Trump has not understood India’s agriculture

RN Bhaskar

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There’s a farmer agitation brewing (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/skm-announces-campaign-against-nda-in-bihar-protests-against-new-labour-codes-vances-visit/articleshow/120492163.cms). J D Vance, vice-president, USA, is being greeted by angry farmers with placards asking him to go back.

Farmer agitations can be extremely widespread, and even tenacious, in India.  That is because Agriculture is crucial to India. People still recall how the farmer agitations in 2020-21 (https://acleddata.com/2021/12/17/an-unlikely-success-demonstrations-against-the-farm-laws-in-india/)  actually made Prime Minister Modi buckle – for the first time – notwithstanding a comfortable majority in Parliament and a huge vote share. All attempts to break the agitation failed.  They included

• asking the police and paramilitary forces to prevent farmers from marching into Delhi;
• using earth moving equipment to put in place barricades;
• snatching away blankets from protestors during the icy winter season;
• pouring cold water on winter mornings to disperse protestors;
• arresting farmers – the numbers climbed into thousands – by claiming that they were anti-nationals.

Nothing worked.  The farmers stayed resolute.  The government had to cave in, and the three laws related to agriculture were repealed.  The three laws were quite iniquitous in many ways (https://asiaconverge.com/2021/09/need-sensible-laws-to-stop-farmer-exploitation/), though the narrative told a different story.

Reopening a sore wound

Trump’s trade policies, including his tariffs, have reopened this sore wound.  Hence the protests.  The farmers know that the government cares more for its own petty gains (another form of collusive corruption?) and its own political survival.  Unlike, as during the times of Lal Bahadur Shastri and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the current set of politicians and bureaucrats care a lot less about farmer and even Indian economic welfare. They often overlook agriculture and instead promote trade and industry.

How else can one justify the import of pulses, or oilseed, or even the abortive attempt to allow import of milk and milk products?  The last was another muted but potentially widespread agitation that myopic and even farmer unfriendly policies of the government had almost ignited (https://asiaconverge.com/2019/08/indian-bureaucrats-almost-shortsold-the-milk-industry-at-fta-cpec-negotiations/).

It is possible that both the Indian government and Trump may not be prepared for what this protest could result in.

Dairy imports

India has already seen what happens when its policy makers adopt an import path.  This is what happened with edible oil (https://asiaconverge.com/2022/01/the-government-lets-down-indias-edible-oil-industry/).  This could have happened with the dairy sector as well, had Piyush Goyal got his way, and had the 10 crore Indian farmers not become restless at the thought of allowing dairy imports.  Milk is one of the most critical agro-industries in this country.  It could happen if India succumbs to the US demand for allowing import of cotton and cattle feed into India. That will deliver a body blow to Indian agriculture.

Already the demand for allowing US cattlefeed into India is raising the hackles of Indian farmers.  US uses offal as part of its cattlefeed, and this is repugnant to Indian farmers (https://www.livemint.com/economy/dairy-access-in-limbo-over-u-s-cattle-feed-practices-tariff-adjustments-on-non-domestic-farm-products-on-agenda-11745144664275.html).

Farm distress

A variety of ill-advised moves by India’s policymakers have already caused farmers much distress.  The most acute is in Maharashtra.  The plans that US has in sending its cotton to India will make their plight even worse.

The farmer agitations could take an extremely ugly turn, if India does not find its spine and rebuffs such plans that the US may be keen on pushing through.

India’s policymakers have a penchant for favouring western countries and importing their produce.  Today farmers are in distress (https://asiaconverge.com/2023/03/maharashtra-has-a-fatal-obsession-for-sugarcane/).  Farmer suicides are climbing (https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/activist-quota-obc-category-farmer-suicides-maharashtra-jarange-patil-9567781/).  And yet, India has not said a categoric No to the demands voiced by America.

Weak kneed India

Sadly, at no time has India been as vulnerable, and weak than it is today.   This is despite constant posturing by government spokesmen that India is strong and capable of independent decision-making.

Almost every senior bureaucrat and politician is compromised – allowing the US to twist their arms and force them to agree to terms that no self-respecting country would accept (Listen to Pravin Sawhney of ForceIndia at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkljQD0e8AU).  He points out how, both before and after Modi’s meeting with Trump,

• India has marginalised itself in the BRICS consortium where it has been one of the founding members (https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/the-west-stumbles-brics-in-the-ascendant)
• It has agreed to do all trades only in the US dollar.
• It has agreed to almost quintuple its trade with the US to $ 500 billion. This, points out Sawhney, will see the country filled with (more expensive) US goods and even further weaken both the rupee and India’s trade deficit.
• It has agreed to US exporting agricultural produce to India.  That includes GM seeds, possibly soybean (or soyabean), dairy related items, and cotton among other items.
• It has agreed to import US military hardware, including its F-35 aircraft, many of which have failed to prove themselves in the Ukrainian and Middle-East war theatres (listen to Alastair Crooke from 20:49 onward for around 20 minutes at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLeFlHZqLcQ).

Vulnerable to blackmail

Many believe that India has capitulated to US pressures because it is extremely vulnerable to blackmail — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/the-indian-government-has-inflated .  This susceptibility to blackmail by the US was also articulated quite candidly by Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, at his public address in Delhi in 2023.  You can find the relevant lines at timeline 18:47 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA8Ex9KQo4).

When Trump assumed presidency of the US the second time, the Indian government thought it could get its way given the old relationship between Trump and Modi.  But that did not happen.  Instead, there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Indian government capitulated.  Consider the following:

• the manner in which it kept silent, when Illegal Indian migrants were received in India in handcuffs and shackles. It did not even register a protest.  Columbia, on the other hand, refused to let the US planes land till the shackles were removed.  One Indian legislator even went so far as to declare that these illegal migrants were criminals – forgetting that many are compelled to leave India in search for livelihood, because India had failed to create an environment for more investments, hence more jobs. Unemployment is rife in India.
• India also refused to ratify the BRICS proposal to seek out alternatives to the use of the US dollar for making payments for goods and services exported or imported.
• It has refused to condemn the holocaust in Gaza. It has similarly refused to take a stand on the Ukraine issue, even though it has been a close ally of Russia. This is even though there is documentation to show that USA actually instigated the Ukraine-Russia war (read the document titled NYET means NYET.  It can be found at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html.  The cable was made public by Wikileaks. It then was later picked up by Robert Wade who wrote in Le Monde on 15 March 2015 (https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/61428/1/Wade_Ukraine_crisis_is_not_what%20it_seems.pdf).
• Or consider the statements made by Piyush Goyal, commerce minister, that Tesla would be granted clearances while BYD can wait — https://www.livemint.com/auto-news/india-cautious-of-chinese-strategic-investments-blocks-byd-co-while-courting-rival-tesla-auto-news-business-piyush-goyal-11744085792530.html

• India’s vulnerability to the carrots dangled before it by the West is legendary. It may be recalled that in 2014, the Indian Parliament was asked (by legislator Rajeev Chandrasekhar) to furnish the names of senior bureaucrats and ministers whose children worked for US firms. However, the reply to this request was never made public.
• Most of India’s policymakers have always been known to be susceptible to bribes. Jobs for their relatives, and scholarships for their children have been simple but effective ways of giving bribes that would be difficult to trace and identify as gratuities.

Even nowadays, instead of exploring other markets and reducing their trips to the West, Indian policymakers can be found rushing Westward (or to New Zealand) several times a year (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/will-india-be-marginalised). They are the ones who could actually trigger the re-colonisation of India.

US does have big problems

The US has big problems – and it thinks India could be ‘persuaded’ to bail it out. Agriculture is important to the US as well, and it obviously thinks that Indian agriculture can be marginalised.

• It has huge surpluses of soybean (soyabean) that it conventionally exported to China. But when it picked up a fight with China, it should have known that China would ban import of soybean. Now it wants India to help it out, because the farm lobby in the US is a formidable one in terms of voting power.  India is a big market, and the US thinks India will absorb the soybean exports.
• It wants to do the same with cotton as well. In 2024, USA exported $ 5 billion worth raw cotton – much of it to China.
• It has a problem with finding buyers for its LNG. The EU has refused so far to sign such a contract. It wants its LNG to soften oil and gas prices, so that it could reduce the clout that Russia and Iran have in the oil and gas markets.  But for that it wants committed buyers (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/will-trump-get-bogged-down).  So, twist India’s arm a bit more.
• It also has a problem with the weakening US dollar. So, twist India’s arm a bit more so that it does not forsake the flailing greenback (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/the-us-dollar-under-siege).
• And it has a problem with its military-industry complex which wants to get a minimum of $40 billion each year (https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal63-1317449#_=_). So, it needs wars, and it needs customers for its hardware.  So, create a war with China.  And persuade India to purchase its F-35 planes. It knows that India is weak-kneed when it comes the large ticket purchases.  And it is vulnerable to US pressures.

Remember Kissinger

Henry Kissinger famously said, “Making an enemy of the US is dangerous.  But having it as a friend is fatal.” India’s policymakers should heed that.  It should learn to be more like Vietnam than like Ukraine. It is worth remembering that even after it was attacked at different times by both the US and by China, Vietnam continues to do business with both of them (Free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/is-india-spooked-by-china).  Its philosophy – Wars are one thing: making money another.  Don’t mix both up.  The result is that it has become one of the fastest growing economies in the ASEAN grouping.

Currently, all omens indicate a capitulating India, and the emergence of yet another Zelensky.

Can India become atma nirbhar (strong and self-reliant) once again?  Can it truly aspire to become a viksit Bharat (a developed India) once again. This is not posible without making agriculture vibrant and the farmers wealthier.  Or, will it only help Trump in its MAGA strategy?

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Please watch my latest podcast on the danger of India being colonised once again at https://youtu.be/8mkn82F_iw0

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