DM Monitoring
New Delhi: Farmers protesting the controversial agriculture laws have said that emails will be sent to Punjabi-origin British members of parliament to exert pressure on the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to cancel his scheduled visit to India to be part of Republic Day celebrations on January 26, 2021, until the Centre concedes to their demands.
There are five Punjabi-origin MPs in the house of commons, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Virendra Sharma, Preet Kaur Gill, Gagan Mohindra and Seema Malhotra. Britain is also home to sizeable Punjabi diaspora.
“The UK Prime Minister is scheduled to visit India on January 26. We are writing to British MPs asking them to stop him from visiting India till the time farmers’ demands are not met by the Indian government,” farmers’ leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu has been quoted as saying by ANI.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the invitation to his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade on January 26, 2021, which the latter agreed.
Protests by farmers in Delhi, which have now reached into its 27th day on December 22, have garnered global support, and especially from the countries that are home to considerable Punjabi diaspora.As many as 36 British MPs across political parties had earlier written to United Kingdom foreign secretary, Dominic Rabb, to convene a special meeting with them to “discuss the deteriorating situation in Punjab and its relationship with the Centre”. Describing the new farm laws as “death warrant” to “India’s food basket”, the MPs had called on Rabb to write to his counterparts on the Indian side to convey their displeasure, and the impact of the new farm laws especially on British Sikhs and Punjabis, according to a Times of India report.
Earlier this month, Labour Party’s Preet Kaur Gill and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi had taken to Twitter to raise concerns regarding farmers in India and the large-scale protests against the new farm laws. Lord Singh of Wimbledon, for its part, had raised the issue of farmers’ protests in India in the house of lords and asked if India is a democracy.
On the other hand, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had also lent his support to farmers’ protests, and asked the Indian government to allow farmers to exercise their right to peaceful protests. He had expressed his dismay over the efforts to label farmers as ‘Khalistani’ separatists. As expected, the Indian side hit back at Trudeau resulting in straining the Indo-Canadian ties.
Meanwhile, An academic research group, comprising around 40 economists from across the world, has written a letter to agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, requesting him to repeal the three farm laws which brought India’s farmers to the streets. The group raised questions about “the intentions of the central government and the integrity of the process involved” as the Farm Acts were were hastily passed by the government, amid a pandemic. It also requested the Centre to conduct proper negotiations with various farming groups from different regions about the farming issues in India. Below is the body text of the letter.
As economists who have a deep engagement with India (we are a group of around 40 economists from across the world who work on the Indian economy), and who desire a fair distribution of income and wealth in the country, we are seriously concerned about the recent Farm Acts that have led to sustained protests by farmers. While small and marginal farmers in India need remunerative prices and better market access for their farm output, it is not at all clear that the Farm Acts proposed by the central government will ensure that.
Moreover, the timing of the present Acts (in the midst of a pandemic) and the way they have been rushed through the parliament, raise serious questions about the intentions of the central government and the integrity of the process involved. As several economists have argued, there are major problems with these Acts:
(a) Academic work from Africa, Latin America and even India has shown that no clear benefits accrue to small and marginal farmers from contract farming. These small and marginal farmers constitute the majority of agricultural producers in India, and these Acts can impact their welfare adversely. Similarly, farm produce marketing has been regulated (although only a small part of the overall market is sold through Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs)) in order to reduce the arbitrary power of the much more powerful private market intermediaries vis-à-vis small and marginal farmers.
Instead of strengthening this regulation to protect vulnerable groups, the current Acts seek to weaken existing institutions by promoting a ‘dual system’ of regulated and unregulated markets that can only further strengthen private contractors, market intermediaries and large corporate bodies, while bypassing APMCs and increasing the vulnerability of the small and marginal farmers.
