That is not what has happened in Narendra Modi’s India. In 2014, while running for Prime Minister, Modi promised farmers he would establish a minimum support price (MSP) for every crop they harvested. This would prevent them from being bought out by large, government backed corporations, and allow them and their workers to make a living wage. It would prevent them from defaulting on their loans, and ensured they could to keep their farms and their ancestral homes. Support from the farmers, especially in Punjab, helped him sweep the elections. A month before he officially took office in 2014, he posted on social media a reiteration of his promise that farmers should get the “right price” for their crops. In the 2019 elections, Modi repeated the same promises. However, his actions over the past several years have made it pretty clear he made promises promises that he knew he would never keep.
In 2020, Modi signed into law three bills that would effectively allow large corporations to make a fortune off the hard work of India’s farmers, while simultaneously forcing many farmers to lose their farms and their livelihoods. Farmers from all over India rallied together in protest. Most were blocked at state borders and forcibly prevented from taking their protests all the way to New Delhi.
When Modi was first sworn in as Prime Minister in 2014, he made the following promise. “I, Narendra Modi, do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established” (Constitution of India, Third Schedule, Part I). However, true to his character, this was another promise he never kept. Allegiance to the Constitution includes things like honoring Article 19, which guarantees the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Blocking state borders, and violently attacking those trying to raise their collective voices in protest does not demonstrate allegiance to the Constitution. Over 750 Farmers lost their lives because of the violent actions Modi’s government took to silence the protesting farmers.
On November 19, 2021, Modi finally repealed the three controversial bills. The protests continued, until Modi made the farmers some more promises, which, once again, he knew he would never keep.
This included promises to discuss establishing a fixed price on crops sold by farmers, withdrawing criminal cases against the protesting farmers, investigating excessive force used by Government agents against the farmers, as well as cancelling immoral debts many farmers had been forced to acquire to keep their lands. Suffice it to say, Modi never kept these promises, and so in 2024, the farmers were forced to call out Modi once again. Modi met them with violence at the state borders, once again violating his promise to uphold the Constitution.
Farmers have been tear-gassed by drones, and shot at with pellet guns, rubber bullets, and live rounds. Police have denied shooting at the farmers, however, the testimonies of physicians who treated the injured, as well as the bodies of the injured, tell a very different story.
