The farmers are not only protesting in Germany, they have also made their way to Delhi in India to demand better minimum support prices for their products. And it may well be that they will simultaneously blockade and keep the country in suspense in the coming weeks. At the end of last week, the farmers stopped their protest march about 200 kilometers from Delhi in order to negotiate again. The first clashes with the police occurred. Security forces used tear gas and set up barricades. Now let’s move on.
This time, like two and a half years ago, things shouldn’t escalate under any circumstances, because Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) already see themselves on the road to victory for a third term in office. According to polls, the BJP is miles ahead of the India opposition alliance three months before the start of the election. Modi himself has even better approval ratings than his party.
Up to 40 percent of Indians work in agriculture
After the protests in 2021, the government actually wanted to motivate farmers to switch from growing rice and wheat, which require more water, to pulses. They are becoming more and more expensive, India is the world’s largest importer and is having difficulty absorbing the price increase. Demand for corn has also increased as India’s poultry and ethanol industries boost consumption. Actually a sensible measure. But on Monday, farmers rejected an offer from the government that had proposed a guaranteed levy on pulses, maize and cotton. And the farmers who still grow wheat and rice want to impose a minimum price for all agricultural products.
The farmers are a power in India, much bigger than in Germany because there are many more of them. Up to 40 percent of the Indian population is said to work in agriculture. That’s a lot of potential voters in the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people. Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal had an hour-long marathon of negotiations with several farmer associations over the weekend told Reuters that the government had proposed five-year minimum support price contractswhich will be paid by the respective cooperative groups: “These cooperatives will buy the products and there will be no quantity limit.”
After two days of consideration, the farmers’ associations rejected the proposal on Monday. The government’s proposals diverged too far from farmers’ demands, indicating a lack of seriousness in negotiating the issue, Devinder Sharma told Reuters. He is an expert on agricultural culture and the connection between politics and agriculture. When farmers blocked access to Delhi for months two and a half years ago, Sharma said South German newspaper: “We should learn the lessons from the agricultural reforms in the USA and Europe that have gone terribly wrong.”
The largest opposition party’s accounts were frozen
For example, the price of wheat has fallen in most countries around the world over the past century when inflation is taken into account. What is needed is a reform of the food sector, “not market liberalization. Otherwise only the large corporations that suck the earth’s wealth out of the ground and pull it to themselves would benefit, while nothing is left for the farmers.” However, Sharma also names the problems that arise from the planned economy structured market in India. This only benefits large farmers who specialize; small farmers can barely make ends meet. The Modi government failed to address this problem two and a half years ago, but now it may be catching up with them.
The question is whether the opposition will benefit from this. Last week the reported Hindustan Timesthat the accounts of the Congress party have been frozen. “We received information two days ago that checks issued by us were not honored by the banks,” Ajay Maken, treasurer of the main opposition party, told a press conference.
Last Friday it announced that it was no longer liquid in connection with an income tax claim of 2.1 billion rupees (23.4 million euros). “We have no money to pay electricity bills and the salaries of our employees.” The party described the move as a “deep attack on Indian democracy”. The case is scheduled to be heard in court this Wednesday.
The Congress party calls on the judiciary to protect democracy
The fact that the tax authority is acting so harshly so shortly before the elections naturally leads to protests. “The power-mad Modi government has frozen the accounts of the country’s largest opposition party,” Congress Party President Mallikarjun Kharge wrote on news service X. “We appeal to the judiciary to save the multi-party system in this country and protect India’s democracy.”
In fact, the Congress Party, once India’s dominant party, has fallen from one slump to the next since Modi and the BJP took power in the country in 2014. So the question is what reasons the BJP might have to prevent them from campaigning now.
“They will remain in the opposition after the 2024 elections, but in far smaller numbers,” Narendra Modi said in December after 141 opposition members were thrown out of Parliament ahead of a vote. The BJP may be aiming for such a large majority that it can then restructure the world’s largest democracy even more decisively according to its ideas. Maybe the party and Modi will now get in the way of hundreds of millions of farmers.