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India’s Rich Farmers Are Holding Up Reforms Designed to Help the Poor

haltingproblem 6y ago
https://archive.is/rUq5v https://archive.is/rUq5v
haltingproblem 6y ago
I found this sentence a pithy summary of the whole article: "Jats own roughly three-fourths or four-fifths of all agricultural land in Haryana and eastern Punjab, respectively. Nearly all medium- and large-scale farmers in both states are reputed to belong to the Jat community. The farm protesters’ claim to have mobilized 200,000 tractors for their Republic Day rally on Jan. 26 confirms the prevalence of relatively large-scale farmers among the protesters, given that few Indian farmers own enough land to practice mechanized agriculture. Even today, the typical Indian farmer is still 10 times more likely to own a bullock than a tractor. " This is a protest by a community of 1-2 million rich farmers afraid that their monopolization of government supports will be questioned by the other 300-400 million poor farmers who subsist without state support on meager holdings.
- strikelaserclaw 6y ago
  That is why the whole celebrities supporting the farmer protests was perplexing to me. These protests seems to be a case of a minority of farmers in the Punjab and Haryana region wanting to keep special privileges not afforded to the vast majority of Indian farmers. The reforms as a whole seem to me at least to be beneficial to a majority of the farmers.
  - haltingproblem 6y ago
    The celebrities don't care about the farmers or their causes. Celebrities (of all stripes, cultural, intellectual, economic) need to virtue signal. The need to virtue signal comes from establishing their virtuousness to justify their incredible privilege. This inherent fairness is built into our dna as an evolutionary mechanism. Combine this need to virtue signal with social media's vast reach and you get the spectre of celebrities as diverse as AOC, Mia Khalifa, Greta and Rihanna tweeting in support of farmers.
davchana 6y ago
Have not read the article, but the title is a total lie. Corporate giants like Ambani, Adani wants to lease/buy vast tracts of land (1000+ acres,) & grow single crops on them, on giant industrial scale for pure profit (profit seeking is not bad in general). As a largest populated country in world, +75% farmers do not own more than 10 acres, with around hslf of them own less than 5 acres. Every generation the land gets divided into 2-5 parts, one part per son (& sons in law in some cases). Modi government new three laws enable the corporation greed. Simple majority in a village can opt for leasing in the land to corporation. Other half has to agree. No farmer can go to any court, can just go to District Commissioner at most for any grievance/problems. Corporation can store as much grains, food as they want in new law. Current laws prohibit that to stop artificial increase in food prices. New laws allow corporation to set any market price of crops. Current laws make sure minimum support price. Imagine if there is no minimum wage law in US, Corporation like Walmart, Amazon will still be paying $11 to its workers? The protest is from Farmers (not only Jatts) in Delhi, supported by many others from Orisa, Tamil, Bihar, Bangal, MP, Maharashtra & others. Same laws were implemented in Bihaar in 2006 (by different party), & now Bihar is in complete grip of corporate farms. Note: I am not willing to comment or reply here. Replies (any side) is going to get ignored completely, because of too much energy requirement. One's opinion is going to stay, be in favor or against.

https://archive.is/rUq5v https://archive.is/rUq5v

I found this sentence a pithy summary of the whole article: "Jats own roughly three-fourths or four-fifths of all agricultural land in Haryana and eastern Punjab, respectively. Nearly all medium- and large-scale farmers in both states are reputed to belong to the Jat community. The farm protesters’ claim to have mobilized 200,000 tractors for their Republic Day rally on Jan. 26 confirms the prevalence of relatively large-scale farmers among the protesters, given that few Indian farmers own enough land to practice mechanized agriculture. Even today, the typical Indian farmer is still 10 times more likely to own a bullock than a tractor. " This is a protest by a community of 1-2 million rich farmers afraid that their monopolization of government supports will be questioned by the other 300-400 million poor farmers who subsist without state support on meager holdings.

strikelaserclaw 6y ago
That is why the whole celebrities supporting the farmer protests was perplexing to me. These protests seems to be a case of a minority of farmers in the Punjab and Haryana region wanting to keep special privileges not afforded to the vast majority of Indian farmers. The reforms as a whole seem to me at least to be beneficial to a majority of the farmers.
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  The celebrities don't care about the farmers or their causes. Celebrities (of all stripes, cultural, intellectual, economic) need to virtue signal. The need to virtue signal comes from establishing their virtuousness to justify their incredible privilege. This inherent fairness is built into our dna as an evolutionary mechanism. Combine this need to virtue signal with social media's vast reach and you get the spectre of celebrities as diverse as AOC, Mia Khalifa, Greta and Rihanna tweeting in support of farmers.

davchana 6y ago

Have not read the article, but the title is a total lie. Corporate giants like Ambani, Adani wants to lease/buy vast tracts of land (1000+ acres,) & grow single crops on them, on giant industrial scale for pure profit (profit seeking is not bad in general). As a largest populated country in world, +75% farmers do not own more than 10 acres, with around hslf of them own less than 5 acres. Every generation the land gets divided into 2-5 parts, one part per son (& sons in law in some cases). Modi government new three laws enable the corporation greed. Simple majority in a village can opt for leasing in the land to corporation. Other half has to agree. No farmer can go to any court, can just go to District Commissioner at most for any grievance/problems. Corporation can store as much grains, food as they want in new law. Current laws prohibit that to stop artificial increase in food prices. New laws allow corporation to set any market price of crops. Current laws make sure minimum support price. Imagine if there is no minimum wage law in US, Corporation like Walmart, Amazon will still be paying $11 to its workers? The protest is from Farmers (not only Jatts) in Delhi, supported by many others from Orisa, Tamil, Bihar, Bangal, MP, Maharashtra & others. Same laws were implemented in Bihaar in 2006 (by different party), & now Bihar is in complete grip of corporate farms. Note: I am not willing to comment or reply here. Replies (any side) is going to get ignored completely, because of too much energy requirement. One's opinion is going to stay, be in favor or against.