Is it not paradoxical that people always want change towards betterment in their lives but they don't want the change in their lives to come through reforms, be it social or economical?
Abolition of the practice of Sati in 1829 by Lord William Bentick, The Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1856, the abolition of untouchability in 1950 by the Constitution of independent India and The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 were major social reform measures that changed the Indian society in a big way, but these reforms faced stiff resistance when they were first mooted. Abolition of Sati was opposed by leaders like Radhakant Deb and Bhabani Charan Bandopadhyay.
Many scholars had then glorified Sati and the most prominent proponent of its abolition Raja Ram Mohan Roy faced social boycott. When reformers like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar had petitioned to the Legislative Council to enact a law in favour of widow remarriages, there were a large number of counter- petitions also filed against this act.
Opposition to reforms is not new. Reforms are always resisted by people because even as they aspire for qualitative change to their lives, there is also a love for status quo. Breaking away from the status quo is psychologically painful. Ditto is the case with economic reforms that have never been welcomed in India even by their intended beneficiaries. That is because, the ingrained beliefs of people, accumulated over years of accustomation to a particular kind of behaviour, don't go away so easily.
In the pre-liberalisation era, the department of telecom was marked by inefficiency, corruption and ineptitude. Telecom services were in a shambles and were inaccessible to common people. But, a slightly loose talk about privatisation of the discredited sector was followed by a great resentment. Such was the ferocity of the opposition that the sector had to be first corporatised before its privatisation. The sale of Government owned, but badly managed loss making airlines, the Air India has also met usual resistance. Agri-reforms are long overdue in India. The country can't be run by the laws made 60-70 years ago when the country faced food shortages.
The archaic system that was sought to be improved by three new agri laws had resulted in impoverishment and indebtedness of farmer. Rising cost of wage, seeds, fertilisers; monsoon vagaries, absence of markets and distress sale of farm produces have ruined agriculture in India. An MSP dependent system can't sustain the sector for long.
It is in order to boost agriculture and improve the lives of farmers by encouraging private investment in farming, offering markets beyond the State-controlled and corruption riddled APMCs and lifting the stocking limit of foodgrains except under emergencies that the three agri-laws were enacted. Quite expectedly, these three reforms were met with large protests. But quite strangely, the farmers' unions have asked for a total rollback of laws. In order to force the Central Government to repeal the laws, thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western UP have been laying siege to Delhi since November 26 last year.
Eleven rounds of talks, held between the Central Government and farmers have yeilded no result. The farmers have warned that anything less than total repeal of the laws won't be acceptable to them. They've rejected the request of the Government for a clause wise discussion on the controversial laws. Farmers' bodies all over the world are very powerful. They have now come to acquire enormous bargaining power and forced all democratic Governments to concede to their demands, some legitimate and many illegitimate, for subsidies and other special considerations. The agitating farmers don't represent all farmers of India.
There are also many other farmer groups in India that are against withdrawal of what they call as revolutionary laws. The Delhi blockade by the protesting farmers seems like a clever ploy to protect the vested interests of a few rich farmers. It has nothing do to with the distress of farmers.
The Centre has so far shown unwillingness to repeal the laws. The farmers have also not been able to identify the clauses that they hold as anti-farmer. Making the allegation that the farm laws were brought in to benefit the corporates is too vague and preposterous. It is in the interest of farming community that they must have a clause wise discussion of the farm laws with the Central Government and work towards removing the troubling clauses, if there are any. It is to be remembered always that excessive obduracy on the part of protesting persons shall only push the movement towards irrelevance.
(The writer is based at Talcher. Mob: 8895153953)