Punjab farmers

When Farm laws became Former laws and the lessons therein!

Guru Nanak Jayanti henceforth, will have an additional reason for celebration for many. Apart from celebrating the revered Sikh Guru on his birthday, the day will be also be remembered and celebrated for bringing Narendra Modi’s strong government down on his knees. This week on the day of Gurpurab, the Prime Minister chose to announce the repealing of the three farm laws which were meant to reform agriculture. This after almost 18 months of relentless protests by farmers mainly in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP. That the government had to finally relent and nullify the laws is unfortunate.  From here on, it is going to be tougher for this government to push through reforms of any nature. The opposition and the other adversaries have smelt blood and have found the soft underbelly of this government and hence a template for pressurising this government.

Farmers celebrate after India’s Prime Minister announced to repeal three agricultural reform laws that sparked almost a year of huge protests by farmers across the country in Singhu on November 19, 2021. (Photo by Xavier Galiana / AFP) (Photo by XAVIER GALIANA/AFP via Getty Images)

This means that moving forward, the Government needs to be inventive and creative in pushing through contentious reforms and bills so that the same fiasco is not repeated. And here are some unsolicited, practical ideas to the government to help push path breaking but contentious reform bills:

  1. Say No to Ordinance: The word “Ordinance” immediately raises the antenna of the opposition and commentators in civil society who deride anything that is an ordinance. Even if it’s a legitimate cause, pushing it through the ordinance route, unnecessarily gives it a colour of conspiracy.  If the Government opted for the Ordinance route to save time, then it is ill intentioned. In India, in matters of reforms, we are used to passing laws after 10 years of debates and discussions. So, trying to cut a few months of time by opting for the ordinance route is not worthwhile. And as we have seen in the Land acquisition bill and now in the farm laws, ordinance route has not helped at all. Considering the fact that the government has a comfortable majority on its own in the lower house and can manage a majority in the upper house, it is wiser to table the laws in both the houses, do some discussion and pass them as laws legitimately.
  2. Roll the red carpet to “Select Committees”: Opposition parties have egos. And egos need to be massaged often. What’s the other better option for this than rolling out the red carpet to “Select Committees”? In your planning cycle for tabling a bill that is reformist in nature and which will attract the ire of the opposition, buffer in certain time for sending the bill to “Select Committees”. It is usually said that “When a government cannot commit, it committees!” I would say that even when a government is clear in its mind and can commit, it should “committee” so that the opposition feels that they have been consulted and the law has been passed after due process. Now the flip side of this is possible dilution of certain provisions which may distort the intent of the law itself as we saw in the case of the “Land Acquisition bill” which the UPA government passed.  Ultimately it has become an ineffective piece of legislation that is the reason for delays in many of the infrastructure projects that are underway. But here again, I would say that with the numbers on its side, the opinions and recommendations of the Select committees can be managed in its favour by the government and in case there are some genuine provisions that need correction, that is welcome.
  3. Head hunt key opposition leaders to be ambassadors: Most of the reforms that are being brought about by the government are long pending once that have been talked about for a long time now. So, in public domain we can always check if any key opposition leader had a favourable view on the subject. It is important to head hunt such leaders and co-opt them as ambassadors for the law by reaching out to them before the law is tabled in parliament. This will not only divide the opposition but will also help in influencing public opinion in favour of the intended reforms. For example, in the case of farm laws, it is known to all that Sharad Pawar when he was the Minister of Agriculture had talked in favour of some of the provisions in these laws. So when Pawar expressed his reservations on the farm bills, the first attempt of the ruling party leaders was to expose his hypocrisy. Instead of that, the government should have reached out to him and sought his support before the bills were tabled. He could also have been used to influence other parties and fence sitters could have been won over. This approach needs a bit of deft floor management and handling of the opposition which I feel is lacking with the Modi government presently.
  4. Cherry pick opinion leaders to influence opinion: During UPA-1, the nuclear bill which Manmohan Singh was personally championing got into rough weather when its own allies from the Left were opposing the bill tooth and nail. The principal opposition party then which was the BJP, also took an opposing view though it was NDA under Vajpayee rule that had sown the seeds for engagement with the US on the nuclear front. In a masterstroke that set the cat among the pigeons in the BJP camp, Sanjaya Baru the media advisor to Manmohan Singh then, reached out to Brajesh Mishra, who was the National Security Advisor to Vajpayee and a vocal supporter of the nuclear bill. Brajesh Mishra came out openly in the press to support the nuclear bill which took the sting out of the BJP attack in the parliament and outside. The present government can take a page out of this play book and cherry pick opinion leaders from civil society to come out in the open to support the proposed reforms. While on this I must add here that many commentators who were in some point of time votaries of the farm bills turned their back and changed their opinion just because the reforms were brought by the Modi government.  This sort of exposed the intellectual dishonesty of such commentators and this is another reason why I advocate that it is important to cherry pick and co-opt some of these commentators who can influence public opinion.
  5. Debate and Debate: I have been reading that the farm laws were passed by the Modi government without any debate or discussions with the stake holders. A lie repeated often becomes the truth. This government might not have debated the bill in the floor of the house during this regime but the subject of agri reforms and the need to reform the APMC act have been discussed and debated enough since 2000. One has to just read this finely detailed paper titled “An intellectual biography of India’s new farm laws” by Gautam Chikarmane to understand the chronology and the journey of these laws. My proposal is, for future even if the need for a reform has been discussed many times, provision a few weeks for repeating the same in the parliament in your regime. Because in India, carrying out the debate in the floor of the parliament is supreme, notwithstanding the quality and the purpose it serves.

The government has its plate full in terms of the reforms agenda in the months to come.  Opposition parties and other interested parties can and will try to follow the SOP of the farm bills in derailing these reforms in the remainder of this term of the government. Therefore it is important that hard lessons are learnt to ensure that this government under Modi is not seen just as a harbinger of “former laws”!

Pic Courtesy: Forbes India

The Mandi Vs Modi battle!

As a country, I believe that we are cursed to contend with one distraction after another, which keep our governments busy. If it was the Anti-CAA protests which were grabbing the headlines during winter last year, it is the farmers’ protests against the Modi Sarkar’s farm bills this winter. And in between, we have the Covid and its numbers to be pre-occupied with, still.

In the last few weeks, ever since the farmer’s agitation picked up steam, there have been many op-ed pieces from erudite authors which have by and large spoken in favour of the farm bills. And they have said that this is the 1991 moment for Indian agriculture. And yet, the farmers associations have stood their ground against these reforms. Irony dies when we see articles with pictures now of farmer protests in the past demanding the same reforms!

The opposition has joined ranks with the protestors in trying to push back the Modi government on the farm bills. And it has been pointed to us that many of the opposition parties including the Congress, which is now siding with the farmers in opposing the farm bills, have been votaries of the same proposals in the past. It is clear now that since the opposition cannot take on the government on the floor of the house, its strategy is to take on the government on the streets.

While there have been many pieces exposing the double speak of the parties, I would recommend all to read just this one authored by Gautam Chikermane for the ORF – “An intellectual biography of India’s new farm laws”. Read here:

This piece chronicles the various studies and reports tabled by expert committees under different governments’ right from the year 2000 and invariably the recommendations are similar to the very reforms the present farm bills have brought in. It thereby exposes the intellectual hypocrisy of not just the politicians, which to a large extent we have learnt to live with, but of the commentariat which is not coming out and expressing its views in favour of the farm bills strongly, though it was in favour of the same before.

As you can see in the said article, there has been a rare consensus among economists and domain experts on the issue of reforming the APMC Act and Essential Commodities Act. Therefore, it is a pity that we are seeing such virulent, stubborn opposition to the reforms from one section of the farmers’ universe.

In the past five years, I have consistently observed that the commentariat in India keeps shifting goal posts as per its whims and fancies.  In the beginning of the 1st term of Modi, the narrative was “Where are the big bang reforms?” When the Modi government started bringing in reforms it became, “Where is the consensus in bringing these reforms? Where is the consultation?” When reforms are brought in after consultation and building a consensus as in the case of GST, the narrative is, “Where is the execution?” So, clearly we are seeing a pattern of opposition for the heck of it irrespective of the merits of the case.

In the case of farm bills too, there are those who have been saying that there has been no consultation. It is clear as broad day light in the article that, there have been consultations with stake holders for 20 years now! I believe that the government must reach out to many of these experts who were in favour of these bills during UPA regime and enlist them to express their support for the reforms they were batting for in the past. This could include people like Montek Singh Ahluwalia, M.S. Swaminathan and the likes. Here, it could take a leaf out of UPA-1 rule when Sanjaya Baru, the then Press advisor to Manmohan Singh, reached out to Brijesh Mishra enlisting his support for the nuclear deal when BJP was opposing it tooth and nail. The Civil Nuclear deal discussions with the US started when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister during the NDA rule. So, having an Ex-National Security Advisor to talk in favour of the nuclear deal when BJP was opposing the same, sort of punctured the opposition narrative.

Again coming back to the point of introducing the reforms after extensive consultations across the board, our experience has not been very good. During UPA, the land acquisition bill was brought in after extensive consultations and after building a broad consensus. The result is there for all to see. The bill never took off. It is a classic case of the operation being called successful while the patient was dead. The Modi government in the very 1st year wanted to fix this and brought in amendments which never went through. Finally, in the absence of a consensus, the amendments were not made and the bill continues to languish without serving the purpose of its existence.

Much of the infrastructure projects announced by the Modi Government are behind schedule or languishing in spite of having a very enterprising and well-meaning Nitin Gadkari as the minister at the helm. The main reason has been the delay in land acquisition essentially because of the rigorous clauses built in the bill that was brought in with a broad consensus.  So, any bill just because it is brought in with a lot of consultations and a broad consensus need not be the ideal bill.

In the parliament, the idea of consultations and building consensus effectively means putting the draft of the bills or amendments through select committees or standing committees. To borrow the words of HDFC Chairman, Deepak Parekh, “In India, when the government cannot commit, it committees!” Which effectively means extended discussions and delays. At the peak of UPA rule, when most of India wanted a decisive government with a majority on its own, it was precisely for these reasons. So, when Modi Sarkar which has now won a decisive mandate on its own twice over, takes the route of avoiding these long winded committees and brings in changes in laws on issues like the farm bills where discussions have been going on for 20 years now, we shouldn’t complain.

Building a consensus is often overrated and I concur with the latest statement by Niti Aayog Chairman Amitabh Kant that in India, we suffer from “too much” democracy. I sincerely hope that the government sticks to the main proposals and not roll back on the essence of the farm bills. In the meantime, it should use its communication firepower led by more amenable ministers like Gadkari to get the message across to the farmers’ associations and get them to pull back.  The Mandi Vs Modi battle is clearly a distraction for us at this time when the government must be focussed on handling the economic mandi (slump) on a war footing to bring the growth back on track.

Post script: The title for this post is courtesy my good friend Gopal Kutty Sasthri who popped this up during one of our chats on the topic and so due thanks to him.