September 29, 2026 • 52 mins
For several months, India has been in the grip of massive farm protests as millions gather to demonstrate against a series of controversial reforms collectively known as the Farm Bills. These bills, in theory, are meant to address problems with India's current agricultural system -- but a large percentage of India's farmers fear these new laws will only make their lives more difficult. Some even believe the Farm Bills are part of a conspiracy to sacrifice the livelihood of farmers for the profits of large businesses. On the other side of the protest line, members of the domestic media believe the protests themselves are a conspiracy designed to further the aims of separatist groups with ulterior motives. So which, if any, of these conspiracies are true? Tune in and learn more in the first part of this two-part episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realists, we are returning to you with a
classic episode.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is one of.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Our earlier two-parters. Back in 2021, as the world was
dealing with so many things, we cast our gaze to
our fellow listeners in India who reported firsthand about massive
farm protests. You guys remember this one?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Oh, yeah. This is.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
It's really interesting because this series of episodes came out
in April of 2021, which was kind of mid this
whole situation. So as you're listening to these, you're kind
of getting an up to date all the way to April.
But then you should know that it continues on. So
listen to this episode. Then we'll give you even more
(00:50):
information in the second one. And then I think it'll
be really interesting to see how it all played out.
And we'll tell you how to find links for that
and search for that. During episode two. For sure.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
So what do you say we roll the tape on
part one of this two-part series?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Ball Mission Control Deccans.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You are here.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
That makes this Stuff They Don't Want You To Know.
As we record today, India is awash in a series
of enormous protests in multiple places with multiple groups participating,
particularly farmers' unions. You may have heard some stuff in
(02:06):
the news about the farmer protest in India. You may
have also heard us talk about it on previous Strange
News and Listener Mail segments. As we begin, we'd like
to thank the many, many listeners who reached out to
us through the show or reached out personally to give
us at times conflicting perspectives on this continuing situation. Because
(02:31):
according to some sources here, there's more to the protest
than you might think. And Matt, Noel, I think it's
safe to say a lot of people in the West
aren't maybe read a couple of headlines, but aren't totally
aware of the situation.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Would you agree?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, I would fully agree.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
And a lot of that has to do with it
being a kind of difficult topic to parse through. There
are a lot of places and organizations and rules that
exist that just don't exist within a lot of our frameworks, right?
So then you have to do a lot of educating
(03:12):
yourself about Man, come on, man.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Don't do it to me. No, but.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
As an individual, there's a lot of learning you have
to do to even really digest what's going on. Even
an outlet like the BBC, when they're going through and
trying to explain exactly what's going on, it feels a
bit difficult because there's just so much to get through.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
And honestly, we heard, all three of us heard from
a listener who suggested this topic in the first place,
and we did cover this in a much more condensed
kind of quick hits, you know, introducing some of the
terms and main players version in a listener mail episode.
But that listener did write back and say that, you know,
they thought that we basically got the gist of it.
(03:57):
So obviously this is a deeper dive into that topic.
And I think this might even make for a two parter, right?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Right, that's correct. As I was going to say, this
is going to be a two-parter. I want to thank
everybody who reached out. Past our initial listener, there were
a lot of people I reached out to personally online
via social media to get a better take because you'll
recall when we talked about this in our previous Strange
(04:27):
News and Listener Mail segments, we did explicitly ask for
some perspective from people on the ground or people who
had family members living in India or even participating in
the protest and fellow conspiracy realist, uh, you delivered and
not everyone agreed. Uh, not everyone I spoke with at
(04:48):
least agreed on the ultimate motive of the protest, the
origin and the, what might happen in the future. And
that makes sense because this is so complex. This, um,
This is occurring in a country with ancient, ancient history, right?
(05:08):
And as we'll see, this may also rope in other
nearby countries that come with their own complex historical baggage
with India. That's one way to put it. But I
love the point about just how fundamentally different and unfamiliar
(05:29):
this situation may seem to a lot of people. In
the West, when we're talking about farmers, you may immediately
have some, depending on which country you live in, you
may immediately have some image that pops in your mind, right?
Somebody in overalls, they got a John Deere tractor. You
know what I mean? They're like getting up and they're
(05:51):
getting up before the sun. And then, you know, there's
a moment on a lazy Saturday afternoon where they look
out over fields of grain and they think, you know,
this is the life. That stereotype might be true for
some places, right? Maybe parts of Midwest United States, but
it's not true all around the world. So when we
(06:11):
talk about the protest, we first have to learn about
what it is like to be a farmer in India.
So here are the facts.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Okay, so the farming industry in India is absolutely massive.
The Economist has a report indicating that nearly 60% of
all Indian citizens depend on agriculture for their income. And
that's 58% of the people in a country with a
1.3 billion population. So this is an incredibly staggering number
(06:44):
of people that depend on this industry. And anything that
affects farming has a direct day-to-day impact on the lives
of these people and therefore the country as a whole. And,
you know, there's this legacy that's been over 50 years
running of Indian farmers selling only in these state-controlled wholesale
(07:07):
markets that are, you know, absolutely regulated and monitored by
the government. But they're not able to sell directly to buyers.
And this makes for kind of an interesting situation.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
This is one of the first places where we can
bring in a vocabulary word. I believe what we're talking
about here, the state-run— areas where you can sell. These
are what are referred to as mandis. So that's something
to keep in mind if we ever mention that again
in the show.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Is that like shorthand for mandatory?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You know, I don't know. That's an interesting question, is M-A-N-D-I-S.
For a somewhat similar U.S. comparison, consider buying a car. Like,
for the longest time, if you wanted a Ford, you
(08:01):
couldn't just write to the Ford company and have them
ship you a car. You had to go to a middleman,
a dealership, right? You know, like, Loco Johnny's, fantastic Ford.
Fiesta outlet. They only sell Ford Fiestas.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
And that arrangement is the only thing that keeps those
dealerships alive. Otherwise, you wouldn't need them, and you would
be able to go directly to the company, which I
think is what's happening with Tesla. I think Tesla owns
and operates its own quote-unquote dealerships that still look like
the traditional dealerships that you're talking about, but a different
model entirely.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Well, and a lot of that was put in place,
at least theoretically, to prevent.
Quick monopolization of something like the manufacturing process to the
selling process to the, you know, even if you go
back further, the gathering of all the materials. So like you,
it was like government mandates or government regulation to prevent
(08:58):
a thing from happening. A lot of times that's why
middlemen get involved.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah. This is meant to, obviously people are against government
regulation in the audience today are going to think this
is a terrible plan, but it comes from theoretically people,
good place so the the idea a lot of the
issues here hinge on something called MSP or minimum sale
(09:23):
price this is a guarantee that is kind of in
some ways it's a safety net or it's kind of
insurance for farmers when they sell particular crops and The
government agencies buy these crops at a promised price to
the farmers, and this MSP cannot be altered. So when
you are growing onions or whatever you're growing, the MSP
(09:49):
in theory means that you will know in advance what
your crop is worth. And this can protect you if
you are in a situation where prices plummet for some
political or environmental reason you're also able to benefit if
in again in theory if prices skyrocket right so you
(10:10):
know you know there's not a cap on how much
you might get but you definitely know there is a
floor so this this is powerful.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
It seems that way, Ben, but just so I understand,
so you definitely aren't locked in at that, it's minimum.
So like you still benefit from the, you know, if
a commodity becomes worth more, but you're never going to
be beholden to, you know, the floor dropping out of
the market.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's the basic idea. According to Makala Krishnamurti
of the Ashoka University, this means that wherever you find
a large number of small sellers, they can be vulnerable
to the actions of larger monopolies. Imagine if we want
(11:00):
to continue this increasingly tricky car analogy, which I hope
I don't regret. Imagine you make rubber. And that is
used in tires. And you don't have a huge rubber empire.
You have like a small area. We make a small
amount of rubber.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
You'll say five hectares worth of rubber plants, trees.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yes, perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's exactly how much rubber we make. And the five
of us on the show today, you listening and Paul
and Noel and Matt and myself, we all live kind
of in the same area. We all have our hectares
of rubber plants. a larger company comes to us and
they say, look, we know that you need to sell
this rubber and we know you want to sell it
(11:46):
for $ 10 per unit or whatever, but we will buy it,
but we'll only give you three bucks. If there was
an MSP law of some sort, then the government would
step in and say, nope, sorry, we'll buy the rubber
and we'll buy it for $ 10 because that's the minimum
(12:06):
price we guaranteed by law. So in theory, this could
be a good thing. But the problem is, over time,
these laws have proved, in one way or another, disappointing
to a ton of people involved. You know, farmers will
say there's a lack of transparency, which is true. They
may say there's collusion amidst different players or stakeholders, which
(12:31):
obviously is going to happen at some point. And they'll
also say there are problems with price-fixing agreements. And then
this leaves them out in the cold financially.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
And under the current system, at least according to numerous
government officials, one in particular who was interviewed by the BBC,
they state that under this regime of laws, the MSP
using Mandy's, and this is me quoting him essentially, but
he was saying that India has been sitting at a 50%
(13:04):
efficiency level essentially with the farming, like what actually gets
produced and what is actually sold compared to what is
being grown.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So like.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
All the crops being grown versus what's actually being sold
and consumed. It's a bit strange, but, but just essentially
it hasn't been working perfectly or at least the way
it was intended to work.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Because it's still like in our, rubber example, we're talking
about a monopsony, not a monopoly, a monopsony, which means
there's only one buyer. So you could level the same
criticism at times at the Mandy system by saying there
is only one buyer and it's the government for the farm.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And technically, both monopolies and monopsonies are illegal because they
can cause huge benefits to a single group or individual,
but really unfair disadvantages to the sellers or the buyers
in the case of a monopoly.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, exactly. So delays in payments can force farmers to
borrow heavily from money lenders. And then this in turn
can create a cycle of debt that becomes at times
impossible to escape. And that is why one of the
primary stated goals of the protesters is debt forgiveness, like
(14:33):
have some of our qualifying debts cleared off the slate.
Either way you look at it, no matter, and we'll
probably say this multiple times in this series, no matter
where you stand personally on the protest, there is no
getting around it. Life is incredibly tough for many, many
(14:54):
farmers in this country. Yes, farming is an absolutely demanding
occupation across the world, no matter what you're growing or
who you are. But making a living this way is
particularly difficult, increasingly difficult for a lot of farmers in India.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, with any farmer, you're at the mercy of the weather. And,
you know, in a lot of places here in the
United States, it's food is grown in places where the
If you look at India, there are quite a few areas,
especially with the amount of land there and the number
(15:36):
of places where food is grown, considering the percentage of
farmers versus other occupations. I think the BBC quoted four
in ten people in India are farmers, essentially. We mentioned
it was like 60% are mostly basing their income on farming,
(15:57):
but like four in 10 are just farmers. But that's
not all they're dealing with. They've got all the kinds
of state and federal regulations. Again, most farmers are dealing
with that, but there are a lot of particularities here
in India that make it different. And the price fluctuates
on various crops a lot. So, I mean, it's not
easy to predict what you're going to be able to make,
(16:19):
what you're going to be able to spend in order
to make money.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And it's also not easy to make a sharp turn
in terms of what you're producing.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
If you if you're.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
If you're like an onion guy and you know that
the onion market might not look that great, it's tough
for you to suddenly say, okay, well, you know what
my thing's going to be now is wheat.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You can't suddenly turn the machine very quickly. And it's
somewhat inaccurate to say onion guy because women are a huge,
huge part of the agricultural system of India and also
have a very small share of land they actually own
by comparison. So that's one of the other factors that
(17:04):
comes into play. Another one is the lack of what
we would call mechanization. There's an economy of scale with farming, right?
Anybody who has started a home garden or something like
that can tell you about this economy of scale and
the machines, the tools and technology they're used in a
(17:26):
lot of modern farming interest. they're not as present for
a lot of farmers in India. And this stymies progress.
It makes you work harder for less, really, is what
it comes down to. And this leads us to a
tragic fact that has to be acknowledged here at the top.
(17:48):
Shocking numbers of farmers have been driven to suicide. And
this was a trend that was occurring recently. Far beyond
the new laws that triggered the protests before the COVID pandemic,
when those laws were pushed through in what is arguably
a conspiracy, India's Economic Times reported that as many as
(18:10):
42,480 farmers and daily wagers took their own lives in 2019.
It was a 6% increase from 2018. So the situation
was already dire for many, many people.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, that's heartbreaking. Well, we're going to take a quick
ad break, and then we're going to come back and
talk a little bit more about these bills and the
conflicts with the interests of these workers and how this
affects their daily lives.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
We're back.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yes, conflict and laws, as Noel said. So in September
of 2020, As the world struggled amid the COVID-19 pandemic,
the government of India initiated what was called the Indian
Agricultural Acts of 2020. Their street name is just the
(19:08):
Farm Bills.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yes, and there's a series of laws or acts, and
so let's go through them one at a time and
kind of break it down. The first act expanded the
scope of trade areas of farmers' produce from these select
areas into to, quote, any place of production, collection, or aggregation.
(19:29):
I know that sounds a little bit dry, but essentially
what we're going to see is these acts are removing
so many of these protections they were talking about and
almost like creating kind of a fend for yourself situation
where in the past they had more support and more, um,
I guess guarantees.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Uh, so in the government itself, that specific part of
this first act is saying that, Oh, well now the
farmer is free to sell their crop to anyone and everyone.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
But it just also means, but we're not going to
be there to help you and help to subsidize you anymore. Um,
Part B of this act allows electronic trading and e-commerce
of scheduled farmers' produce, which also on the surface sounds
potentially positive and like a step toward the future. And
then the third part of the first act prohibits state
(20:23):
governments from levying any market fee, cess, or levy on farmers, traders,
and electronic trading platforms for the trade of farmers' produce
or conducted in a, quote, outside trade area. So it's
just saying, like, we are not going to subsidize the
trades that are outside of our little agreement or those
mandate markets.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And just to be clear, CESS, C-E-S-S, is a synonym for, like,
a tax or a levy or a fine. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And it's really interesting because it's just– it really is–
trying to revolutionize the current system. And what this whole,
our two episodes that we're going to be covering on
this is, does that mean, who does that mean revolutionizing
it for?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yes, we both.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Because that's exactly what's happening here. It's tough because if
you listen to the official statements, it does, it has
this spin to it that feels like, yeah, this is the,
this is feeling good, the.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Right way to go.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
But as we go deeper and deeper into learning about
what this first act does, it seems like there's a
different picture there that's being hidden.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, you're right. And the second act gives what's best
described as a legal framework for farmers to enter into
contracts with buyers directly. These contracts can be prearranged before
the harvest. They can mention pricing. So you can go
directly to... This customer, whomever they may be, without having
(22:04):
to go through this government mandated system, there's a dispute
resolution mechanism. Without getting too much in the weeds, the
third act removes what's called stock holding limits on agricultural items.
So this means that before this act was proposed, there
(22:28):
was There were limits on like how many onions someone
could own. I don't know why I keep going to onions.
Potatoes are in there too.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah, potatoes and onions are two of the main foodstuffs
within India, right?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Indian cooking.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Think about Indian dishes. There's always an onion base. Potatoes
are a huge staple food. In various curries and, you know, dishes.
It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
And by removing the limits on the amount that you
have that you can store, you're really only that's really
only helping any company or farmer or family farm that
can hold massive quantities.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
We'll talk about it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And they do have baked in an exception where they
say a stock limit can be imposed if there is
a steep price rise. But what constitutes a steep price rise?
That's another question.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Oh, hey, really, before we go back in, that in
the second act, there's that thing on the dispute resolution process.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Because that one really is about legal framework overall. It
reminds me a lot of this thing we've discussed on
the show.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Before called arbitration.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I'm assuming we're going to talk about that more, but
it rang very much like that to me as I
was reading through some of it.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, let's talk a little bit about it now, because
arbitration can definitely feel conspiratorial. Arbitration, when you sign something
that has what's called an arbitration clause, you are agreeing
that if you have a problem with any of the
parties cited in a contract, it is not going to
(24:18):
go to court. It is instead going to go to another,
a body of some sort. that will hear what your
beef is and then decide whether they think you're legit
or whether they disagree with you. A lot of arbitrators
(24:39):
and a lot of arbitration clauses get a ton of
criticism because they're seen as crazily biased. Let's say you're
working for.
What's a silly company? You're working for a company that
makes zip lines. You guys remember zip lines from the
outside days?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I remember those. All right, great.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So you work for Big Zip, and you sign this
contract that says if you have a problem with your
relationship with Big Zip or if something comes up, then
instead of going straight to a court, you are required
to go to this arbitration council. So let's say one
day your boss or a co-worker does something egregious. They
(25:26):
are making you feel unsafe, saying weird sexual innuendos at you,
and you're like, hey, I'm just here to make these
zip lines. Cool your jets. And then it becomes untenable.
and you say, okay, I'm going to go to the
Zipline Arbitration Council, and they hear your claim through whatever
process they have, and they come back and they say, nah,
(25:50):
then that means it's a legal dead end for you.
And that's one of the concerns, right? Is that where
we're going, Matt, to the second act?
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, essentially, the way I'm thinking about it is the
system is being set up by the government, the rules
are being put in place by the government in how
things will be disputed. And One of the big problems
with arbitration is that you're in that situation you just described, Ben,
and you want to raise a flag and you want
to tell someone and you want to take action against
(26:18):
this thing. Rather than doing that independently or doing that
with the laws that are in place wherever you are,
where the zip lines are being created, you now have
to do it internally with that organization, essentially. And that's
just what it feels like to me, what the government
is setting up. is kind of an internal way to
(26:41):
settle these disputes. I don't know. Maybe I'm completely wrong
and somebody called me out on it. I got a
whiff of that from this act.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
No, that seems like a reasonable assessment.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, the potential is definitely there. If there isn't a
proven case of this yet, because as we'll find, the
laws are on hold currently. Yeah, be naive to say
that the potential is not there. I mean, some form
of arbitration exists in pretty much every legal system, right?
(27:17):
Every state-level legal system. And that's why the criticism of
this is so prevalent. profound because people have if not
in the case of indian farmers they have seen arbitration
go wrong in numerous industries in numerous countries for decades
and decades so it's it's not somebody just like being
(27:37):
scared of the legislative wind you know uh but people
knew about this stuff before september it only really started
getting international press or press in the u.s uh back
in September of 2020. But in Punjab, people were having
(27:58):
smaller scale protests all the way back in August, because
that's when those bills were made public. And then when
they passed in a very, very, very shady way, forced
through without counting votes, not really consulting the farmers who
would be affected by this. When that happened, the protests
(28:18):
increased kicked into high gear. There was really some octane
added to them. And that's why per reports from trade
unions that instituted a nationwide general strike, they say that
on November 26th, 250 million people participated. And as we
said earlier, that's out of 1.3 billion people, but that's
(28:41):
still a huge chunk. And those weren't all farmers. Those
were a bunch of other union members.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, and this is highly, highly important to this story.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
It was it was made public in August and then
the next month it was passed. And as Ben said, those.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Are trade unions.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
There are like essentially farming unions that needed to be
consulted in order. They should have been consulted in order
for this to become a law. And a lot of
the protest is about that very fact that it was
forced through and it felt forced through. I think we
just didn't mention it before.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
At the top here.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
But the general view of these protests is that the
prime minister himself and those around him are the ones
who made it happen so quickly because.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
They knew it was going to be so unpopular.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Prime Minister Modi, yeah, who was a main character in
this story. I mean, it's a fair question, is it not?
If this bill is so wonderful for me as a farmer,
then why wasn't there a chance for more discussion of it?
You know what I mean? It's like if country's population
(29:55):
was a bunch of chickens and they had elected a
fox and the fox said, I've got this new hen
house policy. It's amazing. You're going to love it. We're
getting rid of all those tiresome fences. Anyway, this is
going to be great for everybody. Don't worry. It's already passed.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Stop being weird. You'll have the freedom to go wherever
you want. Right, right.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And we're going to make bigger doors, too, so that
you don't have to squeeze through.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Them, right?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And that way you can carry a whole nest of
eggs out with you.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
If you have to, you know, in an emergency. It's
for your safety.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
It's for your safety. It's for the greater good, really.
The protests occur in multiple places. So it has some
similarities to here in the U.S. A lot of people
will be thinking of Black Lives Matter protests, maybe earlier
protests like Occupy, which was also in multiple cities. This
(30:55):
occurs in Punjab, in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and more.
We should also note, of course, that we are not
native speakers. So apologies for any unintentional mispronunciation. People marched.
They literally marched to Delhi. once the railway services got
suspended in October. This is a mass movement. This is
(31:19):
not one of those flash in the pan uh, protest, uh,
you know, uh, about a Walmart being built or something. And,
and a ton of people Voltron up together. Like I,
I don't know about you guys, but I had no
idea just how many farm unions exist in India. The
answer is a lot. It's a, it's a lot more
than you thought if you thought there was one.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I mean, it makes sense given the stats we listed
at the top of the show, considering that, what is it? 58%, uh,
in a country of billions, you know, is, are absolutely
directly involved in that industry. I don't doubt that that's
the case.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yeah, a lot of different states, a lot of different areas,
a lot of different products or crops, you know? So
there are a lot of different ways you can have
separate entities that are working with different farmers, different organizations,
different stuff. But yeah, they really did Voltron, man, and they...
did all kinds of stuff that you do in a protest.
And one of the big first things was essentially the
(32:16):
old school civil disobedience. Let's not necessarily, let's not do
anything violent in the beginning. Let's block progress for something small,
like blocking a road or, you know, a border to,
so people, commerce can't continue to happen while we are protesting. Um,
it's like hurt the purse, right? Rather than the person.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And this,
this kind of organization at this level is pretty impressive,
especially when you consider just how diverse the population of
India is, uh, across numerous swaths of demographics. And that'll
come into play later as well. We're we're, I know we're,
we're building up a lot of stuff here. Uh, but we, we,
(33:00):
we want to provide clarity and context. Yeah, they also
held parades, driving convoys of tractors into Delhi. I thought
the tractor convoy was a cool idea. Protesters alleged that
the authorities responded with some pretty brutal tactics, cutting off
access to vital supplies, food, electricity, water, and so on,
(33:24):
and then also creating barricades of their own. to both
reduce the mobility of the protesters or fence them in
wherever they were camping out, and then also to deny
the wrong type of journalist access to speak with these
folks directly. The media is a huge player here. The
(33:46):
media also got conflicted about how to report the protest.
And you can very easily read a lot of things
that if you are just sitting and reading various competing articles,
you might think they're talking about two different protests, two
completely different protests.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, that's very true, especially when you see some of
the footage. And some of it is alarming. We were
talking about the tractors that were being led through. You
can see footage everywhere from the BBC to the Times
of India to other places where– It seems scary with
(34:28):
individuals on tractors driving towards large crowds, pretty scary situations.
You're also going to see tons of government security response,
just dozens and dozens and dozens of people with large
weapons like batons essentially running at crowds and hitting farmers
(34:49):
or at least getting in scuffles with farmers. So there's
definitely a violence that's represented either more or less in
the reporting, depending on how I you can easily slant
to this story is what I'm trying to say. And
you will see, as Ben.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Said, both sides.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
You always have to ask, right, the. The motivations for
a source, are there bad actors? Is there an ulterior motive?
Or are people sincerely telling the truth as they see it?
But there's kind of the lay of the land. So
farmers unions believe these laws will end up destroying the
Mandy system. And they say it will leave farmers, especially smaller,
(35:35):
poorer operations, at the mercy of of large corporate forces,
that this will further enrich the powerful while passing the
cost of change onto the disadvantaged. Tale as old as time,
you know what I mean? Not to be too beauty
and the beast about it, but it wouldn't be a
sudden plot twist for humanity if that were the case, right?
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Some of these visuals, and then as they're being described
of like, you know, anti-protest kind of almost like goons,
you know, with batons or whatever, beating these people down,
makes me think of like, boss tweed union busting type scenarios,
you know, from days of your here in America. But
(36:15):
it's not that far off. I mean, there is it's
a different system. There's different elements at play and there's
different stakeholders. But at the end of the day, it's about,
you know, taking advantage of the working class and not
giving them the protections that something like a union or
these government contracts affords.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's exactly what the supporters of the protests would clearly argue.
You know what I mean? Big Pinkerton energy right now
in these protests and the way people are cracking down.
We should mention you can read the full list of
demands of the protesters, which was sent to the government
back in December. It's pretty easy to find. Just search
(36:56):
on your browser of choice. That's another difference between this
and Some earlier protests like the Occupy movement, which critics
alleged did not have a focused list of demands, which
is very important in these kind of protests.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah. And one of the big, I guess, blanket demands
is repeal these three laws. You'll hear that repeated over
and over and over again when interviews with individual protesters.
If you repeal these laws, we'll be gone. We'll be
out of here. But it's not that easy. It's never
just that easy. Should we get into the pros and cons,
(37:31):
or do we want to do that later, maybe after
we take a quick break or something?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, let's pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then let's pro some stuff and let's con some stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
And we're back, Ben.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
I don't know if anybody else is feeling this way,
but big Pinkerton energy is my new favorite thing. And
is that something you came up with or have you
heard that before?
Speaker 5 (37:59):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
You need to TM that, put it on a t-shirt,
big Pinkerton energy.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Like, Whoa, bro. That's some big Pinkerton energy. Ooh, bus unions.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh boy. Uh, Yeah, it's weird that we have not
done an episode on the Pinkertons in this show, but
they're one of those phantom topics that shows up a lot.
So for anybody who doesn't know, the comparison we're making
is to the world's first private detective agency that was also,
and I think we talked about this a little bit
(38:33):
on Ridiculous History, right, Noel? They were also instrumental in
a lot of dastardly events.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Well, they're kind of the first extra government agency Entity,
you know, like Blackwater and things like that. And they
really represent this like, you know, extension of government activities
without actually having to follow the laws of governments, you know,
and have plausible deniability or whatever, which is why, you know,
they were employed for those kind of things because they
(39:01):
were they were able to be kept at arm's length
so that the government or whomever their agents were could
could kind of distance themselves.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And, you know, there were some there were some people
who did amazing work in the Pinkerton organization, like Kate Warren,
who was the first, I think, female detective of the Pinkertons,
her first female. She's known as the first female detective.
And she she. protected, was it President Abraham Lincoln with
(39:34):
her life? There are heroic stories, but when we're talking
about big Pinkerton energy, we're talking about the bad stuff.
We're talking about exactly what Noel described, which is circumventing
regulations and laws in a way that allows for plausible
deniability on the side of the people who should be
(39:55):
obeying the law. Anyway, that's what the protesters are saying.
If we look at the pros and cons here, then
we know one of the pros is that the idea,
one of the pros for people who support these bills
is the concept of freedom of choice. I don't have
(40:17):
to just sell to this government entity. I can sell
to whomever I please. So that's tricky because freedom of
choice is one of those words or one of those
phrases that gets thrown around a lot because it sounds
good as a talking point. Like here in the U.S.,
(40:40):
I don't know if we ever talked about this, but
here in the U.S., There was a huge hubbub when ISPs,
Internet Service Providers, and the FCC were getting into it,
into what can be regulated, how pricing works, etc. And
a couple of Internet providers in the U.S., there aren't
(41:04):
a ton of them, a couple of the big ones, slashed,
I think they increased what people paid for the amount
of Internet speed they got. And all the while, it
was being advertised as responding to the consumer's demand for
freedom of choice. I love the nod there, Matt.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah. Sorry. I'm nodding for YouTube.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
It's sort of the same way that like the big
polluter shifted the burden of pollution onto the consumer with
these ad campaigns for recycle, reduce, reuse and all that,
you know?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Like, hey, we are we are giving you the power.
The power is yours. Also, all our mistakes are now
your fault.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yep. Yep.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
We're going to keep doing exactly what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Should we keep going down the pros or give a
con for every pro to keep it balanced?
Speaker 3 (41:56):
How do you want to do this, guys?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Well, let's back and forth with it because one thing
that we should be clear about is the minimum sale
price guarantee. It's a huge issue that gets brought up
pretty often, but a couple of estimates suggest that only
(42:18):
about 6% of farmers are really enjoying the benefits of
that system. So there's a question about how effective the
current system is. Nobody is saying it's perfect, by the way.
It has disappointed everybody at some point. So you can
find other bite-sized facts. You can find the pros and
(42:41):
cons listed aplenty, but be very careful where you read
those pros and cons because some people do have a
horse in the race in their reporting. You can very
easily get into the weeds of the bureaucratic process of
the system as it stands. But I think maybe the
best way for us to get a sense of the
(43:02):
conflict here is to read the farmers' demands themselves, which
are easily available.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Absolutely, because we read the laws, right? Essentially, we read
the main parts of the laws. Let's tell you exactly
what the farmers are demanding. We'll just go down the
list here. Number one is, as we said, roll back
all of the legislation that just went through, those three mandates,
those three laws, right? The second one is to make
sure that this Mandy system that is in place right
(43:31):
now or has been in place historically for quite a
while remains.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
Also, they demand that their loans be cleared and also
that a law should be made for minimum support price
to be at least 50% more than the weighted average
cost of production. And if that MSP or minimum support
price is not paid... It should be a punishable crime.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
This feels like a very basic thing. Pay us what
you owe.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Us, right?
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah. But, you know, right after, also clear all our
loans that we've taken out.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Right, right.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Which is like, you know, to me feels a bit
like a poison pill because it– that's just my opinion.
When you put something in like that, which you're just
imagining all of the money involved with clearing all the loans–
that are currently out for agricultural purposes in India.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
It just doesn't seem possible, right?
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Yeah. But the idea there is that those, that third
and fourth demand are connected because they would argue maybe
they only had that debt in the first place because
they were not getting paid. So there's some, there's some,
what's that song? There's some better have my money vibes
for sure. Shout out to Rihanna, who will make an
(44:50):
appearance in this series. It's a cameo we're setting up.
It's about time.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Believe us.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
The last of the big five demands is that a
law should be put in place that guarantees payment from
the buyers through middlemen to ensure that banks don't take
a little piece of the money in the name of
loan recovery. You know what I mean? Like the way
the IRS might garnish someone's wages. They said, okay, stop
(45:20):
getting a VIG, banks. Those are their demands. I like
what you say about poison pill because it may indeed
be a deal breaker there.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
I have to be slight devil's advocate because isn't that
money that the banks take, doesn't that have to do
with paying off current loans or paying off current debts?
Speaker 5 (45:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah. Like a garnishment almost. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
That's what you said.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
I just– Like I can imagine, ah, man, I don't
want to be on the side of banks, Jesus. Or,
you know, like big government coming through and making regulations
that make it harder for everybody. But I can understand
why they're doing that and why those interests are very powerful, right,
to push forward this legislation.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
You can see that happening.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Totally. I mean, you know, when we look at what
these opposing sides want, we see understandable things. From the
government's perspective, and to be fair, the perspective of some
other farmers unions in India, not a ton, but some
of them, these bills are at the very least a good,
(46:32):
if imperfect, first step in fixing an admittedly imperfect system.
But from the farmers' perspective, from a lot of farmers' perspectives,
these bills will have the opposite effect. They're saying, we're
going to have to negotiate corporate sharks from a massively
weakened position. And these big companies are going to be
(46:53):
able to come to us and dictate the terms of
any given deal. So instead of someone protecting us with
our $ 10 minimum price for rubber, right, we will be
at the mercy of however these companies feel on that
given day. If they feel in a good mood, maybe
we get $ 10. If they don't, maybe we get $ 3.
(47:16):
We have lost the ability to predict what will happen
in the future. But there's one more group in the
conversation here, or one more genre of group. As these
protests continue, at times turning deadly, some folks in India
and abroad believe there's more to the story. They believe
(47:36):
that when it comes to the protest, there's something the protesters,
or maybe the government, doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And when we.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Return in part two, we might have a quick hear
of the facts, but it's going to get very crazy very,
very soon. We're going to be talking about the allegations
of a, my favorite phrase in the entirety of our research,
a hidden calistiny hand. I love it. Big, big conspiracy
(48:06):
energy there. We're also going to talk about authoritarian concerns.
and we're going to talk about a war for hearts
and minds online. Uh, this, this is going to be
a crazy journey. I think it was the right thing
to make this a two-parter.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 5 (48:21):
I completely agree. Cause like we said at the top,
even like with the surfacy scratch we did on that, uh, uh,
listener mail episode, it really took a whole episode to
fully define all these terms and even wrap our heads
around it. So by the time you're in episode two,
we're getting, you're going to be fully armed to take this, uh,
very real and very current and evolving issue on.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
This is how it's going to go in part two.
Ben's going to say, here are the facts. And then
I'm going to say, listen to part one. And then
Ben's going to say, here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Oh boy. Yeah. And in the interim, of course, we,
we want to hear from you. You know, we're very cognizant.
We are very aware of the fact that we are,
we are not native speakers. We are outsiders. We have,
We have learned what we know through reading and through
conversation with the best part of our show, your fellow listeners.
(49:17):
So please reach out to us. with your thoughts on
this protest and how it's being reported. Please let us
know about, of course, other pieces of news in your
neck of the global woods, because a lot of these
stories aren't making it to the West in a comprehensive way.
(49:38):
And in that lack of transparency, of course, speculation will
always thrive. We try to be easy to find online,
for now at least, until the Pinkertons get us.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we
are Conspiracy Stuff. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. You
can also follow us as Individual Human People if you wish.
You can find me on Instagram at HowNowNoelBrown.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
You can find me on Twitter at Ben Bolin HSW
if you'd like to write to me directly or You
can also observe me having various misadventures on Instagram, which
I have named in a burst of creativity at Ben Bolin, B-O-W-L-I-N. Matt,
is this one of the episodes where you disclose? Your
(50:23):
personal social media?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
Behind me, there is a djembe drum that is illuminated.
And if you can visualize that in your mind to
a sharp enough level, you can commune with me at
any time.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
It's sitting right here.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
It is a vessel for spiritual contact. So please reach
out to me via djembe whenever you get a chance.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
That's the best way.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
The only way to fly.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Mm-hmm. You're way faster with Jinbei than you are with text.
I will admit that.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
It just resonates, and immediately I'm like, huh?
Speaker 5 (50:56):
What was that?
Speaker 3 (50:57):
And then, yeah, we have a conversation.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
And speaking of conversations, if you're not someone who sips
the social meads, why not give us a call directly?
We have a phone number.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
It's 1-833-STDWYTK. If you choose to call, you will hear
Ben's voice. let's call them ominous tones. As he tells you,
you can turn back or leave a voicemail. And when
you finish telling us your name, please leave a message.
Keep it as brief as you possibly can. If you
(51:29):
want to leave anything specifically for us, people who make
this show, put it right at the end of the message.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
You've got three minutes.
Speaker 4 (51:36):
If you want to tell us something that's longer than that,
you think, well, put it in an email.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
We still have one of those.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realists, we are returning to you with a
classic episode.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is one of.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Our earlier two-parters. Back in 2021, as the world was
dealing with so many things, we cast our gaze to
our fellow listeners in India who reported firsthand about massive
farm protests. You guys remember this one?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Oh, yeah. This is.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
It's really interesting because this series of episodes came out
in April of 2021, which was kind of mid this
whole situation. So as you're listening to these, you're kind
of getting an up to date all the way to April.
But then you should know that it continues on. So
listen to this episode. Then we'll give you even more
(00:50):
information in the second one. And then I think it'll
be really interesting to see how it all played out.
And we'll tell you how to find links for that
and search for that. During episode two. For sure.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
So what do you say we roll the tape on
part one of this two-part series?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Ball Mission Control Deccans.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You are here.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
That makes this Stuff They Don't Want You To Know.
As we record today, India is awash in a series
of enormous protests in multiple places with multiple groups participating,
particularly farmers' unions. You may have heard some stuff in
(02:06):
the news about the farmer protest in India. You may
have also heard us talk about it on previous Strange
News and Listener Mail segments. As we begin, we'd like
to thank the many, many listeners who reached out to
us through the show or reached out personally to give
us at times conflicting perspectives on this continuing situation. Because
(02:31):
according to some sources here, there's more to the protest
than you might think. And Matt, Noel, I think it's
safe to say a lot of people in the West
aren't maybe read a couple of headlines, but aren't totally
aware of the situation.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Would you agree?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, I would fully agree.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
And a lot of that has to do with it
being a kind of difficult topic to parse through. There
are a lot of places and organizations and rules that
exist that just don't exist within a lot of our frameworks, right?
So then you have to do a lot of educating
(03:12):
yourself about Man, come on, man.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Don't do it to me. No, but.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
As an individual, there's a lot of learning you have
to do to even really digest what's going on. Even
an outlet like the BBC, when they're going through and
trying to explain exactly what's going on, it feels a
bit difficult because there's just so much to get through.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
And honestly, we heard, all three of us heard from
a listener who suggested this topic in the first place,
and we did cover this in a much more condensed
kind of quick hits, you know, introducing some of the
terms and main players version in a listener mail episode.
But that listener did write back and say that, you know,
they thought that we basically got the gist of it.
(03:57):
So obviously this is a deeper dive into that topic.
And I think this might even make for a two parter, right?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Right, that's correct. As I was going to say, this
is going to be a two-parter. I want to thank
everybody who reached out. Past our initial listener, there were
a lot of people I reached out to personally online
via social media to get a better take because you'll
recall when we talked about this in our previous Strange
(04:27):
News and Listener Mail segments, we did explicitly ask for
some perspective from people on the ground or people who
had family members living in India or even participating in
the protest and fellow conspiracy realist, uh, you delivered and
not everyone agreed. Uh, not everyone I spoke with at
(04:48):
least agreed on the ultimate motive of the protest, the
origin and the, what might happen in the future. And
that makes sense because this is so complex. This, um,
This is occurring in a country with ancient, ancient history, right?
(05:08):
And as we'll see, this may also rope in other
nearby countries that come with their own complex historical baggage
with India. That's one way to put it. But I
love the point about just how fundamentally different and unfamiliar
(05:29):
this situation may seem to a lot of people. In
the West, when we're talking about farmers, you may immediately
have some, depending on which country you live in, you
may immediately have some image that pops in your mind, right?
Somebody in overalls, they got a John Deere tractor. You
know what I mean? They're like getting up and they're
(05:51):
getting up before the sun. And then, you know, there's
a moment on a lazy Saturday afternoon where they look
out over fields of grain and they think, you know,
this is the life. That stereotype might be true for
some places, right? Maybe parts of Midwest United States, but
it's not true all around the world. So when we
(06:11):
talk about the protest, we first have to learn about
what it is like to be a farmer in India.
So here are the facts.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Okay, so the farming industry in India is absolutely massive.
The Economist has a report indicating that nearly 60% of
all Indian citizens depend on agriculture for their income. And
that's 58% of the people in a country with a
1.3 billion population. So this is an incredibly staggering number
(06:44):
of people that depend on this industry. And anything that
affects farming has a direct day-to-day impact on the lives
of these people and therefore the country as a whole. And,
you know, there's this legacy that's been over 50 years
running of Indian farmers selling only in these state-controlled wholesale
(07:07):
markets that are, you know, absolutely regulated and monitored by
the government. But they're not able to sell directly to buyers.
And this makes for kind of an interesting situation.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
This is one of the first places where we can
bring in a vocabulary word. I believe what we're talking
about here, the state-run— areas where you can sell. These
are what are referred to as mandis. So that's something
to keep in mind if we ever mention that again
in the show.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Is that like shorthand for mandatory?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You know, I don't know. That's an interesting question, is M-A-N-D-I-S.
For a somewhat similar U.S. comparison, consider buying a car. Like,
for the longest time, if you wanted a Ford, you
(08:01):
couldn't just write to the Ford company and have them
ship you a car. You had to go to a middleman,
a dealership, right? You know, like, Loco Johnny's, fantastic Ford.
Fiesta outlet. They only sell Ford Fiestas.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
And that arrangement is the only thing that keeps those
dealerships alive. Otherwise, you wouldn't need them, and you would
be able to go directly to the company, which I
think is what's happening with Tesla. I think Tesla owns
and operates its own quote-unquote dealerships that still look like
the traditional dealerships that you're talking about, but a different
model entirely.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Well, and a lot of that was put in place,
at least theoretically, to prevent.
Quick monopolization of something like the manufacturing process to the
selling process to the, you know, even if you go
back further, the gathering of all the materials. So like you,
it was like government mandates or government regulation to prevent
(08:58):
a thing from happening. A lot of times that's why
middlemen get involved.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah. This is meant to, obviously people are against government
regulation in the audience today are going to think this
is a terrible plan, but it comes from theoretically people,
good place so the the idea a lot of the
issues here hinge on something called MSP or minimum sale
(09:23):
price this is a guarantee that is kind of in
some ways it's a safety net or it's kind of
insurance for farmers when they sell particular crops and The
government agencies buy these crops at a promised price to
the farmers, and this MSP cannot be altered. So when
you are growing onions or whatever you're growing, the MSP
(09:49):
in theory means that you will know in advance what
your crop is worth. And this can protect you if
you are in a situation where prices plummet for some
political or environmental reason you're also able to benefit if
in again in theory if prices skyrocket right so you
(10:10):
know you know there's not a cap on how much
you might get but you definitely know there is a
floor so this this is powerful.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
It seems that way, Ben, but just so I understand,
so you definitely aren't locked in at that, it's minimum.
So like you still benefit from the, you know, if
a commodity becomes worth more, but you're never going to
be beholden to, you know, the floor dropping out of
the market.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's the basic idea. According to Makala Krishnamurti
of the Ashoka University, this means that wherever you find
a large number of small sellers, they can be vulnerable
to the actions of larger monopolies. Imagine if we want
(11:00):
to continue this increasingly tricky car analogy, which I hope
I don't regret. Imagine you make rubber. And that is
used in tires. And you don't have a huge rubber empire.
You have like a small area. We make a small
amount of rubber.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
You'll say five hectares worth of rubber plants, trees.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yes, perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's exactly how much rubber we make. And the five
of us on the show today, you listening and Paul
and Noel and Matt and myself, we all live kind
of in the same area. We all have our hectares
of rubber plants. a larger company comes to us and
they say, look, we know that you need to sell
this rubber and we know you want to sell it
(11:46):
for $ 10 per unit or whatever, but we will buy it,
but we'll only give you three bucks. If there was
an MSP law of some sort, then the government would
step in and say, nope, sorry, we'll buy the rubber
and we'll buy it for $ 10 because that's the minimum
(12:06):
price we guaranteed by law. So in theory, this could
be a good thing. But the problem is, over time,
these laws have proved, in one way or another, disappointing
to a ton of people involved. You know, farmers will
say there's a lack of transparency, which is true. They
may say there's collusion amidst different players or stakeholders, which
(12:31):
obviously is going to happen at some point. And they'll
also say there are problems with price-fixing agreements. And then
this leaves them out in the cold financially.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
And under the current system, at least according to numerous
government officials, one in particular who was interviewed by the BBC,
they state that under this regime of laws, the MSP
using Mandy's, and this is me quoting him essentially, but
he was saying that India has been sitting at a 50%
(13:04):
efficiency level essentially with the farming, like what actually gets
produced and what is actually sold compared to what is
being grown.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So like.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
All the crops being grown versus what's actually being sold
and consumed. It's a bit strange, but, but just essentially
it hasn't been working perfectly or at least the way
it was intended to work.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Because it's still like in our, rubber example, we're talking
about a monopsony, not a monopoly, a monopsony, which means
there's only one buyer. So you could level the same
criticism at times at the Mandy system by saying there
is only one buyer and it's the government for the farm.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And technically, both monopolies and monopsonies are illegal because they
can cause huge benefits to a single group or individual,
but really unfair disadvantages to the sellers or the buyers
in the case of a monopoly.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, exactly. So delays in payments can force farmers to
borrow heavily from money lenders. And then this in turn
can create a cycle of debt that becomes at times
impossible to escape. And that is why one of the
primary stated goals of the protesters is debt forgiveness, like
(14:33):
have some of our qualifying debts cleared off the slate.
Either way you look at it, no matter, and we'll
probably say this multiple times in this series, no matter
where you stand personally on the protest, there is no
getting around it. Life is incredibly tough for many, many
(14:54):
farmers in this country. Yes, farming is an absolutely demanding
occupation across the world, no matter what you're growing or
who you are. But making a living this way is
particularly difficult, increasingly difficult for a lot of farmers in India.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, with any farmer, you're at the mercy of the weather. And,
you know, in a lot of places here in the
United States, it's food is grown in places where the
If you look at India, there are quite a few areas,
especially with the amount of land there and the number
(15:36):
of places where food is grown, considering the percentage of
farmers versus other occupations. I think the BBC quoted four
in ten people in India are farmers, essentially. We mentioned
it was like 60% are mostly basing their income on farming,
(15:57):
but like four in 10 are just farmers. But that's
not all they're dealing with. They've got all the kinds
of state and federal regulations. Again, most farmers are dealing
with that, but there are a lot of particularities here
in India that make it different. And the price fluctuates
on various crops a lot. So, I mean, it's not
easy to predict what you're going to be able to make,
(16:19):
what you're going to be able to spend in order
to make money.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And it's also not easy to make a sharp turn
in terms of what you're producing.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
If you if you're.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
If you're like an onion guy and you know that
the onion market might not look that great, it's tough
for you to suddenly say, okay, well, you know what
my thing's going to be now is wheat.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You can't suddenly turn the machine very quickly. And it's
somewhat inaccurate to say onion guy because women are a huge,
huge part of the agricultural system of India and also
have a very small share of land they actually own
by comparison. So that's one of the other factors that
(17:04):
comes into play. Another one is the lack of what
we would call mechanization. There's an economy of scale with farming, right?
Anybody who has started a home garden or something like
that can tell you about this economy of scale and
the machines, the tools and technology they're used in a
(17:26):
lot of modern farming interest. they're not as present for
a lot of farmers in India. And this stymies progress.
It makes you work harder for less, really, is what
it comes down to. And this leads us to a
tragic fact that has to be acknowledged here at the top.
(17:48):
Shocking numbers of farmers have been driven to suicide. And
this was a trend that was occurring recently. Far beyond
the new laws that triggered the protests before the COVID pandemic,
when those laws were pushed through in what is arguably
a conspiracy, India's Economic Times reported that as many as
(18:10):
42,480 farmers and daily wagers took their own lives in 2019.
It was a 6% increase from 2018. So the situation
was already dire for many, many people.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, that's heartbreaking. Well, we're going to take a quick
ad break, and then we're going to come back and
talk a little bit more about these bills and the
conflicts with the interests of these workers and how this
affects their daily lives.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
We're back.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yes, conflict and laws, as Noel said. So in September
of 2020, As the world struggled amid the COVID-19 pandemic,
the government of India initiated what was called the Indian
Agricultural Acts of 2020. Their street name is just the
(19:08):
Farm Bills.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yes, and there's a series of laws or acts, and
so let's go through them one at a time and
kind of break it down. The first act expanded the
scope of trade areas of farmers' produce from these select
areas into to, quote, any place of production, collection, or aggregation.
(19:29):
I know that sounds a little bit dry, but essentially
what we're going to see is these acts are removing
so many of these protections they were talking about and
almost like creating kind of a fend for yourself situation
where in the past they had more support and more, um,
I guess guarantees.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Uh, so in the government itself, that specific part of
this first act is saying that, Oh, well now the
farmer is free to sell their crop to anyone and everyone.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
But it just also means, but we're not going to
be there to help you and help to subsidize you anymore. Um,
Part B of this act allows electronic trading and e-commerce
of scheduled farmers' produce, which also on the surface sounds
potentially positive and like a step toward the future. And
then the third part of the first act prohibits state
(20:23):
governments from levying any market fee, cess, or levy on farmers, traders,
and electronic trading platforms for the trade of farmers' produce
or conducted in a, quote, outside trade area. So it's
just saying, like, we are not going to subsidize the
trades that are outside of our little agreement or those
mandate markets.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And just to be clear, CESS, C-E-S-S, is a synonym for, like,
a tax or a levy or a fine. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And it's really interesting because it's just– it really is–
trying to revolutionize the current system. And what this whole,
our two episodes that we're going to be covering on
this is, does that mean, who does that mean revolutionizing
it for?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yes, we both.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Because that's exactly what's happening here. It's tough because if
you listen to the official statements, it does, it has
this spin to it that feels like, yeah, this is the,
this is feeling good, the.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Right way to go.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
But as we go deeper and deeper into learning about
what this first act does, it seems like there's a
different picture there that's being hidden.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, you're right. And the second act gives what's best
described as a legal framework for farmers to enter into
contracts with buyers directly. These contracts can be prearranged before
the harvest. They can mention pricing. So you can go
directly to... This customer, whomever they may be, without having
(22:04):
to go through this government mandated system, there's a dispute
resolution mechanism. Without getting too much in the weeds, the
third act removes what's called stock holding limits on agricultural items.
So this means that before this act was proposed, there
(22:28):
was There were limits on like how many onions someone
could own. I don't know why I keep going to onions.
Potatoes are in there too.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah, potatoes and onions are two of the main foodstuffs
within India, right?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Indian cooking.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Think about Indian dishes. There's always an onion base. Potatoes
are a huge staple food. In various curries and, you know, dishes.
It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
And by removing the limits on the amount that you
have that you can store, you're really only that's really
only helping any company or farmer or family farm that
can hold massive quantities.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
We'll talk about it.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And they do have baked in an exception where they
say a stock limit can be imposed if there is
a steep price rise. But what constitutes a steep price rise?
That's another question.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Oh, hey, really, before we go back in, that in
the second act, there's that thing on the dispute resolution process.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Because that one really is about legal framework overall. It
reminds me a lot of this thing we've discussed on
the show.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Before called arbitration.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I'm assuming we're going to talk about that more, but
it rang very much like that to me as I
was reading through some of it.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, let's talk a little bit about it now, because
arbitration can definitely feel conspiratorial. Arbitration, when you sign something
that has what's called an arbitration clause, you are agreeing
that if you have a problem with any of the
parties cited in a contract, it is not going to
(24:18):
go to court. It is instead going to go to another,
a body of some sort. that will hear what your
beef is and then decide whether they think you're legit
or whether they disagree with you. A lot of arbitrators
(24:39):
and a lot of arbitration clauses get a ton of
criticism because they're seen as crazily biased. Let's say you're
working for.
What's a silly company? You're working for a company that
makes zip lines. You guys remember zip lines from the
outside days?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I remember those. All right, great.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So you work for Big Zip, and you sign this
contract that says if you have a problem with your
relationship with Big Zip or if something comes up, then
instead of going straight to a court, you are required
to go to this arbitration council. So let's say one
day your boss or a co-worker does something egregious. They
(25:26):
are making you feel unsafe, saying weird sexual innuendos at you,
and you're like, hey, I'm just here to make these
zip lines. Cool your jets. And then it becomes untenable.
and you say, okay, I'm going to go to the
Zipline Arbitration Council, and they hear your claim through whatever
process they have, and they come back and they say, nah,
(25:50):
then that means it's a legal dead end for you.
And that's one of the concerns, right? Is that where
we're going, Matt, to the second act?
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, essentially, the way I'm thinking about it is the
system is being set up by the government, the rules
are being put in place by the government in how
things will be disputed. And One of the big problems
with arbitration is that you're in that situation you just described, Ben,
and you want to raise a flag and you want
to tell someone and you want to take action against
(26:18):
this thing. Rather than doing that independently or doing that
with the laws that are in place wherever you are,
where the zip lines are being created, you now have
to do it internally with that organization, essentially. And that's
just what it feels like to me, what the government
is setting up. is kind of an internal way to
(26:41):
settle these disputes. I don't know. Maybe I'm completely wrong
and somebody called me out on it. I got a
whiff of that from this act.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
No, that seems like a reasonable assessment.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, the potential is definitely there. If there isn't a
proven case of this yet, because as we'll find, the
laws are on hold currently. Yeah, be naive to say
that the potential is not there. I mean, some form
of arbitration exists in pretty much every legal system, right?
(27:17):
Every state-level legal system. And that's why the criticism of
this is so prevalent. profound because people have if not
in the case of indian farmers they have seen arbitration
go wrong in numerous industries in numerous countries for decades
and decades so it's it's not somebody just like being
(27:37):
scared of the legislative wind you know uh but people
knew about this stuff before september it only really started
getting international press or press in the u.s uh back
in September of 2020. But in Punjab, people were having
(27:58):
smaller scale protests all the way back in August, because
that's when those bills were made public. And then when
they passed in a very, very, very shady way, forced
through without counting votes, not really consulting the farmers who
would be affected by this. When that happened, the protests
(28:18):
increased kicked into high gear. There was really some octane
added to them. And that's why per reports from trade
unions that instituted a nationwide general strike, they say that
on November 26th, 250 million people participated. And as we
said earlier, that's out of 1.3 billion people, but that's
(28:41):
still a huge chunk. And those weren't all farmers. Those
were a bunch of other union members.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, and this is highly, highly important to this story.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
It was it was made public in August and then
the next month it was passed. And as Ben said, those.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Are trade unions.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
There are like essentially farming unions that needed to be
consulted in order. They should have been consulted in order
for this to become a law. And a lot of
the protest is about that very fact that it was
forced through and it felt forced through. I think we
just didn't mention it before.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
At the top here.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
But the general view of these protests is that the
prime minister himself and those around him are the ones
who made it happen so quickly because.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
They knew it was going to be so unpopular.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Prime Minister Modi, yeah, who was a main character in
this story. I mean, it's a fair question, is it not?
If this bill is so wonderful for me as a farmer,
then why wasn't there a chance for more discussion of it?
You know what I mean? It's like if country's population
(29:55):
was a bunch of chickens and they had elected a
fox and the fox said, I've got this new hen
house policy. It's amazing. You're going to love it. We're
getting rid of all those tiresome fences. Anyway, this is
going to be great for everybody. Don't worry. It's already passed.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Stop being weird. You'll have the freedom to go wherever
you want. Right, right.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And we're going to make bigger doors, too, so that
you don't have to squeeze through.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Them, right?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And that way you can carry a whole nest of
eggs out with you.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
If you have to, you know, in an emergency. It's
for your safety.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
It's for your safety. It's for the greater good, really.
The protests occur in multiple places. So it has some
similarities to here in the U.S. A lot of people
will be thinking of Black Lives Matter protests, maybe earlier
protests like Occupy, which was also in multiple cities. This
(30:55):
occurs in Punjab, in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and more.
We should also note, of course, that we are not
native speakers. So apologies for any unintentional mispronunciation. People marched.
They literally marched to Delhi. once the railway services got
suspended in October. This is a mass movement. This is
(31:19):
not one of those flash in the pan uh, protest, uh,
you know, uh, about a Walmart being built or something. And,
and a ton of people Voltron up together. Like I,
I don't know about you guys, but I had no
idea just how many farm unions exist in India. The
answer is a lot. It's a, it's a lot more
than you thought if you thought there was one.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I mean, it makes sense given the stats we listed
at the top of the show, considering that, what is it? 58%, uh,
in a country of billions, you know, is, are absolutely
directly involved in that industry. I don't doubt that that's
the case.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yeah, a lot of different states, a lot of different areas,
a lot of different products or crops, you know? So
there are a lot of different ways you can have
separate entities that are working with different farmers, different organizations,
different stuff. But yeah, they really did Voltron, man, and they...
did all kinds of stuff that you do in a protest.
And one of the big first things was essentially the
(32:16):
old school civil disobedience. Let's not necessarily, let's not do
anything violent in the beginning. Let's block progress for something small,
like blocking a road or, you know, a border to,
so people, commerce can't continue to happen while we are protesting. Um,
it's like hurt the purse, right? Rather than the person.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And this,
this kind of organization at this level is pretty impressive,
especially when you consider just how diverse the population of
India is, uh, across numerous swaths of demographics. And that'll
come into play later as well. We're we're, I know we're,
we're building up a lot of stuff here. Uh, but we, we,
(33:00):
we want to provide clarity and context. Yeah, they also
held parades, driving convoys of tractors into Delhi. I thought
the tractor convoy was a cool idea. Protesters alleged that
the authorities responded with some pretty brutal tactics, cutting off
access to vital supplies, food, electricity, water, and so on,
(33:24):
and then also creating barricades of their own. to both
reduce the mobility of the protesters or fence them in
wherever they were camping out, and then also to deny
the wrong type of journalist access to speak with these
folks directly. The media is a huge player here. The
(33:46):
media also got conflicted about how to report the protest.
And you can very easily read a lot of things
that if you are just sitting and reading various competing articles,
you might think they're talking about two different protests, two
completely different protests.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, that's very true, especially when you see some of
the footage. And some of it is alarming. We were
talking about the tractors that were being led through. You
can see footage everywhere from the BBC to the Times
of India to other places where– It seems scary with
(34:28):
individuals on tractors driving towards large crowds, pretty scary situations.
You're also going to see tons of government security response,
just dozens and dozens and dozens of people with large
weapons like batons essentially running at crowds and hitting farmers
(34:49):
or at least getting in scuffles with farmers. So there's
definitely a violence that's represented either more or less in
the reporting, depending on how I you can easily slant
to this story is what I'm trying to say. And
you will see, as Ben.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Said, both sides.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
You always have to ask, right, the. The motivations for
a source, are there bad actors? Is there an ulterior motive?
Or are people sincerely telling the truth as they see it?
But there's kind of the lay of the land. So
farmers unions believe these laws will end up destroying the
Mandy system. And they say it will leave farmers, especially smaller,
(35:35):
poorer operations, at the mercy of of large corporate forces,
that this will further enrich the powerful while passing the
cost of change onto the disadvantaged. Tale as old as time,
you know what I mean? Not to be too beauty
and the beast about it, but it wouldn't be a
sudden plot twist for humanity if that were the case, right?
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Some of these visuals, and then as they're being described
of like, you know, anti-protest kind of almost like goons,
you know, with batons or whatever, beating these people down,
makes me think of like, boss tweed union busting type scenarios,
you know, from days of your here in America. But
(36:15):
it's not that far off. I mean, there is it's
a different system. There's different elements at play and there's
different stakeholders. But at the end of the day, it's about,
you know, taking advantage of the working class and not
giving them the protections that something like a union or
these government contracts affords.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's exactly what the supporters of the protests would clearly argue.
You know what I mean? Big Pinkerton energy right now
in these protests and the way people are cracking down.
We should mention you can read the full list of
demands of the protesters, which was sent to the government
back in December. It's pretty easy to find. Just search
(36:56):
on your browser of choice. That's another difference between this
and Some earlier protests like the Occupy movement, which critics
alleged did not have a focused list of demands, which
is very important in these kind of protests.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah. And one of the big, I guess, blanket demands
is repeal these three laws. You'll hear that repeated over
and over and over again when interviews with individual protesters.
If you repeal these laws, we'll be gone. We'll be
out of here. But it's not that easy. It's never
just that easy. Should we get into the pros and cons,
(37:31):
or do we want to do that later, maybe after
we take a quick break or something?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, let's pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then let's pro some stuff and let's con some stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
And we're back, Ben.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
I don't know if anybody else is feeling this way,
but big Pinkerton energy is my new favorite thing. And
is that something you came up with or have you
heard that before?
Speaker 5 (37:59):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
You need to TM that, put it on a t-shirt,
big Pinkerton energy.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Like, Whoa, bro. That's some big Pinkerton energy. Ooh, bus unions.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh boy. Uh, Yeah, it's weird that we have not
done an episode on the Pinkertons in this show, but
they're one of those phantom topics that shows up a lot.
So for anybody who doesn't know, the comparison we're making
is to the world's first private detective agency that was also,
and I think we talked about this a little bit
(38:33):
on Ridiculous History, right, Noel? They were also instrumental in
a lot of dastardly events.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Well, they're kind of the first extra government agency Entity,
you know, like Blackwater and things like that. And they
really represent this like, you know, extension of government activities
without actually having to follow the laws of governments, you know,
and have plausible deniability or whatever, which is why, you know,
they were employed for those kind of things because they
(39:01):
were they were able to be kept at arm's length
so that the government or whomever their agents were could
could kind of distance themselves.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And, you know, there were some there were some people
who did amazing work in the Pinkerton organization, like Kate Warren,
who was the first, I think, female detective of the Pinkertons,
her first female. She's known as the first female detective.
And she she. protected, was it President Abraham Lincoln with
(39:34):
her life? There are heroic stories, but when we're talking
about big Pinkerton energy, we're talking about the bad stuff.
We're talking about exactly what Noel described, which is circumventing
regulations and laws in a way that allows for plausible
deniability on the side of the people who should be
(39:55):
obeying the law. Anyway, that's what the protesters are saying.
If we look at the pros and cons here, then
we know one of the pros is that the idea,
one of the pros for people who support these bills
is the concept of freedom of choice. I don't have
(40:17):
to just sell to this government entity. I can sell
to whomever I please. So that's tricky because freedom of
choice is one of those words or one of those
phrases that gets thrown around a lot because it sounds
good as a talking point. Like here in the U.S.,
(40:40):
I don't know if we ever talked about this, but
here in the U.S., There was a huge hubbub when ISPs,
Internet Service Providers, and the FCC were getting into it,
into what can be regulated, how pricing works, etc. And
a couple of Internet providers in the U.S., there aren't
(41:04):
a ton of them, a couple of the big ones, slashed,
I think they increased what people paid for the amount
of Internet speed they got. And all the while, it
was being advertised as responding to the consumer's demand for
freedom of choice. I love the nod there, Matt.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah. Sorry. I'm nodding for YouTube.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
It's sort of the same way that like the big
polluter shifted the burden of pollution onto the consumer with
these ad campaigns for recycle, reduce, reuse and all that,
you know?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Like, hey, we are we are giving you the power.
The power is yours. Also, all our mistakes are now
your fault.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yep. Yep.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
We're going to keep doing exactly what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Should we keep going down the pros or give a
con for every pro to keep it balanced?
Speaker 3 (41:56):
How do you want to do this, guys?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Well, let's back and forth with it because one thing
that we should be clear about is the minimum sale
price guarantee. It's a huge issue that gets brought up
pretty often, but a couple of estimates suggest that only
(42:18):
about 6% of farmers are really enjoying the benefits of
that system. So there's a question about how effective the
current system is. Nobody is saying it's perfect, by the way.
It has disappointed everybody at some point. So you can
find other bite-sized facts. You can find the pros and
(42:41):
cons listed aplenty, but be very careful where you read
those pros and cons because some people do have a
horse in the race in their reporting. You can very
easily get into the weeds of the bureaucratic process of
the system as it stands. But I think maybe the
best way for us to get a sense of the
(43:02):
conflict here is to read the farmers' demands themselves, which
are easily available.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Absolutely, because we read the laws, right? Essentially, we read
the main parts of the laws. Let's tell you exactly
what the farmers are demanding. We'll just go down the
list here. Number one is, as we said, roll back
all of the legislation that just went through, those three mandates,
those three laws, right? The second one is to make
sure that this Mandy system that is in place right
(43:31):
now or has been in place historically for quite a
while remains.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
Also, they demand that their loans be cleared and also
that a law should be made for minimum support price
to be at least 50% more than the weighted average
cost of production. And if that MSP or minimum support
price is not paid... It should be a punishable crime.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
This feels like a very basic thing. Pay us what
you owe.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Us, right?
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah. But, you know, right after, also clear all our
loans that we've taken out.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Right, right.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Which is like, you know, to me feels a bit
like a poison pill because it– that's just my opinion.
When you put something in like that, which you're just
imagining all of the money involved with clearing all the loans–
that are currently out for agricultural purposes in India.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
It just doesn't seem possible, right?
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Yeah. But the idea there is that those, that third
and fourth demand are connected because they would argue maybe
they only had that debt in the first place because
they were not getting paid. So there's some, there's some,
what's that song? There's some better have my money vibes
for sure. Shout out to Rihanna, who will make an
(44:50):
appearance in this series. It's a cameo we're setting up.
It's about time.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Believe us.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
The last of the big five demands is that a
law should be put in place that guarantees payment from
the buyers through middlemen to ensure that banks don't take
a little piece of the money in the name of
loan recovery. You know what I mean? Like the way
the IRS might garnish someone's wages. They said, okay, stop
(45:20):
getting a VIG, banks. Those are their demands. I like
what you say about poison pill because it may indeed
be a deal breaker there.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
I have to be slight devil's advocate because isn't that
money that the banks take, doesn't that have to do
with paying off current loans or paying off current debts?
Speaker 5 (45:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah. Like a garnishment almost. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
That's what you said.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
I just– Like I can imagine, ah, man, I don't
want to be on the side of banks, Jesus. Or,
you know, like big government coming through and making regulations
that make it harder for everybody. But I can understand
why they're doing that and why those interests are very powerful, right,
to push forward this legislation.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
You can see that happening.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Totally. I mean, you know, when we look at what
these opposing sides want, we see understandable things. From the
government's perspective, and to be fair, the perspective of some
other farmers unions in India, not a ton, but some
of them, these bills are at the very least a good,
(46:32):
if imperfect, first step in fixing an admittedly imperfect system.
But from the farmers' perspective, from a lot of farmers' perspectives,
these bills will have the opposite effect. They're saying, we're
going to have to negotiate corporate sharks from a massively
weakened position. And these big companies are going to be
(46:53):
able to come to us and dictate the terms of
any given deal. So instead of someone protecting us with
our $ 10 minimum price for rubber, right, we will be
at the mercy of however these companies feel on that
given day. If they feel in a good mood, maybe
we get $ 10. If they don't, maybe we get $ 3.
(47:16):
We have lost the ability to predict what will happen
in the future. But there's one more group in the
conversation here, or one more genre of group. As these
protests continue, at times turning deadly, some folks in India
and abroad believe there's more to the story. They believe
(47:36):
that when it comes to the protest, there's something the protesters,
or maybe the government, doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And when we.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Return in part two, we might have a quick hear
of the facts, but it's going to get very crazy very,
very soon. We're going to be talking about the allegations
of a, my favorite phrase in the entirety of our research,
a hidden calistiny hand. I love it. Big, big conspiracy
(48:06):
energy there. We're also going to talk about authoritarian concerns.
and we're going to talk about a war for hearts
and minds online. Uh, this, this is going to be
a crazy journey. I think it was the right thing
to make this a two-parter.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 5 (48:21):
I completely agree. Cause like we said at the top,
even like with the surfacy scratch we did on that, uh, uh,
listener mail episode, it really took a whole episode to
fully define all these terms and even wrap our heads
around it. So by the time you're in episode two,
we're getting, you're going to be fully armed to take this, uh,
very real and very current and evolving issue on.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
This is how it's going to go in part two.
Ben's going to say, here are the facts. And then
I'm going to say, listen to part one. And then
Ben's going to say, here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Oh boy. Yeah. And in the interim, of course, we,
we want to hear from you. You know, we're very cognizant.
We are very aware of the fact that we are,
we are not native speakers. We are outsiders. We have,
We have learned what we know through reading and through
conversation with the best part of our show, your fellow listeners.
(49:17):
So please reach out to us. with your thoughts on
this protest and how it's being reported. Please let us
know about, of course, other pieces of news in your
neck of the global woods, because a lot of these
stories aren't making it to the West in a comprehensive way.
(49:38):
And in that lack of transparency, of course, speculation will
always thrive. We try to be easy to find online,
for now at least, until the Pinkertons get us.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we
are Conspiracy Stuff. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. You
can also follow us as Individual Human People if you wish.
You can find me on Instagram at HowNowNoelBrown.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
You can find me on Twitter at Ben Bolin HSW
if you'd like to write to me directly or You
can also observe me having various misadventures on Instagram, which
I have named in a burst of creativity at Ben Bolin, B-O-W-L-I-N. Matt,
is this one of the episodes where you disclose? Your
(50:23):
personal social media?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
Behind me, there is a djembe drum that is illuminated.
And if you can visualize that in your mind to
a sharp enough level, you can commune with me at
any time.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
It's sitting right here.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
It is a vessel for spiritual contact. So please reach
out to me via djembe whenever you get a chance.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
That's the best way.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
The only way to fly.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Mm-hmm. You're way faster with Jinbei than you are with text.
I will admit that.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
It just resonates, and immediately I'm like, huh?
Speaker 5 (50:56):
What was that?
Speaker 3 (50:57):
And then, yeah, we have a conversation.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
And speaking of conversations, if you're not someone who sips
the social meads, why not give us a call directly?
We have a phone number.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
It's 1-833-STDWYTK. If you choose to call, you will hear
Ben's voice. let's call them ominous tones. As he tells you,
you can turn back or leave a voicemail. And when
you finish telling us your name, please leave a message.
Keep it as brief as you possibly can. If you
(51:29):
want to leave anything specifically for us, people who make
this show, put it right at the end of the message.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
You've got three minutes.
Speaker 4 (51:36):
If you want to tell us something that's longer than that,
you think, well, put it in an email.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
We still have one of those.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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