Why Are Farm Bills Opposed?

Hostility is based on a discredited economic model that upholds vested interests

- Krishnamurthy Subramanian

The opposition to the seminal reforms in agriculture is based on a discredited economic model that undermines the benefits of competitive markets – a model relying on the misguided tryst with socialism that never delivered India’s tryst with destiny. To understand how this discredited model cost India four decades of economic prosperity, it is crucial to study the 2,000-year economic history documented by Angus Maddison.

From being the economy that contributed over one-third of global GDP for three-quarters of known economic history, India lost its pole position because of the undermining of markets – first under British rule and then through our misguided tryst with socialism. As the Economic Survey 2019-20 demonstrated using a plethora of carefully constructed evidence, India’s historic pole position was achieved by marrying the invisible hand of markets with the hand of trust that, in turn, drew its vitality from India’s spiritual traditions.

Since 1991, economic liberalization and reforms by successive governments across the political spectrum – except during the lost decade of 2004-14 – have enabled a return to these core economic principles. That these timeless principles – advocated in as disparate Indian literature as the Arthashastra and the Thirukural – work is seen in the enormous prosperity well-regulated markets have delivered since 1991. Even the Chinese economic miracle is testimony to the role of markets in enabling economic prosperity for citizens.