Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week,...
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The Big Story: ‘Conglomerate capitalism’
For most of the last few months, Delhi has managed to ignore the large-scale agitation happening next door in Punjab. Sure, there was the headache of figuring out how to send coal supplies and military equipment to the armed forces at the border because the agitation had resulted in a halt in rail traffic in the state. But by and large, the farmer protests were treated as a sideshow – with top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders turning their focus instead to a municipal election in Hyderabad.
The farmers were up in arms because of three laws passed in chaotic fashion by Parliament in September, which we wrote about at the time. The laws, which broadly make it possible for farmers to sell their produce outside of government-run mandis and create the conditions for contract farming, were hailed as the “1991 moment” for Indian agriculture.
But the very people whom the laws were supposed to “liberate” did...
