We have been reporting since mid-November that hundreds of thousands of farmers began protesting on the outskirts of Delhi in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for deregulations they fear will sink them deeper into poverty.
Farmers have blocked major roads and burned their crops, contending that deregulation will lead to small farms becoming insolvent and eventually taken over by larger rivals.
More than half of India’s 1.4 billion people are employed in agriculture, which accounts for 15 percent of India’s $2.9-trillion economy.
Negotiations between Indian farmers and Prime Minister Modi have shown little progress since controversial agriculture laws were passed in September that they say essentially strips them of their state-backed protections and jeopardize their very existence.
“We’ve been suffering since 1947 [the country’s independence],” Morha Singh, a wheat farmer, told the Financial Times. ”The government has ignored us and our problems. We’ve cultivated the land and now they’re trying to give it to corporates.”
Al Jazeera reported that Modi held a public address last Friday to assuage farmers and talk about what he sees as success stories for farmers that occurred during his leadership. One included a guaranteed minimum income for small farmers in the country. Modi said his opposition worked to spread the falsehood that these farmers would be exploited by larger corporations.
The agriculture industry used to provide a third of the country’s GDP, but that output has dropped to about 15 percent.
Rahul Gandhi, the former Congress party president, tweeted that the country is experiencing a historic uprising: “The country is facing a situation like Champaran once again,” Gandhi said. “Back then, collaborators supported the British company, now the friends of Modi are in cahoots. But every agitating farmer-worker is a satyagrahi, who will secure his rights.”
TREND FORECAST: India’s economy was sinking for several consecutive quarters before the COVID War broke out. Its GDP is estimated to have fallen 15.7 percent over the last six months through September.
Last January, with the Indian economy contracting, protests against the Modi government were escalating.
Also, back in January, we reported on the demonstrations spreading throughout India as millions of citizens continued the two months-long protests against the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act. Spearheaded by Mr. Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Act grants citizenship to religious minorities – except Muslims – from neighboring countries.
These demonstrations were suddenly halted when the Prime Minister locked down the entire nation in March in his fight to win the COVID War.
We forecast that as economic conditions continue to decline, demonstrations will escalate and India’s military/police forces will violently clamp down on protesters. The military will try to stop the protests, but with hundreds of millions of Indians losing everything and with nothing left to lose, they will not back down until the government meets some of their demands.
As Gerald Celente notes, “When all else fails, they take you to war.” Be it escalating skirmishes with neighboring Pakistan or China over ongoing border disputes or a wild card event… the farmers’ protests will be instantly shut down should war break out.
