Thread by @hipp0brain

How did the #farmers go from desperately wanting to sell land, to protesting against selling #land? And more importantly, how is India’s Constitution the culprit here? A #Thread, from our recent #hippoBrain conversation with @srajagopalan <1/29>

#threadstorytime #FarmersProtest

In 1950, when #India became a republic, one of the major things on the agenda was land reform. Understandable, because India was incredibly poor. ~95% were working in Agriculture. <2/29>

#landreform #FarmersProtest

Most of them were not land owners; only 1-2% of the people working in Agriculture were land owners. So there was a push towards making this a more equitable system. Esp since the land was granted to zamindars due to on privileges given by the East India Company, etc. <3/29>

Plus, the Parliamentarians had to fight elections and one of the promises made was that they will redistribute land from rich zamindars to poor people. And this was across ideology, across right-wing / left-wing agendas

But there was a problem <4/29>

#landreform #FarmersProtest

#India's Constitution, in its original avatar under Article 31, said that you need to treat everybody equal—it doesn’t matter whether you are a peasant or a rich zamindar. And if we take land, whoever it maybe from, they must be fairly compensated. <5/29>

#FarmersProtest

Now, the Indian #government didn’t have money to pay zamindars. Plus, if you compensate the zamindars, the whole point is moot anyway.

Yet, they had made an election promise and it must be fulfilled <6/29>

#GovernmentAndPolitics #FarmersProtest #landreform

So the Indian Parliamentarians—the right and left wing—amended the Indian Constitution. They created a very unique provision—one that isn’t typically seen anywhere else. It’s called the 9th Schedule. It’s at the back of the Constitution, under Article 31B. <7/29>

#government

The 9th Schedule says that any statute added to the 9th Schedule is

*drumroll please*

“beyond any judicial review even if it violates fundamental rights”

<8/29>

#government #landreform #FarmersProtest

What that means is we can now pass Statutes where we can take #land from rich zamindars and give it to poor people without compensating the rich zamindars

If the court shuts it down, it doesn’t matter; the court is completely prevented from intervening in this fashion. <9/29>

Now what went into the 9th Schedule? It’s the rules on land reform, monopoly restrictions, foreign exchange restrictions, MRTP, the nationalisation of mines/banks/insurance--it’s everything in the kitchen sink. <10/29>

#government #FarmersProtest

So once we have this kind of relaxation of rules, it becomes very easy for political entrepreneurs and cronies to find gaps in the Constitution such that they can benefit themselves. That’s not where this story ends. <11/29>

#government #FarmersProtest

Cut to today’s day and age.

#India still has lots of farmers and agriculture is very unproductive. Wherever you go in India, farmers are dying to get out of agriculture. They want their sons and daughters to get a govt job or some such coz they realise it’s back-breaking <12/29>

But #Farmers are not able to exit. You wonder why? Because they can’t sell their agriculture land.

That’s funny. Every developer wants to buy land. Every farmer wants to sell land. So what’s the problem? <13/29>

#government #FarmersProtest

Various State #governments have laws that prevent #Farmers from selling their agriculture land to non-farmers.

Now, this comes in the context of land grab, especially with the East India Company background. <14/29>

#FarmersProtest #government #landreform

The #government thought that farming is so prone to floods & droughts and weather conditions. So we need to protect farmers. One of the bad things that can happen is #Farmers may be forced to make a fire-sale during a bad harvest to feed the family. <15/29>

#FarmersProtest

We don’t want that to happen, the #government thought.

So, we limit only #Farmers to buy the land. It’s a very well intentioned law.

Except that it really hurts those it wishes to protect -- the farmers. <16/29>

#FarmersProtest #landreform #GovernmentAndPolitics

Economics suggests that the larger the market, the thicker the market, the better price you may get.

Now, if you say that only #Farmers can buy the land, then you’ve cut out most of the interested parties.

You have now instantly depressed the price of land. <17/29>

Now, developers can’t build on agricultural land. So, they have to buy the land, go to the #government and change the land type. Then, they can do something with it.

The moment you change the type of land, the value is 40x higher. <18/29>

#FarmersProtest

Now you’ve created dual markets for land. The worst you have created is political unrest. The #Farmers complain that I cannot sell my land to anyone; when I do sell it, I get pittance for it; the developers get 40x. So we will hold out and we will not sell our land. <19/29>

See, the #government intervention has created this situation where the #Farmers go from dying to sell land to protesting that they won’t sell land. But actually it’s not about selling land. It’s about price. The govt created a dual market & now the farmers get a bad price <20/29>

Now, let’s go to the Tata Nano and the Singhur issue in West Bengal. In this instance, there were protests about grabbing land from poor #Farmers and building a special economic zone for development. How did we get here? <21/29>

#FarmersProtest

“I opened the Constitution and it is the same rule that allowed us to take land from zamindars,” says @srajagopalan.

“We weakened the Constitution to enable that, which means, today we can take land from poor #Farmers and give it to developers or Tata Nano” <22/29>

#government

“This is not just about politics; not just about ideology of development vs farming; it’s something much bigger than that—how are we governing ourselves. What’s the governing document that allows the government to do these things. That’s how I got to the Constitution.” <23/29>

“Because we have weak enforcement of the Right to Property,” says @srajagopalan

Let’s understand this. There are 2 aspects to the Right to Property

Article 19 1F, the right to regulate property
Article 31G, the #government’s right to take property & give compensation <24/29>

Article 19 1F allows state #governments to impose restrictions on selling land. Why did this happen? The Courts did not correctly enforce the Right to Property, which is Article 19. <25/29>

#landreform #FarmersProtest #GovernmentAndPolitics

Why are we able to take land from #Farmers in Singhur?

Because with various amendments to the Constitution, we have weakened Article 31 to such an extent that now you can take land from anyone and give to anyone without paying appropriate compensation. <26/29>

#government

It seems like a matter of land prices, of #Farmers protesting against developers.

But what it actually is that the #government has too much power to restrict natural co-operation and transactions, and too much power to pick winners and losers. <27/29>

#FarmersProtest

Over time, the institutional framework slowly got corrupted so that all these different central planning mechanisms could be put in place.

Question is, why should the #government be in the business of regulating any of this? <28/29>

#FarmersProtest #landreform

There’s more brilliant insights in @srajagopalan’s #hippoBrain conversation with @rajeshjain and @jaimitd.

Hear it on @spotifypodcasts at open.spotify.com/episode/3WYafE…

Or watch on @youtube here:

#conversationsthatmatter