Why are farmers on the streets? Gokul Patnaik The government has said that the new farm laws are a ‘game changer’ and has promised the farmers freedom, protection, and higher income. They have assured that the farmers can now sell their produce to anyone anywhere. APMC mandis will continue to function and will not be closed. Contract farming acts as a form of price assurance and farmers will have income security due to partnership with industry. Then why are the farmers unhappy? The root cause is a growing distrust of the farmers with assurances given by the government as well as some glaring lacunae in the hurriedly enacted laws. Before coming into power, the 2014 manifesto of the ruling party had promised implementation of the 2006 report of the National Commission of Farmers headed by Dr MS Swaminathan, which had recommended that the MSP should be at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production. The non-implementation of this recommendation was a long-standing grievance of the farming community and the measly 2.6 per cent increase in MSP for Rabi wheat added fuel to the fire. The Modi government had also grandiosely announced in 2017 to double farmers’ income in 5 years by 2022. After three years, it seems like a pipedream. The farmers also fear that the path of so called ‘market reforms’ on which the government has embarked, will inevitably lead to pruning down of PDS system and revisiting of MSP policy as recommended by the Shanta Kumar Committee. Although the government has repeatedly assured that MSP will stay, farmers now demand it to be written into a law. In fact in 2011, when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat, a committee headed by him had recommended that MSP should be a legal right. It is to be noted that none of the new farm laws makes any mention of MSP.