Repeal of Farm Laws: “Regressive Decision:” Supreme Court Panel Member, SAD not Impressed

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Nov 19: Even as the BJP leaders hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to repeal the three contentious farm laws as a “most statesman like decision,” the

Supreme Court-appointed farm panel member Anil Ghanwat described it as a “regressive” decision and the opposition parties holding it as “nothing but an election stunt.”

The Shiromani Akali Dal of Punjab, which separated itself from the NDA on the issue and was expected to return to the fold after repeal of the three laws, however, was not impressed by the decision, which it said came “too late after taking the lives of over 700 agitating farmers.

While the BJP hoped that the decision would work like a magic and the farmers who were openly opposing the BJP over the three farm laws would whole-heartedly welcome the decision and support the party in the coming elections to five states, the opposition believe that the sufferings the farmers had to undergo since it started the blockade of Delhi’s approach roads on November 26, last year, and even before that would not go unpunished.

The opposition leaders maintained that the BJP would have to give a lot of explanation why it then described the enactment of the three farm laws as “historic” and defended every word in the acts as “beneficial to the farmers” and why after so many months found the acts to be detrimental to the interests of the farmers and agree to withdraw the same but only after causing immense hardships to the protesters.

The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, while reacting to Modi’s announcement said the blockade would continue and all agitational programmes remained unchanged till the BJP government on paper moved the motion to repeal the three laws in Parliament and the House carried these out. Tikait gave clear indication that the farmers have stopped having faith in the government and the BJP  and maintained that the government was “forced to bow” to the united might of the farmers and not because it had developed any love for the farming community.

If the farmers continued to show apathy towards the BJP because of the Modi government’s apparent erroneous decision to enact the farm laws and then repealing the same but only after making them to go through untold sufferings and sacrifices for the last two years or so, the repeal decision may not prove to be as beneficial to the ruling party as it was hoping to.

Apparently sensing the agitating farmers belligerent mood even after the government’s announcement to repeal the laws, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) decided against joining hands with its former partner in the NDA, the BJP. The SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal reacting to Modi’s announcement said his party would not have a second thought over the issue. “…700 farmers lost their lives. We tried to convince the Prime Minister in Parliament that the black laws which you enacted are not acceptable to the farmers. Whatever we said, that turned out to be true,” Badal said.

“No,” was the firm answer of the former Punjab deputy chief minister when asked if his party and the BJP, whose government at the Centre introduced the legislations in September last year, would reconcile. After the laws were passed, Badal’s wife, the then Union minister for food processing, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, resigned from her office. She was the only minister from the Punjab-based party in Modi’s Cabinet.

Days later, it also exited the BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), thus severing its ties with a party with which it first joined hands in 1996. The SAD was the oldest ally of the BJP.

For the upcoming Punjab assembly elections, which are likely to take place in early 2022, the Akali Dal has entered into an alliance with the Mayawati-headed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BJP, which is facing massive protests on ground in the northern state due to the agricultural laws, is likely to join hands with Captain Amarinder Singh, who resigned as the border state’s chief minister in September, and left the ruling Congress earlier this month, announcing his own political outfit in the process.

In the previous assembly polls, held in February 2017, the Congress returned to power by bagging 77 seats in the 117-member legislative assembly. The SAD-BJP combine, which was in power at the time, won only 18 seats, down from its tally of 68 in 2012.

“This is the most regressive step by the Prime Minister as he chose politics over farmers’ betterment,” the apex court panel member Ghanwat said. He believed that the government should have considered the measures recommended by the panel to plug the loopholes in the acts for the benefit of the farmers instead of taking a political decision to repeal the acts for the sake of votes in the coming state Assembly elections.

“Our panel had submitted several corrections and solutions over the three farm laws, but instead of using it to solve the impasse, Modi and BJP chose to backtrack. They just want to win elections and nothing else,” Ghanwat said.

Ghanwat, president of Shetkari Sanghatna, said, “Despite submission of our recommendations to the Supreme Court, it now seems that this government has not even read it. The decision to repel the farm laws is purely political, with an aim to win the Uttar Pradesh and Punjab elections in the coming months.” He said the decision to repeal the farm laws has “now closed the doors of all types of reforms in agriculture and its marketing sector.”

“The farmers’ interest has been sacrificed over the party’s (BJP) political interest,” he claimed. While he was Union Agriculture Minister, NCP chief Sharad Pawar too had pushed for similar reforms, but for political reasons, he too opposed these laws later, Ghanwat said. “As a farmers’ organisation, we will continue to sensitise people on this issue,” he added.

Repealing the farm laws was second biggest face loss for the Modi government after it was forced to withdraw the amendments to the land acquisition act in 2015 but the reason then was different. During its previous term, the Modi government had withdrawn a contentious ordinance, which was brought to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act, 2013­­. The ruling party was not having a clear majority in the Rajya Sabha which blocked the bill replacing the ordinance twice forcing the government to withdraw it. But in the case of the repeal of the three farm laws, the BJP will have to do a lot of explaining why it needed such a long time to accept the wishes of the agitating farmers.

The journey of the three farm laws began on June 5, 2020, when the President of India promulgated three ordinances­ – The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020; The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020; and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020. The ordinances were replaced by three acts- The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 after these were passed by Parliament in September 2020. The implementation of these laws, however, was stayed by the Supreme Court on January 12, 2021. So, these laws were in effect for only 221 days.

While no official reason has been cited by the prime minister for the government’s decision to repeal the laws, the decision comes just ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament that is scheduled to commence on November 29. In the last session of Parliament, the opposition attacked the government strongly over the laws, and it led to acrimony and impacted the functioning of the Houses.

Also, the Prime Minister has made his announcement before the announcement of crucial Assembly elections in five states — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Goa. The BJP’s performance in the civic polls in Punjab earlier this year, and in Assembly byelections in Haryana were dismal.

After being forced to take back these laws that it loudly, vehemently, and repeatedly proclaimed as “historic”, the government will doubtless have to walk the path of reform very cautiously. The Modi government’s image among his staunch supporters as of “resolute strength and invincibility” may also take a beating from the repeal decision.