About turn

About turn

The Government, after facing a year-long national protest, has repealed the farm laws.

Somebody cheekily said the controversial farm laws could go the same way they came in — by the ordinance route. This was after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the constitutional process will be followed to repeal the laws in the upcoming session of Parliament. Yes, there is nothing unconstitutional about an ordinance but what it does is shortcircuit the democratic and legislative process of bringing in law or facilitating its exit. Had the process been followed, perhaps the decision to repeal the laws could have been avoided. The Prime Minister chose the occasion of Gurpurab to tell the nation, and the protesting farmers in particular, that his Government was repealing the laws. He said that though the laws were enacted for the benefit of the farmers, the Government failed to convince a section of them. Parliament passed the laws last September. The farmers did not like the laws. They gave myriad reasons. Their talks with the Government failed. They moved the courts and began a national protest symbolised by a year-long sit-in on the borders of Delhi. Hundreds of them died during the protests. They faced police ire in Haryana and Delhi and political anger in Lakhimpur Kheri. Their patriotism was called into question, with them even being called Khalistani. Bringing in agricultural reforms in a predominantly agricultural country is an onerous task. Farmers constitute the biggest single vote bank. The sector is the backbone of the economy.

Any changes in the mode of farming or handling produce have societal implications. This is reason enough for such a reform to pass people’s scrutiny before becoming law. So much so, the Supreme Court, which ordered a stay on the implementation of the laws this January, did not act on the report of a committee it appointed on resolving the farm laws controversy. A committee member even wrote to the Chief Justice, saying there was no point in keeping the report in cold storage while the protests raged. The apex court perhaps thought it fit to allow the Executive and Legislature to handle the matter as it primarily falls in their domain. The Government will address the agriculture reforms issue once again in the coming days. The hasty ordinance route can be avoided and the Bills must first be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny and then debated in both Houses. Of late, it has become a norm of sorts for Parliament to focus only on debating laws before passage because that is what Parliament rules say. There is no practice of Bills being first mandatorily referred to parliamentary committees. As a result, very few Bills are referred and most legislative proposals fail to get full parliamentary attention. Members debate the Bills without the benefit of a comparative study of the Government’s proposals and the committees’ recommendations. That is what happened with the three farm laws, too, and the result is there for all to see. It’s time to restore the sanctity of law-making.