Government And Farm Bodies Must Now Together Bring In Reforms
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-11-19 07:37:35
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
The decision of the government to initiate the process to repeal all three new farm laws is welcome for two reasons. The first is the manner in which the laws were rushed through and the second is the long stand-off with no breakthrough in sight, despite the intervention of the Supreme Court. With Prime Minister Modi signaling the government's intent to repeal the laws, the stalemate will hopefully end. The Prime Minister has indicated that the government will now hold wide consultations with states, farmers' bodies and experts before drafting new laws to reform the agriculture sector. Hence, farm unions should shed past animosity and misgivings and come forward to help the government.
No one should see this decision of the government as a victory or defeat. Instead, the government should learn the lesson that however good the intent be and however good the laws be, it does not pay to ignore stakeholders and a wide range of expert opinion while drafting the laws and bamboozling it through parliament without discussion, ideally by referring it to a select committee for proper vetting. Brute majority does not entitle the government to impose its views or agenda on the nation and all laws should be passed in parliament following the tradition of discussion and debate where the opposition is allowed to record its objections to contentious sections of the law.
No one denies that the agriculture sector needs to be reformed. No one (except vested interests) also denies that middlemen who deprive farmers their rightful dues and who have formed a cartel, with political patronage, to fleece them, need to be eliminated and farmers should have access to more avenues to sell their produce. But the reforms and the opening up of the market need to be discussed widely and the stakeholders must come on board for implementation. The farm unions will never agree to any law if they do not approve of it.
This was the main fight in the agitation against the new law. The farm unions resented the manner in which the laws were imposed upon them. That is why they adopted the inflexible attitude of not even discussing them clause-by-clause to eliminate or amend contentious clauses and wanted the government to repeal them in totality. All said and done, since the government has now met their demand in full, the farm unions must reciprocate and participate in the process of drafting new laws to usher in much-needed reforms in the farm sector.
