Year-long farmers' stir against three acts finally comes to an end

'Suspend' protest after govt's letter of assurances; to review on Jan 15

Farmers on Thursday drew the curtains on their over a year-long agitation on the borders of Delhi over various issues, including the now-repealed three farm Acts.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) — an amalgamation of various farmer unions spearheading the protests — announced “suspension” of the stir following a letter from the Union agriculture ministry on all the points of discord; it also assured to continue with the current system of minimum support price (MSP).

SKM leaders during a joint press conference announced that farmers would start leaving protest sites across the country on December 11, following a victory rally.

But farmers, according to eyewitnesses, have already started pulling down the semi-permanent structures and are travelling back home from the major protest sites of Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur borders. Some of the big community kitchens are also being dismantled.

“On January 15, SKM leaders will meet to review the promises made by the government.  They will keep pressuring the government by meeting every month and monitoring the progress made on the promises,” Balbir Singh Rajewal, a prominent leader of the SKM and president of BKU (Rajewal) told reporters.

“This is not the end as the movement is just suspended,” he clarified.

The letter of assurances was signed by Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal. 

In the letter, the Centre agreed to most of the concerns raised by the protesters, including their participation in the proposed committee on MSP, immediate withdrawal of cases lodged against protesting farmers in UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana.

The letter also talked about an in-principle agreement by the UP and Haryana governments on compensation to the families of farmers who died during the protests, on the lines of one given by Punjab, making changes to the draft electricity Act only after consulting SKM leaders, and making stubble burning a non-criminal offence.

The foundation of ending the over year-long protest against the three farm Acts was laid on November 19 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the laws in a televised address on the occasion of Gurupurab, one of the holiest days for the Sikh community.

The prime minister had also announced the formation of a committee comprising representatives from the Centre, states, agriculture experts, and farmer unions to make the MSP mechanism effective.

Thereafter, the government moved quickly to first get legislation to repeal the Acts passed from the Cabinet and then approved by both houses of Parliament.

The Acts -- which were brought with much fanfare as part of the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ Package in June 2020 after the Covid-induced lockdown -- were mired in controversy, with a section of farmers seeing them as an assault on the MSP-based procurement system; many others felt that the move will deal a body blow to the current Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs).

Farmers also alleged that the Acts were a way to open the door for big corporations to get into farming. Several states, such as Punjab, have been against the laws because they infringed on the state’s power

Of the three repealed Acts, the first -- Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 -- sought to provide an ecosystem for farmers and traders to sell and buy outside designated mandis, without disturbing the existing mandi structure.  This was planned by categorising the entire area outside the mandi as a trade area.

A designated mandi is a regulated wholesale market that is governed by the rules of the state where it is situated.

The markets are called APMCs (Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees) and are governed by an Act. Studies show India has around 8,000 such regulated markets and 22,000 sub-markets, which are governed by some sort of regulations.

The second Act was the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement On Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the third was an amendment to the existing Essential Commodities Act.

The second Act, also called the Contract Farming Act, sought to provide a framework for contract farming agreements between farmers and buyer entities. The third one was the amendment to the EC Act for exempting certain agricultural commodities from the purview of the Act and restricted its applicability to extraordinary circumstances that include an abnormal increase or fall in prices of the commodities.

Thousands of farmers have been camping on the borders of Delhi since November 26, 2020, to protest the laws and also demand a legal guarantee on MSP.

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

The stir 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 discussions with farmer leaders and even offered to amend some of the provisions without much success, as the protestors stuck to their main demand of repealing the Acts.

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, was seen as a big setback for the stir. However, Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait's emotional outburst during an apparent government effort to clear out the Ghazipur protest site revived the morale of agitators.

And within days, western Uttar Pradesh became the new epicenter of the protests.

In between, the Supreme Court intervened and decided to constitute a high-powered panel of experts to study the three laws and suggest a way forward. The panel was rejected by the protesters as it comprised people known to have favoured the laws at one forum or the other.

The panel submitted its report to the apex court in due course but little has been heard about the same since then. One of the panel members wrote a letter to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, requesting him to make the report public.

Latest Government Offered

• SKM leaders will be part of the panel being constituted to ensure MSP for farmers, while the current state of MSP based procurement will continue as it is.

• State governments of UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana will immediately take steps to withdraw cases against all farmers.

• Centre will also withdraw all cases against protesting farmers under various Central laws and urge other states to do the same.

• States of Haryana and UP have in-principle agreed to provide compensation to dead farmers  on the lines of Punjab

• Changes in draft Electricity amendment will be made after consulting SKM leaders

• Stubble burning has already been decriminalized