PM Modi withdraws three farm laws, urges protesters to return home

Three farm laws brought in last year to liberalise India’s agriculture markets, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, urging protesters to return to their home.

The constitutional process to withdraw the laws will be completed within a month. "Our government is committed to farmers' welfare, especially small farmers. We are committed to serve them fully. We brought in farm laws with good intentions," he said.

The three laws, introduced in September 2020, allowed farmers to directly sell their produce, outside government-regulated wholesale markets, to big buyers. The government said this will unshackle farmers and help them get better prices.

Small farmers say the changes make them vulnerable to competition from big business, and that they could eventually lose price support for staples such as wheat and rice, Reuters reported.
 

Since last year, tens of thousands of farmers have camped on major highways to Delhi to oppose the laws, in India's longest-running farmer' protest against the government.

"Today I have come to tell you, the whole country, that we have decided to withdraw all three agricultural laws," Modi said, acknowledging his government had been unable to win complete support for the reforms.

The announcement comes ahead of February-March elections in Uttar Pradesh where farmers are an influential voting bloc. The government had, so far, refused to budge from its position which protesting farmers claimed would ruin their livelihoods, making it the longest stand-off yet under Modi’s rule since 2014, said Bloomberg.

The government had insisted the new policy would benefit the growers and refused to withdraw the legislations. The Supreme Court too had ordered temporary suspension of the laws, but the agitators had refused to compromise.