Agrarian crisis: A wake up call

• The Modi government needs to move beyond empty rhetoric and gimmicks to clear policy formulation and implementation to solve the agrarian crisis, which has been brewing for years now. 
• The timing of the current, almost nationwide, farmer agitation that is strikingly unique. It has erupted in a year when the farm sector seems to have achieved all the cherished objectives: an above 5% growth rate and record production not only in food grains but also in fruits, vegetables and dairy products. The Union government has claimed successful implementation of various schemes for the agriculture sector.
• The fact of the matter is that beyond all these seemingly positive factors, there is grave economic distress in the rural areas in general and in the farming community in particular. It is a crisis that marked the advent of economic policies of liberalisation in the farm sector and has persisted right from the early 1990s.
• The two principal demands of the agitating farmers, loan waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations, which provide for a 50% profit margin on input cost—not only summarise this grave economic distress in rural areas but also point to the probable solution of the problems.
• The BJP’s election manifesto in 2014 said that once in power, the party “will take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production, cheaper agriculture inputs and credit; introducing latest technologies for farming and high yielding seeds and linking MGNREGA to agriculture”. 
• The loan waiver concept was addressed by Modi himself at various meetings during the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh. Evidently, both the issues that form the root cause of the current farmer agitation were in the radar of the BJP for a considerable period of time.
• The schemes devised on the basis of one’s understanding need to generate a sense of benefit in the targeted sections of the population. Various schemes announced, sought to be implemented, and celebrated as great success by the Modi government as part of its third anniversary celebrations will highlight this mismatch. 

1. Crop insurance: At its core, it has nothing to do with increasing farmers’ income but is just a risk coverage for which farmers are paying a premium. The real beneficiary is the government since the risk of paying compensation has now shifted from the treasury to the insurance companies. The loser is the farmer since he or she has to first cough up a premium in order to be eligible for insurance. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY): crop insurance is compulsory for farmers availing themselves of loans and voluntary for non-loanee farmers. A farmer has to pay 2-5% of the premium fixed by the insurance company. The remaining amount of the premium is subsidised by both the Centre and the States under a 50:50 plan. There is no cap on the maximum amount that insurance companies can quote as premium. If any State is unable to mobilise resources as dictated by the insurance companies, the scheme will come to a standstill.
2. Statistics jugglery: The government has also been trying to mislead people with statistics jugglery. It claimed that the total number of farmers covered under the scheme for the kharif season alone between 2014 and 2017 was 56.52% more than the number covered between 2011 and 2014. Whereas the scheme was implemented only from 2016. The efficacy of the much-advertised insurance scheme can be inferred from the reply in the Rajya Sabha on April 7 that out of payable claims of Rs.3,47,413 lakh, only Rs.69,802 lakh had been paid under the PMFBY and under the Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS), out of payable claims of Rs.79,599 lakh, only Rs.1,570 lakh had been paid since kharif 2016.
3. National Agricultural Market (eNAM): The government claims that more than 400 mandis (markets) have been linked to the portal. The target is to connect 585 mandis with eNAM by March 31, 2018. The objective is to allow farmers the freedom to sell their crops. The government claims that as of May 15, 83.57 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce worth Rs.19,802.98 crore had been transacted through eNAM. While the figures look impressive the reality is that farmers are yet to be allowed to sell at a different mandi, not even in a neighbouring one, through eNAM. The reason is resistance by commission agents as well as lack of proper infrastructure. Who will guarantee that the produce sold by farmers adhere to basic standards if the trader who wants to buy is located 100 kilometres away? What is happening now is that the data of business transacted in a mandi are just being uploaded on the eNAM site, showing it as having taken place through the portal. The government mooted an idea of not allowing sale of produce priced below the minimum support price (MSP) in eNAM was dropped in the wake of opposition which cited it as interference in free market economy. Like MP Govt, Centre could have announced trading below MSP a crime, but administrative backup was missing.
4. Soil Health Card: This has found prominence in terms of the Modi government’s agriculture initiatives. This scheme, launched in a hurry is akin to employing quacks in every village to attend to the medical and health needs of the people without any arrangement for medicines. This long-term project will start producing results after 20 years if implemented seriously and effectively. The government did not have the equipment to test soil conditions on such a huge scale. Nor were trained technicians available. Moreover, farmers do not know what to do after getting the soil health card. Where do they buy the “medicines” to treat the soil? Who will spend the money? Is there a guarantee from the government that their produce will increase? Unless and until these basic questions are addressed, the soil health card scheme will be an utter failure. Gujarat had apparently achieved 100% coverage under the scheme when Modi was the Chief Minister, but did it make any positive impact on the farm economy? The scheme is hardly a novel idea but a continuation of the “apni mitti pahchano” (identify your soil) scheme set in motion by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
5. Neem-coated urea: Another much-advertised scheme is the use of neem-coated urea, which is, again, a continuation of a UPA scheme, and it has nothing to do with productivity at the farm level. It only checks the industrial use and smuggling of urea. 
6. Price stabilisation fund: The government initiated the Price stabilisation fund in the 2014-15. Budget to protect farmers from market volatility, but the allocation of just Rs.500 crore showed a lack of seriousness and understanding of the problem.

• The contradictions in agriculture policy formulation are stark and visible. On the one hand, the government has been talking about “doubling farm income by 2022” through integrated farming. It has also identified allied activities to be covered under integrated farming, which include poultry, animal husbandry, fisheries and beekeeping, etc. India has been the world’s largest exporter of buffalo meat over the past four years. The ban on slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh, the largest exporter-State and then the ban on selling cattle at cattle markets for the purpose of slaughter, and cow vigilantes have made inter-State movement of cows and buffalos literally impossible. On the same basis, the government also discontinued the successful “Kamdhenu scheme” of the previous Samajwadi Party government that had made Uttar Pradesh the top milk producer in the country. Selling unproductive cattle for slaughter is an integral part of dairy farming, which makes it commercially viable. These stringent rules will render dairy farming uneconomical and unsustainable. How can a farmer survive if he or she is asked to rear unproductive cattle and is not allowed to sell them? The impact is visible now in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh where unproductive animals are destroying crops, and the farmer feels helpless. Poultry farming and dairy have not been considered agricultural activities and have been brought under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax.
• The export-import policies in agriculture trade are working against the interest of farmers. The imposition of a minimum export price to protect the interests of consumers has resulted in a skewed policy paralysis against farmers’ interests. Thankfully, there has been no export ban on any agricultural commodity during the three years of the NDA government. But, at the same time, there have been no concerted efforts to boost it further and this has resulted in negative growth in export of farm commodities.
• The problems in the farm sector are complex, but the solution is simple, and that is bringing about parity of agriculture produce with industrial products and services, the farmer with the economic worker, and farming with other enterprises. 
• The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) had rightly identified the problem as follows: “Price shocks have become frequent. The pressure to meet family expenditure, to meet the necessities of modern life, has been forcing farmers to embrace risky ventures by using borrowed funds. Risks unleashed by market forces and price crash in many cases are leading to agrarian distress and sad situations like farmers’ suicides.” The panel had presented recommendations as well, and like other reports on agriculture, failed to attract the current government’s attention.
• The current nationwide farmers’ agitation after a year of record production and 5.2% growth is a wake-up call for politicians and policymakers to initiate a structural reform so as to provide a “minimum income guarantee” to farmers, like the MGNREGA does with labourers. 
• A loan waiver is only be a temporary measure but necessary to correct past imbalances. But the future needs remunerative and deficiency pricing. Modi government needs to move in on the agricultural sector, as in other areas of governance, beyond empty rhetoric towards clear policy formulations and implementation. Cosmetic rechristening and restructuring of programmes of old governments will not help in this suggested policy course correction. The current situation and its political ramifications also ring a warning bell for the BJP as far as the 2019 general elections are concerned. Among landowners and farmers in agricultural areas, more than 50% had voted for the NDA in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. 

A country can't prosper at the expense its farmers.

My View:

Modi never has any intention of walking the talking. His policy is to promise and forget. He thinks fudging of data, high decibel publicity and rhetoric will work always. Sadly "One can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but one can not fool all of the people all of the times". His doing nothing during three years for farmers is not an accident but intentional. He has no idea about agriculture, problems and aspirations. With opposition in total disarray and ineffective it is only farmers who can bring high flying Modi on to ground.

Farmers woes: Relevance of Swaminathan Commission Report

National Commission on Farmers (NCF)’s Swaminathan Commission Report is aimed at working out a system for food and nutrition security, sustainability in farming system, enhancing quality and cost competitiveness of farm commodities and also to recommend measures for credit and other marketing related steps. 

• The government of India constituted the NCF on November 18, 2004. The NCF was chaired by Professor M.S. Swaminathan. It submitted its fifth and final report on October 4, 2006. 
• The reports had suggestions for “faster and more inclusive growth” for farmers and agriculture sector .
• M.S. Swaminathan had requested the government to implement the recommendations given in the report so that it could provide minimum support price for grains, safeguard the interest of small farmers and addressing the issue of increasing risk overtaking agriculture as a profession.
• The Commission observed that farmers needed to have an assured access to and control over rightful basic resources that includes land, water, bio resources, credit and insurance, technology and knowledge management, and markets.
• Agriculture must be implemented in the concurrent list from the state list — hence putting it as a matter of concern for both the Union and the states.
• The commission said that the inequality in landholdings in shown starkly in land ownership. It said that in 1991-92, the share of the bottom 50 per cent of the rural households in the country’s total land ownership was only 3%. The top 10% owned as much as 54% of land.  
• One of the key reforms was land reforms. It was aimed to address the issue of access to and for both crops and livestock.
• Land Reforms: Distribution of ceiling-surplus and waste lands; prevention of diversion of prime agricultural land and forest to corporate sector for non-agricultural use; to ensure grazing rights are provided and seasonal access is allowed in forests to tribals and pastoralists. It recommended access to common property resources. One main case was establishing a National Land Use Advisory Service. The purpose of this service would be to connect land usage decisions with ecological meteorological and marketing factors.
• Irrigation Reforms: It recommended framing a set of reforms to provide farmers with sustained and equitable access to water for irrigation. Ensuring boost in water supply by rainwater harvesting, water level recharging by mandatory aquifers; Million Wells Recharge programme to be initiated targeted at private wells. To target increase in investment in irrigation sector under 11th five year plan.
• Productivity Growth: NCF said that with the objective of achieving higher productivity growth, it recommended substantial increase in public investment in agriculture-related infrastructure particularly in irrigation, drainage, land development, water conservation, research development and road connectivity etc. It also recommended a national network of advanced soil testing labs with an aim to test areas for apt micronutrient levels.
• Credit and Insurance: Expand outreach of formal credit system; reduce crop loan interest rates to 4%; provide moratorium on debt recovery; agricultural risk fund; kisan credit cards for women farmers; integrated credit-cum-crop-livestock human health insurance package; crop insurance across country for all crops with reduced premiums; sustainable livelihoods for the poor, investment in human development; institutional development services etc.
• Food Security: The commission recommended implementation of a universal public distribution system; reorganising delivery of nutrition support programmes on a life-cycle basis with panchayat participation and that of local bodies; elimination of micronutrient deficiency induced hunger and food cum fortification; community food and water banks to be operated by women self-help groups; help small and marginal farmers; formulate national food guarantee act with features as food for work and employment guarantee programmes.
• Prevention of Farmer Suicides: Providing affordable health insurance at primary healthcare centres in villages; national rural health mission to be extended to suicide hotspots on priority basis; state level farmers’ commissions with representatives of farmers, restructuring of micro finance policies that may serve as a sort of livelihood finance; covering all crops by crop insurance; village to be the assessor and not the block, social security net that gives old age support with health insurance and aquifer recharge and rain water conservation; plans for decentralised water usage etc.

The first right on all resources rests with poor, peasants & workers.

My View:
Even today, agriculture employs over 1.3 billion people throughout the world, or close to 40% of the global workforce. The ratio of farmers has declined from 35 to 4% in developed nations between 1950 and 2010, and from 81 to 48% in developing countries. In India, the workforce in agriculture was 76% in 1961. The number decreased to 51% in 2010. Still agriculture provides the bulk of employment in the rural areas. Post liberalization, cutbacks in agricultural subsidies increased the costs of inputs but market prices have not seen a corresponding increase. The rising of costs of production and the falling prices of farm commodities have transformed agriculture from a positive economy into a negative economy for peasants. Both these factors are rooted in the policies of trade liberalization and corporate globalization. Today they barely make enough to feed themselves. Over three lakh farmers have committed suicide since 1995, mostly in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. Farmer suicides have largely been attributed to debt, drought, crop failure and poor returns. Debt is a reflection of a negative economy. Their main source of capital for farming remains loans. While bank's share is 60% only, most farmers depend on moneylenders, at exorbitant interest rates. Swaminathan commission recommended sweeping reforms and massive investments for viability of agriculture, successive governments makes promises for winning elections and forgets thereafter. Occasionally, they announce farm loan waivers as temporary relief but agriculture problems remains as they are and farmer suicides continue unabated, which is a national shame. During 2014 election campaigning, Modi made categorical promise to implement Swaminathan commission report with MSP of inputs cost plus 50% profit margin and doubling farmer's income in 5 years in real terms, with unforgettable rhetoric for garnering rural votes, and after getting the votes, he never bothered to do anything during the past three years and is following same style as Congress. His desperate attempt to win UP elections by announcing farmer loan waiver, much against BJP's stated policies, and after winning the scheme announced was scaled down to less than 25% is an outright atrocity on UP farmers and had ignited violent agitations in many states endangering national economy. In addition BJP's new "Anti slaughter rules" had destroyed dairying, along with beef export & leather industry, which is the second and last source of income for rural masses. Instead of alleviating farmer's woes, generating new jobs and improving economy, Modi successfully destroyed agriculture, dairying & rural economy and his acts of insanity resulted in loss of millions of jobs and millions of dollars of export income.

Rural revolt destroys Modi's 3rd year celebration plans

• Humongous plans for the third anniversary celebrations of the Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government were announced in mid May. The 22 days celebrations were to be conducted from May 25 to June 15 by the BJP.
• These celebrations of the BJP-led NDA government will be centred around PM Modi, with a ‘Making of Developed India (MODI)’ festival as the highlight, as 450 leaders, including Union ministers, BJP chief ministers, MPs, MLAs and office-bearers spread across 900 cities and towns starting May 26 to educate the masses about its achievements since 2014. A control room is being set up in Delhi to monitor the programmes and visits of the BJP leaders between May 26 and June 15.
• The plans visualised Modi writing two crore letters and sending 10 crore SMS messages to common people, front-page advertisements in 400 newspapers across the country displaying Modi’s visuage and listing his government’s achievements, 30- and 60-second advertisements on television and radio on all the 22 days of the celebration period, and 300 multimedia exhibitions in various States.
• Booklets titled “Then and Now (UPA and NDA)”, to highlight how the country had marched ahead under Modi. The agriculture sector is given special focus in the booklets. 
• The government’s promotional programmes did not make any reference to its pre-election promises on the agricultural front and its failure to fulfill them. Instead it talked about the government’s ambitious rural development initiatives aimed at doubling farmers’ incomes in real terms by 2022 and uniting the fragmented markets to achieve the goal of “one nation, one market”.
• This self-aggrandizement project ran to the satisfaction of the various organizers for about a week, that is, until June 1, 2017, the day farmers’ organisations in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra started separate agitations demanding farm loan waiver and a hike in minimum support prices (MSP) in tune with the promise made by the BJP governments both at Centre and in the two States. 
• The BJP had promised during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign that it would implement the recommendations of M.S. Swaminathan commission 2006 that suggested that the MSP should be above 50% profit margin on input cost.
• Barely a week after the commencement of the farmers’ agitations, the grandiose third anniversary celebration plans were in a shambles, thoroughly exposing the hollowness of the government’s claims, especially about enhancing the rural economy and boosting farmers’ interests. The eventful one week witnessed intensification of the agitations in the two big States, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, with farmers dumping milk and vegetables on roads and damaging vehicles, resisting attempts by the police and the security forces to quell them. The escalated violence resulted in the killing of six farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh.
• The responses from the BJP, including CM's Fadnavis and Chouhan  were to brand the agitations as politically motivated vandalism sponsored by the opposition Congress and NCP. They insisted that the farm sector was successful under the Modi regime and that the farmers’ agitations were entirely unwarranted. So much so that both the leaders either refused to initiate talks with farmers’ representatives for discussions. But none of these tactics succeeded. The developments since June 1, 2017 and the nationwide response, put them on the back foot. While Fadnavis announced a loan waiver for farmers with less than two hectares of land, Chouhan, after launching a dramatic indefinite fast to bring peace and calm down the agitating farmers, announced that purchasing farm produce at rates lower than the MSP would be treated as a crime.
• MP CM SS Chouhan should have been asked to step down for his failure to assess brewing discontentment among farmers and mismanaging the whole situation. The fact that compensation was increased from Rs.5 lakhs for each dead person increased to Rs.10 lakhs and then to Rs.1 crore indicates panicky management.
• There is no guarantee that the resentment in the two States and in the farm sector in the rest of the country will subside. Already, farmers in Haryana have launched an agitation demanding loan waiver. In Maharashtra leader of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (a BJP ally), has issued a warning that “If the promises are not kept, the agitation will resume with greater vigour.”
• In Madhya Pradesh there are signs of farmer organisations regrouping to launch a more concerted movement.
• The promises made by Fadnavis and Chouhan and the Union government had not adequately addressed the underlying factors that had forced farmers to take the path of agitation. These leaders have been dictated by political brinkmanship throughout, and this does not help in finding lasting solutions to farmers’ grievances. The current announcements fall in the same bracket.
• The demand for loan waiver came up in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra because Modi himself spearheaded this brinkmanship during the campaign for the UP Assembly elections promising loan waiver for farmers. Such was the rhetoric that Modi said the loan waiver would be the first decision of the new Cabinet. He also said the Union government would contribute towards the expenditure incurred by the loan waiver. The BJP was elected to power in the State and the new government, under Yogi Adityanath, was forced to live up to this rhetoric and announce loan waiver. It is this that triggered the current phase of farmers’ agitations in other States.
• In both the States, the agitation gathered strength not in areas where there was crop failure but in places where crops were abundant but farmers were denied remunerative prices.
• Madhya Pradesh farmers were aggrieved that the State government was propagating falsehoods about the farming sector. The Chouhan government had been claiming a 20 per cent growth in agriculture in the past five years. The government received the Krishi Karman award (excellence in agriculture) five years in a row for this.
• The BJP leadership have tried to underplay the role of the demonetization drive in creating agrarian distress while RBI stated how the demonetization drive and cash shortages have caused panic in the farm sector and suggested policy interventions may be envisaged to arrest the slump in prices.
• BJP's determined refusal or inability to address comprehensively issues pertaining to the farm sector and measures such as loan waiver might bring temporary relief to farmers, larger policy initiatives were required to bring lasting stability to the farm sector.
• The most important thrust of these initiatives and incentives should be to rescue the farming sector from the predations of the middlemen, money lenders, traders of spurious inputs, corporate sector and their interests. This predation has been marching on and on over the past two and a half decades. Governments after governments and political parties after political parties have asserted they understand the dynamics and perils of this predation, but at the level of policy and governance they have all played the facilitator role to the deprivations of these forces. 
• The question is whether any government will show the political will to take on this problem and thus protect the farmer and through that the country itself. As things stand now, there is not much hope for this fundamental course correction.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, 
it cannot save the few who are rich ... John F. Kennedy

My View:

While Modi talks about corruption, black money etc, these lavish celebrations would have costed over Rs.10,000 crores and the bills picked up by central & state PSUs, BJP and its crony businessmen, eventually burdening the common man. This sort of corruption is worse than receiving bribes as quid pro quo. Needless to say every BJP party activist associated with these celebrations will make few lakhs to few millions of rupees, across the nation. It is clear that BJP doesn't have any agenda for alleviating the problems of farmers and rural masses except some quick fix solution and publicizing them as achievements. Gandhi once said "India lives in its 600,000 villages, not just Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta & Madras." While Modi quotes Gandhi & Patel as convenient to him, he is really never bothered about villages and its economics dynamics. Among Indians 60% belongs to lower class & poorer sections, 30% middle class, and 10% upper & rich class. It is clear that Modi is concerned about middle & upper classes only except shedding some crocodile tears once in a while. Modi has wasted 3 years in celebrations, foreign jaunts and hollow publicity. Emulating Congress model of governance (excepting some name & color changes) Modi is sure to pay a bitter price in 2019 elections, similar to that of Vajpayee & Advani in 2004.

Read 'Rural Revolt' in Frontline July 7, 2017

Farmers' protests: Turning point for Modi

• The ongoing farmers' protests in several states across India is the first major mass movement confronting the Narendra Modi government. Unless handled adroitly, the stir could throw up a major challenge to the BJP and Modi's political dominance.
• Ever since he launched the high voltage prime ministerial campaign in 2013, Modi remained in perpetual promising mode. Inability to deliver is now beginning to catch up for the first time making the ruling establishment realize that being on a perpetual promissory mode is fraught with dangers.
• RBI Governor Urjit Patel's statement that loan waivers add to the risk of fiscal slippage, shrinks dramatically Modi's negotiating space.
• Patel's similar warning during UP election campaign was lost in the campaign noises.
• The self-created pressure of labeling the dead farmers as martyrs, does not spare MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan: For what cause and in protest of whose government?
• - Farmers are not the 'other' that can be demonized by militarist or muscular nationalism.
  - Farmers are not human-rights activists who are constantly arraigned as anti-nationals.
  - Farmers are not members of a religious minority who allegedly do not ascribe to the dominant culture of the nation.
  - Farmers are not foreign-funded NGOs who disrupt government by expressing empathy with the downtrodden and agitating people.
  - Farmers are also not gathering to seek repealing of laws which give security and armed forces the right to quash the fundamental rights of the people.
  - Farmers are instead intended to be the main beneficiaries of an egalitarian order that Modi proclaims as his credo.
  - Farmers are the custodians of our granaries and must be applauded for continuing to stick on, despite the odds stacked against them.
• The opposition which was derided by BJP as a bunglers' club is suddenly accused of having the capacity to destabilize the nation. 
• Attempts to prevent Rahul Gandhi from reaching the troubled spots are akin to putting a person on life-support systems. It is up to the scion or other opposition leaders to capitalize on the political opening provided by farmers.
• Rare is the case that a mass movement can be imposed from the above; it must always emerge from below. Thereafter, it is up to the opposition parties, whether they can capitalize on it or not.
• In the last few days Modi government has been demonstrated as being fallible like any establishment. This farmers agitation may peter out or spread like wildfire. But even if the BJP government succeeds in dousing the flames by offering sops, such a move compels BJP to negotiate this serious challenge. Compared to Modi's 'no dialogue' stance on contentious political issues, this will be a comedown and demonstrate that beneath his tough exterior, Modi too can be forced to grant an extra quarter.
• The farmers' strife in MP is worrying for Modi and BJP because the state did not have poor monsoon last year. It was blessed with a bumper crop. MP is also not a poor state and has registered high agricultural growth over the past several years. The agitating farmers are not the poorest in the state. In the past one year, every five hours one farmer committed suicide in the state due to distress stemming from accumulated loans and the glut in the market. The government has to give serious thought why, in state after state, bumper production is proving itself to be a bane for farmers.
• Agricultural policy focused on means to increase crop yield but not farmers' livelihood concerns. The government's fiscal health has been its principal worry, not the farmers' balance sheets. The policy of announcing loan waivers periodically is faulty. Analysis is required to examine reasons for repeated default.
• It's a truth that farmers are unable to recover costs with their produce. Agriculture is mostly a loss-making vocation. The BJP promised to implement recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission's suggestion to ensure a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production. This assurance by Modi was clearly aimed at wooing the farmers. Unless a comprehensive strategy to ameliorate the lot of farmers is formulated, the BJP will pay a heavy political price for its deceit.
• Modi can lose sight at his own risk. The BJP's traditional support base is not rural India and farmers. Yet, they voted for BJP mainly on the strength of Modi's promises and his mesmerizing presence. Three years is a long period to initiate steps and provide evidence of sincerity. 
• Farmers are clearly a disgruntled lot and accusing them of taking cues from the opposition will indicate the BJP is behaving like the proverbial ostrich. 

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, 

it cannot save the few who are rich ... JFK

My View:

During past 25 years, it is a standard pattern for politicians to talk about poor & peasants to win elections and once in power or opposition these leaders behave like brokers/dealers for rich, businesses, contractors etc enriching themselves. Their princely & lavish lifestyles is all the more disgusting. Farmers and poor received some sops say up to 10% of govt spending and remaining knocked off in the name of development, of which less than 25% gets capitalized and more than 75% finding way into pockets of politicians, industrialist, businessmen, and bureaucrats. While educated flourished with global opportunities, businesses flourished with obliging politicians, poor & farmers were left behind and suffered poverty. For alleviating agriculture from debt relief, mechanization to reduce expenditure, land reforms for viability of fragmented land parcels, quality inputs (seeds, fertilizers & pesticides), micro irrigation & water conservation, organic farming, warehouses & cold storage, efficient markets, food processing industries and many more -  much needs to be done and so far what has been done is minuscule. A 10 year focused plan including retraining of rural labour with an investment of Rs.3 lakh crores per annum for 10 years is the need of the hour. Otherwise we will be doomed as a nation.