Why farmers are marching towards Delhi again

Once again, the Indian capital is preparing for a siege. Not by a foreign army, but by an army of Indian farmers, who flocked to New Delhi from nearby states to protest the government's policies.

The farmers' march has turned the city's main entry points into chokepoints, as federal and local police go into overdrive, barricading highways by pouring concrete and stacking shipping containers to stop the advancing tractors.

Authorities have blocked the social media accounts of some protest leaders and even used drones once billed as an agricultural innovation to drop tear gas canisters on protesters.

Hasn't this happened before?

The scenes are reminiscent of northern India's largest protests of 2020 and 2021, when hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from the states of Punjab and Haryana, forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to withdraw three bills aimed at reforming India's agricultural economy .

Then, if the farmers had the upper hand – in a rare haven for the mighty Modi – why are they gathering again and threatening or even causing disruptions in and out of an urban area home to some 30 million people?

This time, the central demand of farmers is on something called minimum support price, or MSP. They want this to be increased, adding a 50 percent premium to what it costs them to produce wheat and rice.

Sarwan Singh Pandher, leader of a committee representing hundreds of smaller farmer unions, said many of their demands lingered after they ended their protests more than two years ago, “especially because the MSP would get a legal guarantee.”

Economists tend to hate the MSP and its effects on agriculture. For example, it directly leads to food price inflation.

And by separating farmers' incomes from the traded value of staple grains, controlled prices – combined with free electricity and subsidized fertilizer – have encouraged overproduction of rice, for example in areas that are naturally semi-arid. That depletes water levels and creates the kind of stubble burning that pollutes Delhi's air every autumn.

Why do farmers want price support?

The MSP should act as a form of social security, shielding the majority of India's population, who are still dependent on agricultural incomes, from the volatility associated with changing weather patterns and internationally determined grain prices.

In practice, it is the better off farmers in India who will lose the most if the MSP is abolished; annual incomes in Punjab are higher than in the rest of the country's grain belt.

Farmers who move closer to the middle class often feel the effects of stagnant incomes most acutely. Many families in Punjab have invested in higher education as a way to move up. But acute unemployment makes it difficult to pay off these debts. In poorer parts of the country, indebted farmers often resort to suicide.

Mr Modi had promised to double the incomes they had in 2015, and on that front the government has fallen far short. It makes farmers' demands more urgent, Mr. Pandher said: “Either the government should come along or grant us the right to protest peacefully in Delhi.”

How did it all turn out last time?

The earlier round of protests reached its peak in January 2021. After camping outside the capital, farmers who had endured pandemic hardships burst through barricades to challenge Mr Modi's own Republic Day parade, a confrontation that set off long-standing political had consequences.

The farmers seemed to be winning; the proposed laws were withdrawn later that year. But because Punjabi Sikhs were highly visible in the movement's leadership, the government began cracking down on Sikh separatists shortly afterwards. And apparently not just through legal means: the government has been accused of orchestrating assassination attempts in Canada and the United States.

Apart from Sikh politics, the leadership of the farmers' movement may be negotiating that this is the best time to make their demands as the election season is upon us and he probably doesn't want to be seen fighting back against the poor farmers in Delhi.