by Just over two years after arming Prime Minister Narendra Modi into an extraordinary U-turn, India’s protesting farmers are back on the streets—and this time the stakes are higher.
For about two weeks now, thousands of angry farmers have gathered at the borders of India’s capital to demand higher fixed prices for their crops, just weeks before a national election expected to give Modi a rare third term in power.
So far a heavy security presence has prevented farmers from marching on New Delhi and violent clashes have followed police firing gas and water cannons. Tensions rose again last week after the death of a protester near the Punjab border, according to the state’s prime minister, who ordered an investigation into the situation.
The scene is reminiscent of 2021, when Modi, in a rare break from his uncompromising leadership style, revoked controversial laws aimed at modernizing the agricultural sector after more than a year of mass farmer protests.
Modi promised a “fresh start,” agreeing to meet farmers’ demands and work with them to move forward.
But the farmers say that those promises were broken, and this time, they will not return home until their demands are met.
The confrontation, analysts say, has raised concerns in the highest echelons of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is wary of alienating farmers – one of the country’s most influential voting blocs – ahead of the May election.
With the BJP facing a fractured opposition that is yet to present a clear candidate for prime minister, farmers have emerged as the strongest threat to the ruling party, some analysts say.
And if protests grow closer to the scale seen in 2021, it could become a bigger issue for Modi.
“Right now, it looks like there is only one opposition – the farmers,” said economist Devinder Sharma. “Politics is unpredictable, but it is very important for the unions and the government to find a solution.”
Same demands
Sangha Gurpreet remembers the day he abandoned his field for a protest site in November 2020, watching as it grew in size the next year.
“I was part of that struggle for 13 months,” the activist and farmer said of the historic protests that rocked Indian society and sparked a nationwide debate about the country’s agricultural workers.
The protests began after the BJP introduced three new laws that it argued would fix a system that had problems.
The farm laws were intended to loosen the rules surrounding the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce that had protected farmers from an unfettered free market for years. But farmers said market forces could push prices even lower, and smaller farmers would find it difficult to negotiate favorable deals with corporate giants.
Gurpreet was among hundreds of thousands of farmers from northern Indian states – Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh – who demanded the laws be repealed. They stayed on the streets through harsh winters, scorching summers and a global pandemic until Modi finally backed down and promised to work with them to reach an agreement.
It was a huge victory for the farmers, who pushed the Indian leader into a meager and uncharacteristic contraction.
And Gurpreet says they are happy to do it again.
“This is not about new claims. These have been given to the government and have already been agreed in writing, promised in their election manifesto, or announced in public speeches,” he said. “There was nothing left for us to do but hit the roads and ask the government to give us what we want.”
CNN has reached out to the BJP for comment but is yet to receive a response.
Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda, who has been holding talks with protest leaders, previously told reporters that the government believes a “peaceful” solution will be reached soon.
Farmers’ gambling
Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for about 55% of India’s 1.4 billion citizens, according to the Brand Equity Foundation of India, a trust set up by the country’s Commerce Department to promote Indian products and services.
Only China produces more rice, wheat, cotton, groundnuts, fruits and vegetables than India. Only Brazil produces more sugar cane.
But farming families made an average income of 10,218 rupees ($137) a month in 2018-19, according to the latest government statistics — 316 rupees below the country’s average salary that year.
Farmers are demanding a higher and guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for all the crops they grow, in order to gain more financial stability and control over their income.
Sharma, the economist, says guaranteed MSP is needed to protect farmers from price fluctuations, adding that most agricultural laborers do not cultivate enough land to make a profit, leaving impaired debt.
The severe poverty and indebtedness of many of India’s farmers has forced some of them to take extreme measures. In 2022, more than 11,000 people in the agricultural sector took their own lives, according to government data.
“About 86% of Indian farmers depend on the markets. If the markets were that good, I don’t see any reason why farmers would be protesting every now and then,” said Sharma. “It is very tragic that the people who feed the country have to sleep with hungry stomachs themselves.”
BJP’s ‘concerns’
Modi needs to be careful to ensure that the farmers are satisfied, analysts say, as he prepares to go to the polls in a few weeks.
The prime minister’s reversal of the farming laws in 2021 “surprised everyone,” said Arati Jerath, a political commentator based in New Delhi, and proved that the farmers can stand up to the government.
“It was actually a big moment for the BJP,” she said.
During his ten years in power, Modi has established himself as a leader capable of taking strong decisions, impervious to criticism.
For example, he stood by his decision to ban most of India’s paper money in 2016, after deeming certain banknotes to be “worthless pieces of paper”.
Three years later, he faced protests after introducing the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which promised to accelerate Indian citizenship for all religious faiths from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, except the Islam.
In recent January, he commissioned a Hindu temple built on the ruins of a destroyed mosque in a move that polarized opinion in the country.
But as farm protests spread across states in 2021, Jerath said Modi had no choice but to back down.
“Farmers are a big constituency in India, and I don’t think any political party can afford to have debates,” she said.
This time, the Modi government is engaging with the farmers’ unions much more quickly, and they have already held multiple talks in an attempt to reach an agreement to end the protests.
But there are signs of distress within the BJP. The roads to New Delhi are heavily guarded by security personnel to prevent farmers from entering the capital, and farmers’ unions have accused the police of being heavy-handed with the protesters, charges they deny.
Meanwhile the government ordered X, formerly Twitter, to block the social media handles of dozens of farmers, including Gurpreet.
“The government of India has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and positions, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment,” X said in a statement.
Jerath said that while the protests have not yet escalated to 2021 levels, there is “concern” within the BJP about what could happen next.
“At the moment, the farmers may not have an impact on the outcome of the election,” she said.
But the government “will not want these protests to spread,” she said. “It’s really a war of nerves going on between the farmers and the government.”
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