India farmer protests

      

                                                                            Barricades at Delhi border to stop Farmer's march

Farmer movements represent the failures of Modi regime in multiple ways. First is the obvious economic failures. India is a jobless economy where very few avenues of decent employment exists. Most of the labor force still relies on agrarian rural sector for livelihood. Since agrarian sector has very low productivity and wages, labor employed in this sector has dismal income and living standards. On top of that, the climate change disruptions (change in weather patterns, increasing frequency of erratic monsoons), lack of infrastructure (supply chain disruptions due to floods, lack of reliable irrigation systems etc) and backward farm practices (lack of modern technology) amplify the already dismal prospects of agriculture sector. Farm sector is the furnace that destroys India's workforce. 

The problem is, India has not developed/modernized other areas of economy which can provide employment to nearly 600 million of its labor force. Modi regime which promised manufacturing industry boom, failed to deliver as manufacturing as percent of total output remained flat in a decade. The labor has nowhere to go other than tilling fields & farms. And as this sector is a dead end for labor, the labor demand endless subsidies to lift their income. Since crop failures is on the rise which leads to default on farm sector loans, farmers demand unlimited farm loan waivers. Since there's wild fluctuation in crop prices & often crop prices get too depressed, the farmers demand exaggerated minimum support prices for their production. All these are unreasonable demands because all these things won't solve the broader problems of Agriculture sector and Indian economy overall. Indian economy needs a grand shift away from farm sector & towards other areas for better prospects. Manufacturing? Services? urbanization construction? Modern tech (Chips, Biotech etc)? That's a different topic of discussion. 

Note that world is already on the cusp of AI revolution by the end of this decade which will further shrink the existing avenues of employment. Meanwhile, India's economic vision & structure still lags by several decades compared to rest of the developed world. Present rulers of India have no grand vision for India. All they can do is peddle opium of religion to keep the masses tranquilized. India has already taken a giant leap backward by reforging its national identity in religion. India is the ONLY nation in the world in 21st century which has re-invented its national identity on religion. The scoundrel sociopathic politicians continue to peddle falsehoods about successes in economy, development & progress of country while injecting society with Ram Rajya narrative.

The farmers are ignorant plebians who demand unlimited subsidies to their dismal source of livelihood. Had the Govt really progressed & developed the economy and provided jobs to Indian labor force, there would be no farm protests. The labor force would have been happily employed in diverse areas of economy instead of marching on the streets. But nothing good happened in Indian economy in last decade. There is plenty of bad - Demonetization, failed & regressive GST tax system, massive corruption & crony capitalism, spree of failed policies (make in India, startup India, PPP etc etc). On top of that there's political instability, dismantling of institutions, widening cracks in co-operative federal structure of India, erosion of remaining liberal values and secular structure of India. 

There's nothing good that can come out from these clashes. Some leftists support the farmers as a popular movement against Modi's Fascism. It is not. Farmers demands in broader sense will do nothing to solve farm sector crisis. It will be kicking can down the road. Modi backers, as always, support the BJP regime which is trying to find compromise with farmers if they cannot neutralize the movement with force. This again won't solve the underlying crisis of mass unemployment and is kicking can down the road once again. Using of force, however, is not the best time at present given that general elections are just few months away.