 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Prof. Prabhat Patnaik and we are going to discuss the three agricultural bills which have really shaken up the Indian farmers who are out on the streets protesting as well as the opposition parties. In fact, opposition parties did want to register their opposition in parliament itself where they could not press it to a division because the government essentially prevented a vote in the upper house of the parliament in the Rajya Sabha. Prabhat, two things are very surprising. One is of course the fact that they thought about this bills itself. But the second is also the way they have passed it. But let's discuss first what is the significance of these three agricultural bills that they have passed, particularly the first two, which really tries to hand over by what you have written also the farmers to essentially be capital. Yes, that has two very important implications. One is, as you said, the handing over of the farmers to be capital. With the state not playing a role where it can actually come to the aid of the farmers. Because if you think of the Mondays where earlier the farmers used to sell their produce, they were commission agents which would make sure the farmers were not cheated. The prices at which they sold the produce would be recorded. If those prices were below the prices announced by the government, then there was a mechanism whereby the farmers would actually get their rights, get their dues. Now, if you take trade out of this money, then effectively you are really on to a system of contract farming that basically anybody can get to the farmers and ask them to sell commodities to them at contract prices. And whether the contract prices are being adhered to, whether the contract prices give the farmers a certain basic minimum rate of return or anything of that kind is something which is not monitored by any agents. Therefore, effectively, instead of the state playing a role of defending the farmers' interests, you now have the state withdrawing and you're leaving farmers in the mercy of big capital. This is the second aspect of it which is often not sufficiently recognized. Not only would the farmers be cheated, but in the process, as far as the cropping pattern is concerned, that goes completely out of the hands of the government. Now, for a very long time, and once capitalist countries have been telling third world countries that you stop growing food grains or you divert land from food grains to various cash drops, export crops, etc. Which we need. And as far as food grains are concerned, we are going to sell food grains to them. Now this is something which India had got into earlier, PL480 and the Green Revolution, no matter what you think about the Green Revolution's technical implications, certainly implied that the country will no longer import food. Now you'll have a situation where it's import dependent for food. And that's a very important demand of advanced capitalist countries and that is something which actually makes the country extremely vulnerable to pressures from the advanced. So the two things here, one is the fact that once the Mondays that essentially were regulated, that's what it really was. And the MSP became a floor price, even though it is true that the farmers did sell a lot of their products outside the Mondays. But nevertheless, there was a basically a floor which was decided by the minimum support price. Now, if it is through contracts and apparently those contracts are provisions for adjudication, etc, which a small peasant is not a small farmer is not going to be able to exercise. So effectively the MSP will not be either effective or it may not also exist over a period of time, even if the government is saying no, we will keep the MSP. That this bill, if it was honest in saying that we are going to be still wanting an MSP to be given to the farmers, could actually introduce this clause saying that all prices have to be at the MSP or above and not below it. So that is also that assurance has not come even after the protest and the fact that some of the allies have even walked out of the oldest ally of BJP, Shiroman Yatali, has walked out of the alliance. Yes. That is one thing. That is actually the farmers being left to the mercy of the market exactly as they were in the colonial times. Because colonial times agricultural trade was essentially through a contract system, the Dadaun system and you know Indigo was under that system. Indigo and OPM. Indigo and OPM. Now what you have is that in addition, see if land is a scarce input, which it is in countries like ours, in that case, there must be social control over land use. Now, what the earlier system really ensured is some degree of social control over land use. For a start, land could not be that easily shifted from food grain production to export from production. As a matter of fact, this has happened in virtually every other third world country and many of the African families in the recent years are really traceable to the fact that Africa lost itself sufficiently in food grain production. They started growing export crops and of course importing food grains and of course that basically meant that in years in which the export crop prices crashed, they had no money to buy food grains. So a lot of the African families were really traceable to this fact that land use shifted towards export. Now that's exactly what is going to happen now because if you have multinational corporations, agribusiness coming in, they are not going to be contracting farmers to grow food grains. They will contract farmers to grow flowers, fruits and so on, which at the time may well be fetching high prices. The highly fluctuating commodity, their prices fluctuated enormously and therefore there may be years in which the farmers actually have to starve because of the fact that they just don't have enough to buy food grains with. The country wouldn't have enough for an exchange to buy food grains and so on. Therefore, abandoning self-sufficiency in food grains is really a disastrous policy and that would come if you get rid of social control of land use, which is basically what we see. You know it's an interesting point that you also brought up earlier that the PL480 issue that this also leaves you open to pressures of imperial powers, Neocolonial policies and that's what the 60s for the famous ship to mouth argument that because wheat exports are coming from the US that they could arm twist India and I still remember the Kashmir issue for instance. They said settle Kashmir on the terms that we are telling you otherwise PL480 may not be forthcoming. So effectively that was what led to what you talked about with the Green Revolution policies and Mrs Gandhi then deciding that India had to subsidize agriculture. That's when we start talking about the inputs being subsidized in some form electricity fertilizers and all of that so that we'll get self-sufficiency and therefore the dependence on others for food would go. Otherwise it was a political opening of India to imperial pressures. And you know the entire arrangement which the Modi government is dismantling today's all these bills was actually put in place around that time and minimum support prices procurement prices the system of procurement the system of statutory rationing the dual market in food ring that they are certain that everybody gets a certain amount at the issue price. Then if you want more than that you would go back and say everything every single one of these apart from the ones you mentioned about subsidies and so on was really put in place around that time. Of course refine improve subsequently but it came into place at that time and no government till now not withstanding enormous imperialist pressure has been able to dismantle it because and that's the sticking point in the Doha round of negotiation because they say that of course you are buying all this your procurement operations are really against the free market principles and therefore you should wind them up. And the government of India has said nothing doing till now effectively the Modi government is preparing the ground to wind up the procurement operation. It's also interesting that the Doha round of course this was a sticking point WTO at the moment is defunct virtually because Trump has not sanctioned any new appointments for the tribunal. So that dispute settlement tribunal which is the body which finally indicates all the differences as only I think one member left. So effectively they are not interested in WTO anymore. But we seem to be internally moving to hand over Indian farmer to foreign capital as well as Indian capital in this case also Indian capital but interestingly it is a part of the philosophical outlook of this government. That it is not it is not that somebody is telling them to do it. They actually are wanting to do it themselves. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And it seemed to indicate that their their belief is that capital as Modi claims capitalist or wealth. What is it? This is a part of their philosophy. They believe that wealth creation will be done by capital and they will help farming farmers and agriculture more than the government support would this an ideological belief. Yes, exactly. In fact, I don't think you know, I mean, while I have ideological differences with the Congress and with other early other earlier governments. I don't think any government in India has been as innocent of economics as this particular government has been. I mean, this is very clear when you look at demonetization is very clear. Not only in the introduction of GSP, but actually in the celebration of it by having a function in the central hall of parliament. I mean, they they just they simply don't understand economics and this is something which is clear, even in the fact that during the biggest lockdown during this pandemic, not really a pass was made available to the people at large by way of substance which even by way of income transfer, which even Trump in America did. So it is really quite it is not only the right wing, but I think it's right wing with very little knowledge of economics ideological. That's I think an important point that people don't understand that we have a government which seems to understand accounts but not economics. If you if you see this an accountant's view of the economy, but it is not an understanding that the boy cut off principle doesn't operate, because you have something which can print money for instance, different from that of how any other accountancy principle operates. So that seems to be the really a tremendous vacuum in their understanding of what you call the economy. Yes, and and and their reluctance to listen to any economist, even economists whose views may be quite different from mine. But in fact, the amazing situation now is that there is almost a unanimity among all economies, no matter what their ideological position ideology enters in different places, no matter what the ideological positions economists in the moment are agreed that the government must increase expenditure and financing through a fiscal deficit. If the economy is not going to get into a very serious problem. On the other hand, government doesn't even listen to economists. And because they believe that they know everything. And that's why, and exactly the same is true in the case of the agriculture bills. I mean, the Shiromani Akalidal, not only was their oldest ally, the Shiromani Akalidal is a farmer's organization effectively because their support base is with the farmers and you cannot tell them that this is a pro farmer bill because they know more than you what is good for the farmers and what is not good for the farmers. You know, and also at a time when there has been a huge hit of people returning from the urban areas into rural areas, the reverse migration that has already taken place. The fact the economy is not bouncing back. There is no so no so called V V shaped recovery taking place. The pandemic still has its effect. At least consumption is not increasing. So in the context of huge numbers now we're not dependent more on agriculture than before. At this point to knock a central crop out of the farming economy. This must rank with demonetization and the various other measures as one of the more foolish measures the government can do. Yes, absolutely. In fact, you know, there is a, there's an interesting point about this farmer's agitation that is an agitation that has drawn in not only the large sections of the peasantry, but also agricultural laborers. Now, it is very rarely that in India in the old days, you actually had this kind of a united resistance of peasants and agricultural laborers because of this. But this time, for the entire sector is under a threat. You actually have a cultural laborers joining in all this Rasta Roko and various other agitations. So interesting times because we seem to see this government really take steps against large sections in different ways against the people. But at the same time in a crisis of this proportion which we are in the measure seems to be opposite to what the time seemed called for. And this is something which is inexplicable at not only to economists, of course, most people may not understand the economy, but to common sense. Exactly. Thank you for being with us and I hope that you will be with us in more of this kind of discussions to explain to most people who do not understand economics. What is the direction this government is taking and what are the kind of measures that we really need to have. This is all the time we have for Newsclick today. Do keep watching Newsclick and do visit our website.