Why are Farmers Protesting?
Everything that the Government does these days is hailed as ‘historic’. But will the ‘historic’ farm reforms turn into historic blunders like the earlier Demonetisation, GST, and the lockdown? The distrust for the Government is such that farmers are unwilling to accept the Prime minister’s assurances at face value. The Prime Minister has claimed that the opposition have been misleading the nation on farm bills; that his heart bleeds for farmers and his Government will never do away with the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime. The fact is that the three ordinances, now approved by Parliament without much scrutiny, do not make any mention of doing away with the MSP or procurement of foodgrains by the Government. But farmers, still waiting to see their income double by 2022 as promised by the BJP and Narendra Modi in 2014, are demanding MSP to be made into a legal right. It is fine for the PM to say that farmers are now free to sell their produce anywhere and at whatever price they like t...