Farmers protesting against the farm bills are supporting the continuity of colonial rule, says Economist Surjit Bhalla

Thousands of farmers have been protesting at Delhi border for two weeks, demanding a repeal of the three laws recently passed by the Centre.

Only a small fraction of farmers are protesting against the farm laws for the continuity of the colonial rule, as per noted Indian economist and current Executive Director of IMF, Surjit S Bhalla.

Writing in an opinion piece for The Indian Express, Bhalla said, "The Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) came into existence almost 150 years ago by the colonial regime masters to help export raw cotton for the mills in Manchester.

"The produce from those mills were then sold to the locals for heavy benefits. It was for this reason that the colonial masters established regulated markets thus compelling the poor farmers to sell their produce through the regulated markets. By supporting the farmers protesting against the farm bills, people are unawarely supporting the continuity of the colonial rule."

He went on to say that the farmers union and the political parties also identified the monopoly enjoyed by the APMCs. Interestingly, the Congress party in the manifesto of 2019 elections supported the rights of the farmers to sell produce to the corporates. A protest for the same was undertaken by Bharat Kisan Union in 2008.

"The repealment of this rule in 1991 by the government led to the Indian GDP doubling to an average of 6 percent for the next 30 years," he writes in the newspaper.

The new farm bills give the farmers the choice to either sell outside the APMC or through the regulated market as per their will, writes Bhalla.

The government acquires all of its food stock through the APMC but only 6 percent of the Indian farmers sell their produce through APMC and those 6 percent farmers constitute the rich farmers of Punjab and Haryana.

These very states account for about 60 percent of their wheat procurement and about a third of the rice procurement, says the write-up by Bhalla.

There are about 2 million farmers in Punjab and Haryana together and even a lesser number of those with land above 10 hectares. With over 100 million farmers in the country, the math suggests that only 0.2 percent of the farmers are protesting against the new farm bills as per the article.

Bhalla also writes that the output growth of wheat, rice and pulses is considerably lower in Punjab and Haryana when compared to the other states for the last 15 years.