Farmer's agitation of new farm bill

 The current ongoing agitation is led by 35 unions of farmers, 31 of whom are from Punjab alone, mainly wheat and paddy growers and the others from Haryana, Western U.P and M.P. For obvious reasons, the farmers' unions associated with the left wing political parties, Aam Admi Party, Akali Dal and Congress have also joined the agitation.

Agitation is mainly led by Punjab farmers, who are the primary beneficiaries of wheat and paddy procurement at the Centre. They fear that central agencies such as the Food Corporation of India (FCI) could scale down the food procurement target set, and even the allocation system of the Public Distribution System (PDS) may turn to a system of direct transfer of benefits. They also recommend that the MSP (Minimum Support Price) be made compulsory. The agitation of farmers, which started as an intervention to remedy the farmers' grievance, now modified their key agenda to abolish the three Agriculture Reforms Acts and rejected the government's offer to negotiate clause by clause of the Acts to find friendly amendments to the provisions of the three Acts to remove all the contentious issues involved that are harmful to the interests of the Acts The stalemate is ongoing, after several rounds of talks.

The agricultural sector needs changes that have so far been circumvented. A dispassionate reading of the different clauses of the new three-part reforms will show that there is nothing very wrong with requiring the Actions to be repelled and the agitating farmers are over playing their demands and attempting to force the government to block the roads causing inconvenience to vehicle movements and travel to and from the national capital. In its order on the Shaheen Bagh blockade by the agitators against CAA, the Supreme Court of India issued stern instructions to the administration that such demonstrations and expressions of dissent should be permitted only at specified locations without causing inconvenience to the general public while retaining the right to protest in a peaceful manner. "While delivering the Hon'ble Justice judgement, Kaul said, "Such occupation of public ways, whether at the sight in question or anywhere else, is not appropriate for protests and the administration should take steps to keep the areas clear of protests, with some sympathy and debate, but not allowed to get out of hand, are subject to legal position as mentioned above.

The Supreme Court of India intervened and suspended the enforcement of the three farm laws and set up a committee of four distinguished persons to study the legislation in order to make the required amendments, if necessary, to mitigate the concerns of the agitating farmers by holding talks with the stakeholders and to send their report to the Supreme Court. It was made clear by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, "No power can stop us from forming a committee." We don't appeal to everybody's definition of what a strong committee is. If farmers want a resolution, they will go to the committee and put their opinions forward. It's not going to pass an order or punish you. A report will be sent to us.' The bench also advised stakeholders, including farmers and the government, not to make arguments before the Committee on parliamentary legislative competence to enact the laws. The committee will notify the Apex Court of the ground reality and what the farmers want, and the validity of the laws will be determined by them (The Supreme Court). The bench of the Supreme Court made it very clear that all farmers who want to solve the problem arising from the farm laws must appear and voice their grievances before the committee.

But the opposing farmers' unions argue, "Farmers want to interact with the government, not with the SC, where farmers have not shown up." Committee members are not credible as they have been writing about how pro-farmer agri-laws are. We're going to continue our agitation.' The attitude of agitating and opposing farmers will generate a pungent situation to resolve the problems of law and order that may go out of hand if incidents such as what happened last Sunday in Karnal in Haryana. As days approach the proposed tractor rally demonstration on 26 January by the agitating farmers, the situation is bound to become volatile and if police action becomes inevitable, the anti-social and troublemakers will take advantage of it, which can lead to unpleasant situations.

Agitating farmers should recognise that only a small section of farmers belonging primarily to Punjab, Haryana and Western UP are active, and most of the farmers belonging to south, east, west and central India do not participate or many of them support the newly introduced legislation. In such a situation, the agitating farmers may not claim to be representative of Kisans throughout India and they must also value the view of the opponents.

The move taken by the Supreme Court, taking into account the severity of the prolonged agitation, is a welcome step to defuse the crisis in order to find an amicable solution. It is not possible to appreciate the unhelpful behaviour of the agitating farmers, whose key demand is the repeal of all three Acts. In addition, it is against the letter and spirit of the constitution to obstruct vehicular movements to and from the national capital that inconvenience the public. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has already expressed its frustration at the agitating farmers and their lawyers for not intervening in the proceedings. At a time when our country is on the verge of launching the Corona vaccine, economic and commercial activities are suffering from tremendous revenue losses for the nation affecting the nation's GDP, and the economy is slowly emerging from the devastating impact of the pandemic and poised for a start.

The latest action taken by the Supreme Court has implications with respect to the parliament's constitutional assets, legislative powers and prerogatives. The judiciary acting on expert policy prescriptions will exacerbate the situation where some farmers are calling for revocation and others are offering help. The report of the expert committee and its negotiations that determine the fate of legislation or the direction of agitation may also send subversive signals. It could be motivated to pursue similar lobbying strategies to circumvent government and parliament by powerful interest groups seeking concessions. It will set precedent, if it is so, and is a dangerous path. However, since the intent of the Supreme Court is genuine to bring sanity to the ongoing agitation to bring a purposeful dialogue to amicably settle the contentious issues, it is hopefully believed that the efforts being taken now would pave the way for the veritable realisation of the objectives bringing peace and harmony and understanding finding the much-needed solutions acceptable to all the warring stake holders.