fact that 86 percent of the family rather small consummating less than 5 acres of land and they don't have much of a clout you know as companies are large they have lawyers they have you know various kinds of possibilities that the farmers don't have deep pockets so in other words it's not possible for farmers to take on the corporate sector which may be entering the market and the issue really is that the government sees you are

feeling the market and you're giving the farmers choice but the point is that you know in agriculture there's nothing like 3 in the markets because you know the produce market you know when you produce something you're in debt and therefore you have to return that you know that money that you're borrower and therefore you don't have a choice. so in a sense you know there's nothing like a free market that can operate in agriculture and you know the choice to the small farmer is not possible so this notion that you know we are giving the farmers get a choice they will benefit out if it does some us don't see dr a lot to see that you know david is hurting badly even before the laws were brought in because you know of the fact that they were not getting the price the minimum support price of they were supposed to get and that's right and they wanted at least you know that safety that if you have the mondays the markets that brought the already existing that equity markets then at the day you can get the minimum

support price now divided the markets will disappear i want to peter time it's not that will happen tomorrow but what a period of time these markets may disappear or the support price may disappear and in the free market you know they may not get the price that they deserve so they're very inviting because that's been the past experience and it's true that you know vegas political parties and they've been in power they've said yesterday that even the b.p. when it was out of power had opposed these kind of reforms so mr moody a drug czar chief minister had opposed the. you know this. you know i don't jaitley in the parliament i do know who secretly of world is going to change it because they said the promise cannot deal with the open market situation so it seems let you know depending on where the political party it's in power then it goes for the corporate sector it's in opposition then it works against it so in other words there's a lot of politics that is involved in it and the farmers are the ones who've been suffering you know they have been protesting for the last few years you know you

saw before the elections you will get you know demonstrations in maharashtra you saw his demonstration outside delhi in my dip in danish in various other parts of the country you know farmers from as far away as jenny had come to delhi and spent 100 days there were doing all kinds of things like shaving on their head taking on the accuser to try to draw that engine of the government but you know the government was not listening to them so now the problem wasn't mobilized and they see that you know they wanted least a basic minimum you know you can't improve the situation don't let these laws may disagree well let's talk about the let's talk about the basic minimum. i mean in a free market so this is i think one of the biggest concerns for the farmers these are people barely surviving over what they produce every year and they just concerned that in entering a new territory they won't have the same bargaining power to negotiate with private companies and suddenly they will the companies will end up being the one the ones dictating the terms of the market. that's so the current government in

order to build a consensus around the laws is telling us that there were 3 our agricultural farmers would be able to sell in any part of the country they don't have to go to middlemen and they're not dependent anymore on the agricultural use market yards this is a fantasy that any of this was not possible earlier if i were a farmer and i wanted to sell at my farm gates to a private lair i could do that you know in more students of india i could travel from you know sailed over the ocean the north will jog in the west it's less that the vast majority of farmers in india have an average annual income of 2 after any details until these a year and these are there they go with that kind of 'd income you cannot put all your producers on a fury train and you know gary and half the across the pond you will own the corporate it coming to you or the markets coming to you and that's where the fear

is in that inequality in the system and we also have to realize that the government docking about reform and this reform is necessary has it really out there to model of how structurally the economy has to move from dependence on agriculture to industry there was this stock of the in the economy the big structural push by god like rosenstein to a dam and this stock is from the 19 fifties sixties and seventies and it got further but as in the 1990 s. will die will be economically fargo this is when industry is growing and there is employment in industry now india is at a stage where last year we had more unemployment than the last 45 years so when those were at the alternative and we undercut the conditions that the farmers act in already where are they going to go so is this out it did model of reform that is being pushed on people with lot of done it gives

a great don't. power to be co-parents on which this government wants to hear the prime minister says this is a politically motivated move by by the opposition to the whole of the reform process but when you look at the consensus that has been prevailing india since the sixty's is that for the government to give a sense of dignity to the small farmers there needs to be always this minimum support price which is the m.s.p. to ensure that people will never be able to be manipulated by corporate corporations this is not what this reform is addressing and this is why people are pretty much concerned about what happens next and the government is not forthcoming when comes to the m.s.p. . so you need to understand that m.s.p. does not get impacted by these 3 thumb laws at all m.s.p. has existed from the 1960 the no government in the last in the last 55 years or so has done what with the existence of various exultant there is no question of doing

of it that i missed these now but you also need to understand that m.s.p. works better as an administrator mechanism that early good instrument because of very objective the very purpose of chemistry is to tweak it a constant intervals to give the benefit to the to the promise that in times when there is a bump up production and they tend to get less so the very purpose of m.s.t. is to make it better next to bill and if it does my out in a litigant purpose and a story in a litigious process that well up us will get to peek it but at the same time we have repeatedly assured that m m s p p system built continue it will remain unaffected by something and in any case if you look at the fact the percent of the farmers today sell outside the empathy m.s.p. the ones protesting as well if you look at the protest might be called a politically motivated the political parties protesting and gettler and bihar do not even remember that in bihar a p.m.c.

has been done over a bit in 2006 and here it is not a perfect for many years and these are the people who are at the forefront of the protest the delhi c.m. who bought the farm bill recently and has a state assembly was the 1st one to actually know to play one of the one of the pompous and 22nd of november to 1 of the. sorry one of the other concerns voiced by the people is a basically with the neutral has absolutely no way you can settle disputes in course you have to go to other of a board one particular the conciliation board and this is why people are very much concerned about the 3 laws introduced by the government. yeah so you know there are several kinds of issues that have been raised and i think we need to address them 1st and that misty's not going to disappear you know what'll happen is it disappear slowly as the it the mc the the markets the wholesale markets you know they will be can as you know you begin to sell outside and when you begin to sell outside you

know there's no guarantee that the small farmer can actually counter the lawyers of the big corporates and so on and also you know the big companies are not going to buy from large number of small farmers they will continue to use the presenter no wholesale trade was much less in number than what they exist today but they did aggregators so in a sense you know the squeeze on the small guy will be bought from the corporates adler's as from the trader and outside the mc markets you know they'll be very little protection and venue are not able to go to court and you have to go for some kind of arbitration board there the lawyers will then know what the small guy he did not know what kind of contract would be signed it's extra there's all sort of a problem that the small guys see and that is that they will lose their land because you know that contract may be in such a way that you know they would have to forego their land and become land less labor as you know it in a sense if you look at what happened in $971.00 census after the green revolution

started in 1067 large number of farmers became blandest laborers so i think a lot of fear of the farmers is that they're going to lose their land to the big guys you know they'd be contract farming that would come in and they would have no voice before these people another issue that i think is very important in this context and that is the mechanization that has been taking place in agriculture so that employment in our city in agriculture has dropped to 0 this was mechanization good harvest to combine and so on that new jobs are not being created so this is what is called disguised unemployment you know people are simply see. being in the pond and doing a little bit of work and that raises costs so in a sense the solution to the problem lies outside the farm itself by creation of the non-fan employment but what's happened is that investment in agriculture has declined investment in who really hasn't declined and therefore you know not enough jobs are being created and people are being pushed out into. or are forced to

remain in agriculture you know it still employs about 42 percent of the workforce but only produces about 14 percent of the g.d.p. so it shed is declining you know all the time and therefore you know the people that have a look incomes as well being said earlier so there are a whole range of issues that lead to agriculture as well as to non agriculture it links up not just to agriculture policy but what kind of taxation we have what kind of subsidy policy they have budgetary policies so you know what. creationists want but you know the issue is how to improve the lot of the farmers that i think is not mean issue or actually i promise to be in protesting even before this but then nikita don't you think that this could be the moment to think generally about how to move forward because i can't see india is not like in other parts of the world something like 60 percent of the g.d.p. and you cannot move forward more investments or ask international investors to step in without genuine transparent to me for us don't you think that the farmers

themselves need to understand that this is a critical moment for them. so see the line of questions we're asking and the title no small concessions that will love muggles making now after the laws were been dragged through parliament when they're all in government constituents well protesting and finally designed these kinds of questions should have been asked on not only our in across our mencia commit do you want members of hamas organizations that didn't none of that was have one just talk about rugby is about investor confidence and getting investment in glendale in you know all sorts of sectors and i can see that the government generally wants to do that we need to understand that one of the effect or has that makes india or made india attractive to companies from abroad to come and invest in india is what i mean it's labor force and to the fact that india is a rising large economy with

a demographic dividend and importantly unlike a country like china it does democratic when the government is reducing the democratic dividend of this country its own citizens i don't esteve and on to this is sending not a good signal to investors at dollars so what might have to farming in mind is that reform has to be proved people are going to. mock. and it needs to come to new with the tradition of democracy that is india was you know that whole is india's listen the world cutting down act and only pushing go corporate strands the government seems to be doing a very it does so decadence of what india has a right to him you sense that this is good for the country but he says that one of the biggest problems with the prime minister is basically he's always confident he has enough support of the parliament of therefore he commits to can implement whatever reforms who laws he wants to do but when it comes to this particular issue

. no to the elation. yes to reform of the existing laws in the country this give be an indication that perhaps the government did not consult with the people who are mostly affected by this particular issue and most importantly he didn't have the heart of the why he didn't win the hearts and minds of the farmer unions. if you're directing to the passage of the bill in parliament especially the register girl let me tell you that on the given day even before the voting which unfortunately could not take place we had the privilege because that was unfortunately 2 of the regional parties were protesting today ships they are not and the n.c.p. brought in by russia they were not part of the discussion they walked away before the voting much before the discussion was concluded the one god of all places i understand he gave a reason a personal reason for not being that rubber god it was not a part of that discussion but the point is that this i mean almost every particular

party in the past has supported these reforms in fact it was in the manifesto at the congress party also the reason why we had to push you need to understand that during the lockdown we have taken an extra initiative to keep the economy moving and the results of which are showing at this point of time so if if one of the biggest gainers of the last 6 or 8 months has been the agricultural sector regarding the recording of. the highest exports and the highest production one of the reasons that we have been under a formal report missed more at a time than be credible corded to get it easy and mind you these protests which are taking place right now has also only exposed once again the last inequality that existed in the sector it was the large landowners and the intermediaries who are largely protesting in the protest the large be centered around one or 2 states the bulk and the but you agree with me or are if i may just same place you agree with me this is quite significant this was a pivotal moment for our country and therefore i think the need for more debates

could have been the best way out for the prime minister let me go for this particular question to a run when you change the law from supply focused to demand focussed you're changing the very structure of the one of the most people to all sectors of the economy it could lead to glory what a disaster the same time. yes so you know if you want to reform agriculture you have to invest massively in rural areas you know that is the main thing that has not happened after the mid 1980 s. you know investment in agriculture has been declining in public investment in agriculture and you know a let me also point out that foreign investment in india is only 5 percent of the total investment bulk of the investment is really internal and that is what has fallen after $21213.00 from 36 percent now down to 28 percent and even less so that

is what one needs to increase and it's not going to be foreign investment in fact the family of what about foreign players coming in and they will be the big guys and there they will you know dispossessed large number of the small farmers so i think the real issue is what the farmers feed whatever the political party may be saying whatever they may be saying earlier you know whatever their views even the b.g.p. was opposing these kind of reforms when it was out of power and it was in the states you know it's like you weren't really is that you know can you. look at the production data and see it is really working well but it's not because you know in the pandemic you know the rules vegetables milk poultry it's a drought they suffered badly you know that data is not available you know unique qualities are very high so i think you know the a lot of issues and therefore what you need is a holistic package for reform and a little bit of not just the kind of thing that had been said you know in the last thank you thank you officer to we're running out of time next to her and send her a little comma i would appreciate your time and your insight. and thank you for

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