Since the passing of the farm laws in the Indian parliament the Mother country of chess (Chathuranga) is witnessing how a determined move by peasants can shake the king's power machinery. Figures such as bishop/elephant, knight, pawn/peasant, rook, queen and king, stand on the chessboard endowed with different powers of movement. Although the pawns/peasants are numerous, as in an infantry, they are only given a marginal role in the conquest of the king. 

The peasant is strategically sacrificed to save more powerful figures on the field. It appears that a similar tactic was used in the hasty adoption of the Farm Laws in September 2020. The peasants feel being betrayed in the struggle for the agrarian market in India. The corona pandemic made it convenient for the ruling party  to make a quick decision without detailed debates. Neither the directly affected farmers by these laws nor the states responsible for agriculture under the Indian Constitution were consulted in advance. 

The ruling party with an overwhelming majority in the parliament apparently underestimated the power of the farmers. Under the slogans of liberalization and globalization the agricultural market of India  is now open to the entry of multinational companies. 

Realizing the grave consequences of these laws, farmers responded with massive protests. The public and especially the Union government were surprised by the united and tactically cleverly organized reaction of the farmers' organizations. The farmers demand is plain and simple: the immediate withdrawal of these laws without any ifs and buts. They leave no room for compromise. 

At first glance, the arguments of the Union government to justify these laws are quite understandable. Farmers have always been dependent on middlemen to market their agricultural products. The high indebtedness of many farmers is partly due to this dependency. 

According to newspaper reports from India, nearly 1,40,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past five years due to loss of income and debt. Nobody denies the need for a fundamental reform creating supportive terms for the promotion of cultivation and marketing of agricultural products. Individual measures such as the organization of farmers' cooperatives or the expansion of storage capacities have been taken to achieve higher prices, but they are not enough. 

The question now is whether the laws passed in September are an adequate response to this challenge. Agriculture is the livelihood for more than   60% of India's 1.3 billion people. The farm sector’s contribution for the national economic output comes to15%. With attractive and promising titles the new farm laws remove many existing   barriers for buying and selling the agricultural produce. 

Farmers and traders are given the full freedom of choice to conclude cultivation and marketing contracts with all alternative trade channels. In accordance with the will of the government, the laws are intended to pave the way for a “free, efficient and transparent” trade. It seems that the state withdraws from the system of agricultural promotion by giving subsidy.

The experienced  farmers sense  great danger in these laws; they even fear for their very existence. The  exclusion of the farmers from the initial consultations was a grave mistake. In the planning of a law with the intention of protecting  the farmers, their wealth of experience must  have been seriously considered. 

All ruling parties in India lack apparently a feeling of the need for gaining mutual understanding through participation of the affected population groups. Farmers in India have been ignored by both the Congress government and the BJP government. During the last phase of the Congress government, there was a continuous downward trend in the price of agricultural products. The farmers favoured, therefore, Prime Minister Modi in the election.  But his promise to increase  farmers' income substantially  by raising minimum prices (MSP) went empty. Instead, the farmers received remuneration that was even lower in relation to their costs. 

Other announcements by the Union government in favour of the agricultural sector also proved fruitless, which further undermined the farmers' confidence in the government. Add to this the pandemic, made it much more difficult for farmers to grow products and bring them to market. Farmers suspect that the new laws will be the death sentence for the Public Distribution System (PDS) of foodgrains ; the existing food security law will disappear in due course, they fear. 

The protesting farmers see the new legislation as a weapon to deliver  the agricultural market  to “faceless” corporate companies. They fear that these powerful firms could dictate the conditions on the agricultural market by imposing various standards such as quality control that cannot be met by small farmers. 

Despite all the problems in the existing system, the farmers therefore prefer the usual middlemen with whom they expect to achieve a certain degree of flexibility and concessions if necessary. Since many years the marginal farmers have barely been able to survive due to their tiny land areas. 

According to government figures, the average monthly income of a farming family in India is around Rs 2000, which is almost the same as the monthly pocket money of a teenager in Germany. The peasantry as a profession is at the bottom of the income pyramid. It is to be assumed that many of these farmers will be forced to sell their land and move to the big cities in search of work. 

The corporations can grant the farmers cultivation loans under their own conditions and agree on the low delivery price before the harvest. They can create a shortage of food products in the market through longer storage and enforce later higher prices.The entry of the vagabonding capital into the agricultural market could also change the production structure in such a way that less and less food is grown. Instead, more land will be used for cash and industrial products for export, even though nearly 250 million Indians - a quarter of the world's starving people - struggle for food every day to survive. Together with environmentalists, the farmers share the concern that more and more chemical-based agriculture is being practiced, with the result that the quality of the soil is declining and the water is more polluted. The ecological threats are thus accelerated. 

The farmers' reaction followed immediately after proclaiming the laws for implementation. The peasants, especially from the states of Haryana and Punjab, known as India's granaries, organized a long march with tractors and horses to New Delhi. Under the leadership of 502 farmers' organizations, they lead large-scale protests and hunger strikes in the entry junctions to the Indian capital. Important access roads to the capital are besieged by the protesting farmers. It is to be feared that the transport of essential goods to Delhi will be made more difficult. Old and young men, women and even children from farming families camp out on the streets in the bitter winter cold of Delhi. They have come with provisions for several months to stay. The response to their call for solidarity is overwhelming. Legislative Assemblies in some states decided to boycott the new laws. The number of participants in the protest gatherings grows day by day. On December 8th, many unions and various opposition parties followed the farmers' call for a national shutdown.

The farmers' march with tractors during the celebration of the Republic Day on January 26th ended with extremely unpleasant events. At first look, it seemed that the farmers' protest would have suffered a major setback. However, there were many reports that the police might have deliberately allowed intruders to poison the atmosphere. Anyway; no trace of a setback could be seen at the end of January. More and more farmers are on their way to join the protesters. It is a new development that large numbers of farmers from "Jat Community", who have great influence in the surrounding area of Delhi, especially in Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttarpradesh participate and express their strong solidarity with the protesting farmers. 

Several meetings between government’s representatives and farmer’s delegates have been conducted in a search of a solution. The government offered to accommodate the farmers through amendments in the laws. The farmers refused this offer. In late January 2021, the government announced its willingness to freeze the laws for 18 months, if farmers end the protest. This suggestion also found no positive response from the farmers. 

It remains to be seen whether the farmers would be satisfied with a compromise, if the government, instead of withdrawing the laws, offered the prospect of freezing the laws by the end of the current legislative period. A quick solution would be urgent in any case. As the nation's breadwinners, the farmers can make their indispensable contribution to food security only when they return to their fields and resume their work. It is in the interest of the whole society that the government provide the farmers with favourable conditions for fulfilling their duty. We do not live from bread alone, but also not without it. Let us be aware of the fact that even a king and the queen along with their powerful defenders depend on the farmers' bread.