Monthly Archives: August 2018

Gurbir Singh

President, Guru nanak Education Trust, Ludhiana

The 122nd birth anniversary of Justice Gurnam Singh, the first non-Congress Chief Minister of Punjab, falls today. He was one of the architects of the agriculture policy that made India surplus in foodgrains. This is relevant today amid the farmers’ agitation against the Central Government for repeal of the three new farm laws. In the mid-1960s, India suffered from major food deficits and even famine. It was dependent on American food aid, termed PL480. The country was an unregulated market where big traders purchased foodgrains at low prices from farmers and sold them at huge profits to deficient states. The then PM Indira Gandhi raised the alarm at the distress caused by food shortages and high prices.

After taking charge as CM in 1967, Gurnam Singh announced remunerative prices for farmers. The minimum support price (MSP) for wheat was fixed at Rs 72 for the new ‘Mexican’ variety and Rs 86 for the old varieties. Hoarding and export of wheat from Punjab was banned to ensure price stability for consumers. Union Agriculture Minister Jagjivan Ram accepted Punjab’s request for the purchase of surplus foodgrains by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) at the MSP. At the state level, a policy of setting up village mandis or agriculture market was framed; till then, the mandis were mainly restricted to urban centres. The policy of rural electrification and link roads for connectivity to mandis was initiated, making Punjab the first state to do so. The Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets Act for regulating the mandis was passed by the Unionist Party government of Sir Sikander Hyatt Tiwana in 1939. It was the brainchild of the then Development Minister, Sir Chhotu Ram. The Act was amended in 1961. The MSP was adopted by Union Agriculture Minister C Subramaniam on the advice of American scientist Frank Parker in 1966 at Rs 54 per quintal. But a major incentive to farmers that led to the food surplus came when Punjab revised the procurement price to Rs 72 in 1967. Haryana followed suit. Gurnam Singh went on to head the Indian delegation at the World Food Conference at Rome, the only Chief Minister to have this honour.

Coming back to the present, the new farm laws have been hailed by captains of industry and some economists as the ‘1991 moment’, a reference to the economic reforms of Manmohan Singh.

However, the farmers have rejected the laws. It is feared that India will again become an unregulated zone for agriculture and market forces will determine prices for farmers and consumers. Provision for corporate houses to open private mandis without paying taxes applicable to the APMC mandis may lead to the latter’s closure. Stockpiling is allowed. The stipulated contract is biased in favour of companies. The farmers say this is a return to the pre-1967 era of hoarding, artificial surpluses and shortages, low purchase prices for the cultivator and inflated prices for the consumers. Hence, they want the laws repealed and redrafted.

Farming involves, in some form, 70 per cent of the Indian population. About 90 per cent of the farmers are poor and marginal. Agriculture contributes only 16 per cent of the GDP because of lack of government funding. Farmers are under heavy debt and over 4,00,000 have committed suicide since 1996. The new reforms have triggered unease that will take over agriculture. Farmers fear they will lose their lands to crony capitalism. Farmers of Punjab and Haryana who made the country self-sufficient in foodgrains by their hard work, say that MSP and FCI procurement, their main source of income, are being eased out and they will be left at the mercy of big businesses. So, they have taken the path of agitation.

Instead of addressing the concerns of the farmers, the Centre has chosen the path of defaming them and suppressing the movement by repression and the use of draconian laws.

Punjab, which then included Haryana, saw the biggest agrarian agitation of the 20th century for the repeal of three farm laws enacted by the British Government in 1907. Then too, there were mass detentions and compromise formulas were floated, including one brought forward by Lala Lajpat Rai.

But after nine months of struggle, the laws were repealed. The agitation, titled Pagdi Sambhal Jatta or “preserve the rights and honour of farmers” is being replicated at Delhi’s borders today and steadily spreading to other parts of the country. The violation of human rights of peaceful protesters and those speaking up for them has brought about international condemnation.

So, what is the way forward? Gurnam Singh believed agriculture was viable only with government support. Big business could supplement, but not be a substitute for state funding. Industry, on its own, could not sustain farming. But a prosperous farming community would sustain the industry by giving it a large consumer base. He found support from the likes of Dr MS Randhawa, a brilliant civil servant, a farmer himself, who served as Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University, as also Partap Singh Qadian, founder of the original BKU. The US, Canada, EU, Japan and China heavily subsidise farming to maintain price stability and a minimum income for farmers. China subsidises agriculture four times more than India. So, the government must allocate more funds for agriculture through MSP and direct payment to farmers; and capital expenditure on technology, water and soil conservation, research, agro industry, opening APMC mandis and so forth.

It should give incentives to farmers of Punjab and Haryana to switch from rice and wheat to other crops. The government will find that funding agriculture will pay far more financial and social dividends than subsidising bad industrial loans or promoting crony capitalism. Or else, India will remain a poor country with weak institutions while other Asian countries move ahead.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 24

Just about two days after labour activist Nodeep Kaur claimed before the High Court that she was beaten black and blue in the police station after being arrested in a “false” case in connection with the farmers’ agitation, the High Court on Wednesday noted the medical report had not been placed on record by the state.

As her petition seeking bail came up for resumed hearing, Justice Avneesh Jhingan asserted that the Sonepat Duty Magistrate/Judicial Magistrate First Class, vide order dated January 18, had ordered that Nodeep Kaur be medically examined.

“She was medically examined, but the report has not been placed on record by the state, rather only medico-legal report under Section 54 of the CrPC is placed on record,” Justice Jhingan observed before fixing the case for further hearing on February 26 for the state counsel to place the report on record.

Nodeep had moved the court through senior advocate RS Cheema and Arshdeep Singh Cheema alleging a false implication in an FIR registered for attempt to murder, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty and other offences.

Justice Jhingan also directed the placing on record medico-legal report in case of co-accused Shiv Kumar. The court, on February 19, had ordered Shiv Kumar to be examined by the Medical Superintendent, Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh. “To appreciate the real controversy, report of medical examination of Shiv Kumar under Section 54 CrPC be also produced on record,” Justice Jhingan directed.

The Bench also recorded the submission of senior advocate RS Cheema and Arshdeep Singh Cheema on the petitioner’s behalf that Shiv Kumar required medical attention and may be shifted to Sector 32 hospital.

New Delhi, February 24

As many as 19 people have been arrested and 25 FIRs lodged in connection with the Republic Day violence in the national capital during the farmers’ tractor rally in protest against the three new agri laws, the Centre informed the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul further told the high court that as many as 50 people have been detained and an investigation was going on into the incident.

They also submitted that adequate security personnel have been deployed at the Red Fort for its safety and security.

Taking note of the government submissions, a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh sought to know whether any similar matter has been already filed in or was pending before or disposed of by the Supreme Court.

It asked the central government to give it details of any similar matter in the apex court and listed the petition by a Delhi resident, Dhananjai Jain.

The petition has sought the removal of people squatting under the garb of farmers agitation and clear all the roads and public places.

It has also sought a direction to remove the Delhi Police Commissioner from his position with immediate effect and punish all the police officers who allegedly failed in discharging their duties relating to the Red Fort incident on Republic Day.

The tractor rally on January 26 that was to highlight the demands of farmer unions to repeal three new agri laws dissolved into anarchy on the streets of the national capital as thousands of protesters broke through barriers, fought with the police, overturned vehicles and hoisted a religious flag from the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort.

The petition has also sought a direction to the Centre to put adequate paramilitary forces to protect important monuments and to ensure the safety of life and property of citizens of Delhi and restore the feeling of confidence and security amongst them.

On January 12, the Supreme Court had stayed the implementation of the contentious new farm laws till further orders and constituted a four-member committee to make recommendations to resolve the impasse over them between the Centre and farmers’ unions protesting at Delhi borders.

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various border points of Delhi for over two months now against the three laws—the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act. —PTI

Lt Gen AS Bahia (retd)

Ex-Director General, Military Operations

INDIA has undelineated and undemarcated, thus disputed, borders with some of its neighbours. With China, the entire length of the border from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, with the exception of 220 km in Sikkim (delimited by the Convention of March 1890, signed between the British regime and China at Calcutta), is not demarcated. A somewhat ambiguous Line of Actual Control (LAC) works as the de facto alignment. This has led to periodic border skirmishes, apart from a major war in 1962 and the one recently averted.

While it is in India’s long-term interest to permanently settle the dispute, the Chinese have never shown any urgency in the matter and have even scuttled the process of clarifying respective perception of the LAC, set in motion by the 1993 Agreement. In fact, they have been candid in saying that in developing bilateral relations, let the focus be on matters of convergence, leaving the contentious border issue to be resolved by the following generations — possibly a clever ploy to trigger confrontation, when expedient, as also to pose the threat of a ‘two-front war’ on India.

In the recent imbroglio in eastern Ladakh, Indian forces did well to promptly wrest the initiative from the Chinese, particularly by occupying dominating heights on the Kailash Range on August 29-30, 2020, thus effectively blunting Chinese designs for any further offensive as also markedly strengthening India’s bargaining position. This, followed by the five-point resolution adopted by the Foreign Ministers of both countries in Russia on September 10 and the subsequent rounds of military-level talks have finally yielded in a synchronised and mutually monitored disengagement. However, even if this process proceeds earnestly as visualised, disengagement can, at best, avert an immediate confrontation but not eliminate the possibility of a similar, or even worse, conflict in future. The ultimate solution lies only in a comprehensive resolution of the dispute. It is only prudent, therefore, that the current focus on disengagement of troops must eventually graduate, in continuum, to permanent settlement by delineating and demarcating the entire border.

The ambiguity about the border with China is an ancient legacy. In Ladakh, it was sanctified by treaties from time to time and assumed to be well known based on usage, customs and traditions. The British proposal, on attaining sovereignty over Jammu & Kashmir in 1847, to delineate the border by a joint tripartite commission did not find favour with China. Ironically, the British themselves seem to have lacked clarity as they kept vacillating between a maximalist Johnson-Ardagh Line and a more moderate Macartney Line, essentially dictated by requirements of the ‘Great Game’ for control over Central Asia, principal variables being the Russian pressure and Chinese ability to provide a buffer. Their map of the mid-1930s showed the frontier with a colour wash with the annotation ‘boundary undefined’. The firm boundary shown in the 1954 Survey of India map was not accepted by China and, in the absence of any presence of Indian military or administrative control of the area, they started the construction of the Aksai Chin road shortly thereafter.

Towards finding a solution now, it would be in order to visit the existing ground reality — Arunachal Pradesh has always been an integral part of India and Aksai Chin has been under Chinese control since the mid-1950s, through which passes their strategic national highway G219, being the only road link between Xinjiang and Tibet. The Chinese claims over Arunachal Pradesh as well as Indian assertion to take back Aksai Chin are virtually matching in rhetoric. A realistic appraisal of the balance of combat power of both sides would suggest that neither seems to be in a position to realise their respective claims in the foreseeable future by employing military means. The process of clarification of the LAC, started in 1993, has got scuttled and, even the LAC has now lost its sanctity; the confidence building measures (CBMs), formulated in 1996, have been compromised. As such, a pragmatic solution for the future lies in the realm of a negotiated border settlement.

Here, it would be instructive to understand the Chinese mindset on border settlement by recalling Deng Xiaoping’s proposal to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Foreign Minister, during his visit to Beijing in February 1979. He had then stated that China could compromise her stand in the eastern sector for a similar concession by India in the rest of the places, implying concessions by both sides. The Indian viewpoint on this matter, as stated by PV Narasimha Rao, the then Foreign Minister, in Parliament in July 1980, was that Arunachal Pradesh was an integral part of India and, as such, the very premise on which China was offering the concession had no basis. Nevertheless, mutual understanding and accommodation/adjustment in all sectors has remained at the core of their subsequent exchanges at various levels.

Flowing from the above, one possible way towards an equitable and mutually acceptable solution would be to recognise the boundary alignment based on the widely accepted ‘watershed principle’, both in the eastern and middle sectors. In the east, China must accept Arunachal Pradesh as an undisputed part of India and recognise the McMahon Line as the border. In the central sector, the six border passes agreed to in 1956 should form the basis of border alignment. Cartographic distortions of the past, resulting in differing perceptions, can be resolved using advanced techniques available now.

In the Ladakh sector, the solution may well be in a negotiated settlement somewhere between the Chinese 1959 Claim Line and the boundary claimed by India. Once this is broadly accepted in principle by both sides, detailed negotiations could follow. Underlying principles for fixing the precise alignment should include providing adequate depth to the Indian road to Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) as well as Chinese Highway G219; the boundary should run along identifiable topographical features, ensuring even defensibility; and no settled population must be dislocated. No doubt this would be a hard bargain and a long-drawn exercise, but will surely be a step forward to reach a final settlement. For the interim, both sides must commit to completely demilitarise the area and keep their forces well back at mutually agreed locations, to be monitored through a joint mechanism.

This would usher in a permanent ‘win-win’ situation for both countries and also pave the way for regional cooperation to mutual advantage.