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1/n: A (pessimistic) thread on political economy of the Supreme Court staying the 3 farm laws:
On the face of it, the court had indicted the govt for not doing wider consultations before the laws were passed. May be, the govt did not anticipate the intensity of current protests
On the face of it, the court had indicted the govt for not doing wider consultations before the laws were passed. May be, the govt did not anticipate the intensity of current protests
2/n: However, prima facie, the stay does nothing to question the constitutional validity or the laws (esp federal issues) or grant a more heterogeneous audience to the farmers (all members in the committee are pro-refrom). This is bound to generate skepticism among the protestors
3/n: The order seems to be driven from a pure law & order (protests shd end) view rather than anyth else. In a way, the order has done what the opposition should have managed in the parliament (get laws sent to a select committee). Classic case of 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
4/n: farmers can choose either not to cooperate with the committee (in which case govt has a legal advantage) & continue with the protests; but with a credible threat of escalation from the extant situation. or they can participate, buy time and gather more support in the country
5/n: doing the latter is not going to be easy outside Punjab-Haryana. P-H farmers are defending benefits (MSP) which already exist. Majority of farmers outside see MSP procurement as the ideal but an unlikely outcome. They will lack conviction.
6/n: To be sure, I do not think that opening the floodgates for big business in farming will bring tangible benefits to farmers anywhere in the country. But convincing farmers about this will take explaining a future potential squeeze they might suffer.
7/n: It is this agnosticism among farmers outside P-H vis-a-vis the laws which the govt is banking on to rule out a large scale political backlash. This is unlike the land acquisition act, where farmers of all varieties were very critical of the amendments by 1st Modi govt
8/n: The govt can afford to wait to take the recent reforms to their logical culmination. Most policy documents (both UPA and NDA) have talked about shifting to cash based PDS, diluting MSP procurement etc. I see, the current reforms are beginning of that.
9/n: Once the Mandi system is weakened & big business gets entrenched in output markets, like it is in input markets now, farmers and (relatively) small traders will lose their bargaining power. This is what explains the urgency/desperation among protestors.
10/n: However, in order to win this struggle, P-H farmers need allies.Put together P+H is just 24 LS seats. West Bengal alone could compensate that loss in the future. The way I see it, P-H farmers are fighting a battle of petty production against big business
11/n: As of now, they have won popular & emotional support across the country, but there is no broad-based class alliance to build a strong enough political deterrence for the govt. Unless that happens, and that will take much more than demanding MSP for all farmers...
12/n: We will not see any significant headwinds to the current political regime which is characterized by bias towards big capital with a political insurance in the form of populist relief towards the poorest sections of the society.
n/n: To expect the protesting farmers to do all this on their own is, simply speaking, unrealistic. The parliamentary opposition, while it has been with the farmers, but so far failed to think ahead of the farmers. Unless that changes, politics won't change.
