Reformist farm laws that dent status quo have strong basis in data

Numbers show why Punjab and Haryana farmers are leading the protests, and why the rest of India is largely silent; experts and farm leaders say success of the laws rests heavily on implementation

“The Indian farmer needs Marks and Spencer more than Marx and Engels,” the late farmer leader from Maharashtra, Sharad Joshi, used to say, in support of liberalising agricultural marketing in India. Nearly forty years after his clarion call for removing shackles from the hands of farmers, the Union government passed three laws that create a legal framework for deregulating the farm market to some extent.

While chaos ruled in the Upper house of the Parliament when the bills were passed on Sunday, the opposition of Punjab and Haryana’s protesting farmers has now been seconded by farmer groups in Maharashtra and