KCR’s Mega U-turn on Farm Laws

The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:

The new farm laws are equivalent to honey coated knife, thundered Telangana CM KCR. “Farmers, not terrorists” roared his son KTR during the Bharat Bandh protests in which no farmers but only the TRS cadre enthusiastically participated. What was the link to terrorists and farmers is a mystery that only KTR can solve!

Infact in October, KCR was adamant that the new farm laws should not be implemented and even announced that his government will go to the doorstep of the farmer and buy the produce directly from them. KCR’s usage of acerbic language such as “honey coated swords” didn’t find many takers from the farming segment. It did find many takers in the pliant media though!

Now, in December 2020, three months after resorting to acerbic criticism and the charade of Bharat Bandh, KCR did a mega U-Turn! Infact, many are sarcastically commenting that this U-turn is bigger than all the U-turns that exists on the roads of Telangana! In a series of tweets released yesterday by the Telangana CM’s office, we are now told that the government is “not a business entity”. It is “not government’s responsibility to buy and sell”. Keeping the hardship of COVID in mind, the government had decided to setup collection centers in the villages itself but this isn’t a viable option going forward.

The tweet thread also told us that the government has incurred a total loss of nearly INR 7500 crores because the government purchased crops at MSP and sold at lower rates. And then we are told that the farmer now has the freedom to sell anywhere he/she wants! We are told that the new central government laws have anyway enabled this option and therefore there is no point in the government continuing to go to their homes and purchasing the same.

KCR also runs a scheme called “Rythu Bandhu” – a scheme that transfers “INR 4,000/- per acre per farmer each season for purchase of inputs”. That totals to 8000 per year per acre per farmer. For this season, KCR was insistent that this scheme will be applicable to only those farmers who produce the crops that the government tells them to produce! This led to a massive uproar in the state but KCR didn’t budge at that point of time.

In yesterday’s tweet thread, we were also told that the government will now not tell the farmers what crop to produce in order to get benefits. The farmers now have the freedom to produce what they wish to and sell them to whomsoever they wish to! And this is the essence of the 3 farm bills that the Narendra Modi government is already implementing since June. KCR’s acerbic and meaningless outbursts only led to him agreeing that the new farm laws are the way forward for the farming community.

The tweet thread also suggested guidelines to the farmers to streamline how they sell their produce. Various committees at various levels will help achieve this streamlining process. While the BJP will of course see this as a political victory for them, the end goal of having farmers benefit from this choice has been achieved in Telangana.

Every single critic of the farm laws out there has at one point of time or the other suggested the exact reforms that the Modi government has now dared to implement. That the protests are limited to farmers from Punjab and are not prevalent anywhere else in the country is testimony to the basic character of these laws. It looks like the Modi government has scored yet another winner through these farm laws.