PM Narendra Modi withdraws three farm laws, asks farmers to go home

Modi said that the laws were brought in the best interest of the nation and were aimed at small and marginal farmers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday unexpectedly announced that the three controversial farm Acts would be repealed in the upcoming session of Parliament.

The move came a few months ahead of the yet-to-be-announced Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the hotbed of protests against the farm laws.

The prime minister said a committee of state and central representatives, farmers, and experts would be set up to make the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism more transparent and effective.

Addressing the nation on the occasion of Gurupurab, the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, Modi said the Acts were in the best interests of the nation and were targeted to benefit small and marginal farmers but it seemed the government had failed to convince a section of the farmers and therefore it had decided to withdraw the laws.

“I urge all agitating farmers to go back to their families and villages and let’s make a new beginning,” Modi said in his address.

The political fall-out of the announcement came within hours. Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said his newly formed party was ready to hold talks with the BJP on seat sharing for the Assembly elections in the state.

The decision to annul the Acts, seen by many as a setback to the much-awaited agricultural reforms, was announced days before one of the longest-standing agitations of farmers on Delhi borders were to complete one year on November 26.

However, many others say that reforms would take the backseat if the government bows to the demand of farmers to legislate on minimum support prices for crops. 

Some experts are of the view that states can reform agriculture to benefit small and medium farmers instead of helping a few companies. 

Farmers celebrate after the announcement by the Prime Minister, at Tikri Border, Haryana, on Friday. Photo: PTI

The agitating farmers, meanwhile, have decided to continue their agitation till a firm commitment is made on statutory guarantees for remunerative prices for all agricultural produce and also withdrawing the Electricity Amendment Act.

The farmers had planned a series of events on November 26 and were planning to march to Parliament with tractors. Protests were being planned in other parts of the country as well.

“The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) will take note of all the developments, hold its meeting tomorrow (Saturday), and announce further decisions,” the main body spearheading the agitation said in a statement.

The Acts, which were brought in with much fervour as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat package in June last year after the first lockdown, have been mired in controversy since the beginning, with a section of growers seeing them as an assault on the MSP-based procurement system, while some others said they would strike at Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs).

The protesting farmers also alleged that the Acts were a stepping-stone for big corporations to get into farming.

States such as Punjab have been against the laws on the grounds that they were an affront to the states’ powers to make laws on agriculture.

Some experts want to watch further developments before concluding that the PM’s move is a setback to farm reforms.

“I feel this is a tactical retreat, not a surrender, in the light of the elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Agriculture will continue to grow at its long-term average of 3.5-4 per cent per annum. But, if tomorrow, the opposition starts going against all the existing reforms through mobilisation on streets then something like Air India disinvestment could also come under pressure,” Ashok Gulati, Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, told Business Standard.

“I don’t think it is a setback for the reforms in agriculture as of now, but yes, if tomorrow someone gives legal guarantees for MSPs then it will definitely be a reversal,” Gulati said.

However, some others said the repeal was a good step.

“The Centre should not have interfered in the domain of the states in the first place. Now that the Acts will be withdrawn, it is up to the states to take meaningful reforms in agricultural marketing, not just to attract big investment but to protect the interests of small and marginal farmers,” Sukhpal Singh, chairperson of the Centre for Management in Agriculture at IIM Ahmedabad, said.

“Giving small farmers new channels to sell their produce through direct purchase, private mandis, and contract farming is all to the good, but the way in which the Centre was doing it, giving a free hand to companies without worrying about the interests of farmers, was one-sided,” Singh said.

The farmers’ agitation, which started as stray protests in some villages of Punjab, gathered steam and spread to other parts of the country, including Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

The protests reached a crescendo when thousands of farmers from Punjab and elsewhere marched towards Delhi late last year and decided to block the main entry points once they were denied entry.

The Centre, on its part, held 11 rounds of discussion with them and offered to amend some of the provisions of the laws, but without much success, as the protestors stuck to their main demand of annulment.

The violent events of January 26, 2021, when scores of agitating farmers deviated from a fixed tractor rally route and forced entry into the main thoroughfares, leading to pitched battles with the police, were seen as a setback for the stir. However, the forced eviction of Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait and his emotional outburst revived the sagging morale of the agitators.

And within days, western Uttar Pradesh became the new epicentre of the protests, which shifted from Punjab and Haryana.

The Supreme Court intervened and constituted a high-powered panel of experts to study the three laws and suggest a way forward.

The protesting farmers rejected the panel because it consisted of people known to have favoured the laws in some forum or the other.

The panel submitted its report to the apex court in due course but little has been heard about it. One of the panel members wrote to the Chief Justice, requesting him to make the report public.

At several flashpoints, the crowds had thinned considerably from what they were at their peak. This the farm leaders say is due to the peak paddy harvesting season and wheat sowing in several parts of the country.