“Jittange ya Marange (Victory or Death)” is the slogan of agricultural workers and the different strata of the Indian peasantry, engaged in a protracted struggle over the neoliberal agrarian policies introduced by the rightwing Indian People’s Party (BJP) led government. Since November 2020 peasants and workers, initially mainly from the Punjab and Haryana states, occupied the outskirts of the Indian capital Delhi. The protest spread quickly beyond Delhi with peasants marching and protesting in solidarity in the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka, together with sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh. In January 2021 the farmers intensified the protest by organising a tractor protest and storming parts of the capital leading to clashes with the police. Notwithstanding its class, gender and caste contradictions, many have hailed the mass protest as a historic moment in the struggle of the labouring classes since India’s independence.
A key demand of the farmers is to repeal the three farm laws passed in June 2020: The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic was used as a cover to flout parliamentary procedures and to sneak through these neoliberal laws. The farm laws will give agribusinesses such as the Adani and Ambani group unrestrained access to purchase crops without paying fees and taxes. Currently the state procures the produce from farmers at a guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP). Secondly, the law will effectively remove the restrictions on hoarding of grains by private corporations. Thirdly, the law will enable a framework for contract farming. These laws will transfer complete control of the agricultural sector, favouring agribusiness and subjecting peasants to the vagaries of the market and effectively remove the conditions for peasant households to reproduce themselves from the land.
The MSP was introduced during the Green Revolution in the 1960s to create an incentive for farmers to sell their grains at a guaranteed price. Despite its early success in terms of productivity, a number of studies have shown that the cultivation of high yielding varieties was at a great environmental and social cost in states like Punjab. Ecological degradation continues to be widespread, particularly soil and water pollution and the depletion of the groundwater resources. The agrarian crisis gripping the country, that includes high levels of farmer indebtedness and ecological degradation, if combined with these neoliberal farm laws will lead to a new round of land dispossession, rural poverty and hunger.
Small scale and poor peasants comprise approximately 86% of India’s agricultural landholdings of less than two hectares in size. The agricultural sector also provides a livelihood to more than 60% of the population, despite the fact that agriculture only contributes 15% to the country’s economic output (New York Times, January 2021). Equally important is the fact that of the country’s 1.3 billion population, two thirds are reliant on food rations. These neoliberal farm laws will be devastating to the different layers of the peasantry, agricultural workers and the food security of millions of the labouring classes and oppressed groups. Subjected to the dictates of the market, millions more will be pushed to join a vast number of already food insecure households.
This mass protest needs to be seen in conjunction with a prior wave of general strikes by organised labour that coalesced with the peasant and agricultural worker revolt. In January 2020 India witnessed one of its largest national strikes against the anti–labour policies of the rightwing Narendra Modi government. This was followed again in November 2020 when the major trade union federations called a general strike in which an estimated 250 million workers participated. The key demand of the workers was the withdrawal of the anti-labour codes, anti-farm laws and anti–people (neoliberal) policies. It was against this historic backdrop that the peasant and agricultural workers mass protest against the farm laws unfolded. However afterwards, the trade union movement has faded in their support and participation in the peasant mass protest.
Nevertheless, the mass protest is striking at the heart of the agrarian and national problem in the 21st century. What this peasant-worker revolt clearly shows is that the agrarian question is both a peasant and worker question. A resolution of the agrarian question becomes partial if it does not include the agricultural labourers, the majority Dalit in states like Punjab, who are actively involved in the mass protest. Repealing the three farm laws is an important step in eliminating the neoliberal corporate control of agriculture. The mass protest is an opportunity for poor peasants and agricultural workers to demand an end to the oppressive and exploitative class-caste-gender feudal agrarian social relations and dismantling the corporate control of the food system in India. Together, they can and must take the lead. An eco- socialist resolution of the agrarian and national problem is an urgent task, reorienting agriculture and food production on an entire new socio-ecological basis in the interest of the peasants and workers.