Punjab's Subsistence Farmers' Plight

"He [his son] told her to talk to him now, to say goodbye, and to look after their two daughters."

"We reached the farm and tried to rush him to hospital, but he died on the way [a suicide by pesticide poisoning]."

Our only concern is running our livelihoods, we don't want to become rich or become politicians. We don't expect luxury, just roll back the laws."

Makhan Singh, 70, Sukhanwala, Punjab, India

 

"The government is not listening to our demands, these are laws that we do not want at all."

"We are all ready to get shot by the Delhi Police, rather than return home without the laws being repealed. We have already told our families we might die here."

Rana Rajvir Singh, trade union member, protest site, Singhu, outskirts of Delhi

"The new laws are totally anti-farmer and instead will benefit the private sector, who will start buying up land from impoverished farmers."

"The condition for farmers is only going to get worse and again, we will see a big rise in suicides."

Balvinder Singh, chief agricultural officer, Punjab Province

Protesting farmers at Singhu border area.

Two-thirds of India work in agriculture. Small-scale farming on an average of one acre or more per family. Otherwise known as subsistence farming. Where weather conditions can wipe out an entire crop and leave families reliant on whatever they can grow to see them through another year, must turn to small-scale loans to enable them to keep farming despite set-backs. And when those loans accumulate and other disasters intervene, despair sets in. If it isn't the debt load, it's seasonal flooding.

An estimated 3,300 farmers living and farming in destitution and perpetual worries committed suicide in the past twenty years in the district of Malwa where most farmers have a mere few acres of land to grow table crops. Theirs is a hard life made more difficult, they claim, by new laws known as the Farm Bills which are meant to permit large private corporations to dictate the price of produce. The end result is that small-scale farmers operating on narrow margins are squeezed for minimal profit.

 

 

Since 2016, the cost of land rentals and farm supplies have been rising at a rate faster than crop prices, leading to Malwa producing more than marginal crops; half of all farm suicides have occurred in the last four years. Farm supply price rises have been linked by some farming leaders to the government's measures to liberalize the farm economy, warning that suicide rates are increasingly likely to rise as a result of newly proposed agriculture laws to scrap fixed-price guarantees for crops in government markets.

In the state of Bihar, similar price-liberalization laws were previously implemented and farmers there point out that the sale price of 100 kg of rice has fallen from 1,900 rupees to 1,100 rupees. Lending credence at the very least to the critics claiming the three laws comprising the Farm Bills, will allow large private corporations to dictate the price of produce, the end result being that farmers' meagre profits will be even further squeezed.

According to the chief agricultural Punjab officer, 400 houses in Sukhanwala alone represent 90 percent of residents owing at least $3,500 to micro-finance companies and money lenders. Last month hundreds of thousands of farmers from Punjab and neighbouring states marched in a unity of purpose to India's capital New Delhi, to allow their grievances full rein and public view. An astonishing 250 million people participated in a nationwide strike in support of farmers on November 26, representing the largest demonstration ever to take place in world history.

New demonstrations are in the planning stages with a half-million farmers expecting to take part in a long-term protest to take place in New Delhi. The demonstrators are determined to travel to the capital in their tractors, packing along sufficient wheat, vegetables and clothing changes to sustain themselves for months in a prolonged show of strength and devotion to their cause, one of fair competition on behalf of small-scale farming enterprise.

 

 

There is support for claims of farmers' union leaders that local officials tend to be unsympathetic to their plight. In the Malwa region a general secretary of the ruling Hindu nationalist Aharatiya Janata Party, Sunita Garg,  is unimpressed. "We are ready to make amendments to the Farm Bills, but we absolutely won't roll them back, we'll continue with the table talks." She is herself the owner of several Delhi factories, has a lavish home, sumptuous with designer luxury accents, even as outside elderly farmers prepare to bed down on the street for a 79th successive night of protest.

The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday refused the Indian government plea to ban the demonstrations, recognizing the farmers' right to protest. Under the radar is suspicion and distemper between Hindus and Sikhs in India, and the government's sensitivity to Sikh separatist sympathies, in support of a Sikh-sovereign homeland of their own, Khalistan. Ancient enmities persist, colouring relations between the two, ensuring that each in their own way continues to view the other as having malicious intent.

"The country has made up its mind, the country is committed to changes in rules and regulations that the government is making to achieve the dream of Atmanirbhar Bharat [referring to his plan to make the country economically independent.]

"Agricultural reforms that we undertook six months back have started benefiting farmers".

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Farmers protest Thursday on a highway at the Delhi-Haryana state border in India. They have descended upon the borders of New Delhi to protest new farming laws that they say will open them to corporate exploitation.    Manish Swarup/AP