I have read the Bill. Have you?

A little long thread but please do read, and retweet:
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https://www.prsindia.org/sites/default/files/bill_files/Farmers%27%20Produce%20Trade%20and%20Commerce%20bill%2C%202020.pdf

1) First Bill: The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020
According to this bill, more than 20 essential items such as rice, pulses, wheat flour, potato, onion, edible oil have been excluded off the product list. The upper limit of stocking such items has been struck off too

The primary rationale of this act enforced in 1955 was to ensure that the government can directly purchases from farmers and distribute these essential items directly to the public during famine or similar emergencies.

From now on, based on this amendment the government is no more liable to purchase directly from the farmers and instead the corporates can engage directly with the farmers to buy such items, hoard them illegally and artificially control the supply, demand and pricing.

The farmers are uneducated, right? They haven’t understood that such a step by the government will actually benefit them, no?

2) Second Bill: The Farmers Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020
This is a good one – Price Assurance. The government dubs this bill to assure right price of commodities to the farmers. How? By allowing the big corporates such as PepsiCo, Adani, Reliance etc.

By allowing the big corporates such as PepsiCo, Adani, Reliance etc. to directly contractualize agreements with the farmers. You can say the Indigo Cultivation (Neel Chaash) during the British Raj is being repackaged.

For any reason, if the big corporates do not want to purchase the products from farmers, or if the produces are damaged due to natural calamities – the corporates would not be responsible to bear any financial liabilities to the farmers.

The bill says, the farmers can approach legal help in such matters to demand compensation. Absolutely! The farmers in our country definitely have financial backing of their own to fight out legal battles against the big corporates! They just do not know it yet, that’s all.

3) Third Bill: The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce Bill 2020
According to this amendment, the farmers can freely buy and sell products with the buyer business organizations, without any intervention of the government.

According to the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission, the government must ensure compensating the farmers with one and half times of the overall expenses incurred. The bill has no mention of it.

However, the bill does mention the fall out of privatization of electricity supply, rate hike and cancellation of subsidy to the farmers. How praiseworthy! Such a bill is for sure towards the betterment of the farmers. The farmers are uneducated so they have failed to understand!

4) A country where 52% of families of the population are directly dependent of farming and farm produces; a country where 54.6% of families out of a total of approx. 146500000 houses that are directly associated with cultivation do not have any land for cultivation of their own;

a country in which its government stops publishing farmers' suicide related statistics since 2016 to cover its own failure – you think such a country’s oppressed, exploited farmers can survive by fighting with the big corporates that understand nothing other than its own profit?

In this country, a farmer commits suicide in every 12 minutes and 37 seconds. The government in this country writes off millions of rupees for the NPA corporate loans, but not the farm loans.
https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/Chapter-2-Suicides_2019.pdf

The dream of the farmer families, to be able to live a little better never sees the lights of the day. And in return, the government continues to hatch new devices to further crush these families by bringing in new laws that would obliterate them.

5) You might yet proceed to support this bill in a democratic country based on your political subscription; dub the protesting farmers as traitors due to your unhesitant obedience towards the government;

call the dissenting voices that are fighting for the deserving rights of farmers as waste of time at your free space from non-stop hate spewing about Hindu-Muslims, Temple-Mosques, Kashmir-Pakistan on social media...

but be rest assured, the potato in your morning breakfast of aloo paratha, the paneer and green peas of your dinner are the outcome of tireless labor of the farmers.

So from now on, when you speak in favor of the amendment of farm bill, keep in mind: 12 minutes and 37 seconds. For all those deaths, you shall be directly responsible.