April 9, 2021 • 51 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):
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 I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
all mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. As we record today, India is a
wash in a series of enormous protests in multiple places
(00:51):
with multiple groups participating, particularly farmers unions. You may have
heard some stuff in the news about the farmer protests
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
(01:14):
out personally to give us, at times conflicting perspectives on
this continuing situation, because according to some sources here, there's
more to the protest than you might think. And and Matt, no,
I think it's safe to say a lot of people
(01:34):
in the West aren't maybe read a couple of headlines
but aren't totally aware of the situation. Would you agree,
I would fully agree. And a lot of that has
to do with it being a kind of difficult topic
to pass through. There are a lot of places and
organizations and rules that exist that are that they just
(01:58):
don't exist within a lot of our frameworks, right, So
then you have to do a lot of educating yourself
to uh, don't do it as a no but as
a as a as an individual. There's a lot of
learning you have to do to even really digest what's
going on. Even even an outlet like the BBC, when
(02:19):
they're going through and trying to explain exactly what's going on,
it's it feels a bit difficult because there's just so
much to get through. And honestly, we we heard, for
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 the main players
(02:41):
version in a listener mail episode. But that listener did
right back and say that, you know, they thought that
we basically got the gist of it, so obviously this
is a deeper dive into that topic. Um, and I
think this might even make for a two parter, right right,
That's correct, as I was gonna say, this is going
to be a two parter. I want to thank everybody
(03:03):
reached out UM 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 your recall
when we talked about this in our previous Strange News
and listener mail segments, we did explicitly ask for some
(03:25):
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, you delivered, and not everyone agreed.
Not everyone I spoke with at least agreed on the
ultimate motive of the protests, the origin and the what
(03:48):
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 his story, right and as
we'll see, uh, this may also rope in other nearby
countries that all that come with their own complex historical
(04:12):
baggage with India. That's one way to put it. But
I love the point about just how fundamentally different and
unfamiliar this 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,
(04:35):
some somebody in overalls they got a John Deere tractor,
you know what I mean. They're like getting up and
they they they're getting up before the sun. And then
you know, there's a moment on a lazy Saturday afternoon
where they, uh, 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
(04:58):
of Midwest, uh, United States, but it's not true all
around the world. So when we 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. Okay, So,
the farming industry in India is absolutely massive. Uh. The
Economist has a report indicated nearly six of all Indian
(05:22):
citizens depend on agriculture for their income um. And that's
fifty of the people in a country with a one
point three billion population. So I mean, this is an
incredibly uh incredibly staggering number of people that depend on
this industry. UM and anything that affects farming has a
(05:42):
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 fifty years running of
Indian farmers selling only in these um state controlled wholesale
mark It's that are you know, absolutely regulated and monitored
(06:04):
by the government, but they're not able to sell directly
to buyers. And this makes for kind of an interesting situation. Yeah,
this is one of the first places where we can
bring in a vocabulary word. I believe what we're talking
about here. These state run areas where you can sell
these are what would what are referred to as Mandy's.
So that's something to keep in mind if we ever
(06:26):
mentioned that again in the show. Is that like shorthand
for mandatory Uh, you know, I don't know. That's it's
an interesting question. Is in a n D I as
this for for somewhat similar US comparison, consider buying a car,
(06:48):
Like for the longest time, you if you wanted to
afford you couldn't just right to the Ford Company and
have them ship you a car. You had to go
to a middle and a dealership, right, you know, like
Loco Johnny's uh fantastic Ford Fiesta outlet, they only sell
(07:09):
Ford Fiestas and and that, 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 those the traditional dealerships that
you're talking about, but a different model entirely well, and
(07:30):
a lot of that was put in place, at least
theoretically to prevent um 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 a thing from happening. A
(07:52):
lot of times, that's why middlemen get involved. 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 a good place.
So the the idea, A lot of the issues here
hinge on something called MSP, or minimum sale price. This
(08:17):
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. The government agencies by
these crops at a promised price to the farmers, and
this MSP cannot be altered. So when you work growing
you know, onions or whatever you're growing. Uh, the MSP
(08:41):
in theory means that you will know and 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
again in theory of prices skyrocket, right, so you know,
(09:03):
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, 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 uh, you know if if a commodity becomes
worth more, but you're never going to be beholden to
(09:25):
you know, the floor dropping out of the market. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's the basic idea. According to McCalla Krishta Murty
of the Shoka University, this means that wherever you find
a large number of small sellers, they can be vulnerable
(09:46):
to the actions of larger monopolies. Right, so without like so,
imagine if we want 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.
(10:09):
We make a small amount of rubber, and you say,
you'll say five hectares worth of rubber plants. Yes, perfect,
that's exactly how much rubber we make. And the five
of us on the show today, you listening, and Paul
and Nolan, Matt and myself, we all live kind of
in the same area. We all have our hecktakers of rubber. Uh,
(10:31):
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 for ten dollars
per unit or whatever, but we will will buy it,
but we'll only give you three bucks. If there was
an MSP law of some sort. Then the government would
(10:52):
step in and say no, sorry, we'll buy the rubber
and we'll buy it for ten dollars because that's the
minimum price we guaranteed eye 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. Uh. You know,
(11:14):
farmers will say there's a lack of transparency, which is true.
They may say there's collusion amidst different players or stakeholders,
which obviously is going to happen at some point. And
they'll also say the price there are problems with price
fixing agreements and then this leaves them out in the
cold financially. Yeah, and under the current system, at least
(11:37):
according to numerous government officials, one in particular, who was
interviewed by the BBC, they state that under this 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 fifty efficiency level essentially with
(11:59):
the farming what actually gets produced and what is actually
sold compared to what is being um grown. So like
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
(12:19):
it was intended to work right, because it's still like
it are rubber example, Uh, we're talking about monopsony, not
a monopoly. A monopsony which means there's only one buyer. Uh.
So you could level the same criticism at times at
the Mandy system. I say there is only one buyer
(12:40):
and it's the government for the farm and and technically
both monopolies and monopsonys 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
(13:00):
case of monopoly. 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
(13:24):
debt forgiveness, like have our have are 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 farmers in this country. Yes,
(13:49):
farming is an absolutely demanding occupation across the world, no
matter what you're growing or who you are, but make
you know, living this way is particularly difficult, increasingly difficult
for a lot of farmers in India. Yeah, with with
any farmer, you're at the mercy of the weather and
(14:11):
and you know, in a lot of places here in
the United States, it's food is grown in places where
the weather is a little less unstable. But if you
if you look at India, there's there are quite a
few areas, especially with the amount of land there, in
the number of places where food is grown. Considering the
percentage of you know, farmers versus other occupations, I think
(14:36):
the BBC quoted for inten for inten, people in India
are farmers essentially. We we we mentioned it was like
are are mostly basing their income on farming, But like
for intent 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
(14:58):
there there are a lot of particularities you're in India
that make it different. And the price fluctuates on on
various crops a lot. So I mean, it's not easy
to predict what you're going to be able to make,
what you're going to be able to spend in order
to make money. And it's also not easy to make
a sharp turn in terms of what you're producing. Right
(15:20):
if you if you're if you're like an onion guy
and you know that the onions onion market might not
look that great. Uh, it's tough for you to suddenly say, Okay,
well you know what my thing is gonna be now
is wheat? You know what I mean. 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
(15:45):
of the agricultural system of India UH, and also have
a very small share of land they actually owned by comparison.
So that's one of the other factors that comes into play.
Another one is the lack of what we call mechanization. UH.
There's there's an economy of scale with farming. Right, anybody
(16:07):
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 lot of
modern farming interest they're not as present for for a
lot of farmers in India. And this stymies progress, you know,
(16:27):
it makes you work harder for less, really is what
it comes down to. And this leads us to um
a tragic fact that has to be acknowledged here at
the top. Shocking numbers of farmers have been driven to suicide.
And this was a trend that was occurring far beyond
(16:49):
the new laws that triggered the protest before the COVID pandemic.
When those laws were pushed through and what is arguably
a conspiracy, India's Economic Times reported that as many as
forty two thousand, four hundred and eighty farmers and daily
wagers took their own lives in was a six percent
(17:11):
increase from eighteen So the situation was already dire for
many many people. That's heartbreaking. Um, well, we're gonna take
a quick ad break and then we're gonna 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. We're back, yes, conflict and laws,
(17:41):
as Noel said. So in September of as the world
struggled amid the COVID nineteen pandemic, the government of India
initiated what was called the Indian Agricultural Acts of their
street name is just the farm Bills. Yes, and and
(18:02):
there's this is 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 produced from these select
areas to quote, any place of production, collection or aggregation.
I know that sounds a little bit dry, but it
(18:25):
essentially what we're going to see as these acts are
removing so many of these protections that we're 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. So in in the government itself,
that specific part of this first Act is saying that, oh, well,
(18:48):
now the farmer is free to sell their from to
anyone and everyone. 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
(19:10):
a step toward the future. UM. And then the third
part of the first Act prohibits state governments from levying
any market fee uh SESS or levy on farmers, traders,
and electronic trading platforms for the trade of farmers produce
conducted in a quote outside trade area. So it's just
saying like, we are not going to subsidize the trades
(19:31):
that are outside of our little agreement or those mandy
um markets. Yeah. And just to be clear, ss C
E s S is UH isn't a synonym for like
attacks or a levy or a fine. Yeah. And and
it's really interesting because it's just it really is trying
(19:52):
to revolutionize the current system. And what this whole are
two episodes that we're gonna be covering on this is
does that mean who does that mean revolutionizing it? For? Yes, Yeah,
because that's exactly what what's happening here. It's tough because
if you listen to the official statements it does. It
(20:15):
has this spin to it that feels like, yeah, this
is the this is feeling good, the right way to go.
But as we go deeper and deeper into learning about
what this first Act does, it's just it seems like
there's a different picture there, that's that's being hidden. Yeah,
you're right. And this the second Act gives a what's
(20:37):
best described as a legal framework for farmers to enter
into contracts with buyers directly. These contracts me you know,
pre arranged before the harvest. They can mention pricing, so
you can go directly too this customer, whomever they may be,
without having to go through this government mandated system. There's
(20:59):
a just resolution mechanism without getting too much in the weeds. Uh.
The third Act removes what's called stockholding limits on agricultural items.
So this means that before this Act was proposed, there
(21:21):
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, Yeah, potatoes and onions are too
of main food stuffs with it within UH India, right cooking,
when you think about Indian dishes, you know there's always
an onion based potatoes are huge staple food in various
(21:44):
curries and and you know um dishes. Uh, it makes
a lot of sense. 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, right right,
(22:05):
And we'll talk about it. Well, yes, yes, and uh,
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 what constitutes a steep price rise?
That's another question. Oh hey, really before we go back
(22:25):
in that in the second act, there's that thing on
the dispute resolution process. Yeah, because that that one really
is about legal framework overall. It reminds me a lot
of this thing we've discussed on the show before called arbitration.
Yeah they I'm assuming we're going to talk about that more,
But it gets rang very much like that to me
(22:48):
as I was reading through some of it. Well, let's
talk a little bit about it now, because arbitration can
definitely feel conspiratorial. Um 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 go
(23:10):
to court. It is instead going to go to another
a body of some sort that will here here what
your beef is and then decide whether they think you're
legit or whether they disagree with you. Arbitration the a
(23:30):
lot of arbitrators, and a lot of ar arbitration clauses
get a ton of criticism because they're seen as crazily biased.
Like let's say you're working for, um, what's the what's
the silly company? You're working for a company that makes
zip lines as remember zip lines from the outside those alright, great,
(23:52):
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, um,
(24:12):
your boss or a co worker does something egregious. You know,
they are like making you feel unsafe, same weird sexual
in your windows at you and you're like, hey, I'm
just here to make these zip lines cool your jets. Uh,
And then it becomes you know, untenable, and you say, Okay,
(24:33):
I'm gonna go to the zip line Arbitration Council and
they hear your claim through whatever process they have, and
they come back and they say nah, Then that means
it's a legal dead end for you. And that's that's
one of the concerns, right, Is that where we're going
that through the Second Act? Yeah. Essentially, the way I'm
thinking about it is the system is being set up
(24:54):
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
not like you like 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 like
take action against this thing. Rather than doing that independently
or doing that, you know, with the the laws that
(25:18):
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, like what the government is setting up
is a kind of an internal way to settle these disputes.
I don't know, I maybe I'm completely wrong and somebody
(25:38):
called me out on it. It's just that's I got
a whiff of that from this. Now, that's that seems
like a reasonable assessment. Yeah, the potential is definitely there.
If not, you know, if if there isn't a proving
case of this yet because as we'll find, the laws
are on hold currently. Um, the yeah, being naive to
(25:59):
say that the potential all is not there, I mean
in in some form of arbitration exists in pretty much
every legal system, right, every state level legal system. And
that's why the criticism of this is so profound because
people have, if not in the case of Indian farmers,
(26:19):
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 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 US
(26:44):
back in September. But in Punjab people were having 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 a very shady way, forced
through without counting votes, not really consulting the farmers who
(27:07):
would be affected by this. When that happened, the protests
kicked into high gear. There was really some octane added
to them. And that's why per reports from trade unions
that UM instituted a nationwide general strike, they say that
on November two d and fifty million people participated. And
(27:29):
as we said earlier, that's out of one point three
billion people. But that's still a huge chunk, you know,
and that those weren't all farmers, those were a bunch
of other like union members. Yeah, and this is highly
highly important to this story. It was it was made
public in August and then the next month it was passed.
(27:50):
And as Ben said, those are trade unions. There are
like essentially farming unions that needed to be consulted in
order they should have been assaulted in order for this
to become a law. Uh. 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 UM at the top here, but the
(28:15):
general view of these protests that the Prime Minister himself
and those around him are the ones who made it
happen so quickly because they knew it was going to
be so unpopular, right, Prime Minister Moody. Yet, who was
who was the main character in this story? I mean,
it's a fair question, is it not. If this bill
(28:35):
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 countries population was
a bunch of chickens and they had elected a fox,
and the fox said, I've got this new hen house policy.
(28:55):
It's amazing. You're gonna love it. We're getting rid of
all those tiresome fences. Anyway, this is gonna be great
for everybody. Don't worry. It's already passed. Stop you have
you have the freedom to go wherever you want, right right. Uh.
And we're we're going to make We're gonna make bigger
doors too, so that you know you don't have to
(29:17):
squeeze through them, right, And you can that way, you
can carry a whole nest of eggs out with you
if you have to. You don't need an emergency. It's
for your safety. It's for the greater good. Really. Uh.
The protest occur in multiple places, so it has some
similarities to here here in the US, A lot of
people will be thinking of Black Lives Matter protests, maybe
(29:42):
earlier protests like Occupy, which was also a multiple cities UH.
This occurs in Punjab, in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, UH, Kerala
and more. We should also know, of course, that we
are not native speakers, so apologies for any unintentional mispronunciation.
People marched, They literally marched the Delhi once the railway
(30:06):
services got suspended in October. This is a mass movement.
This is not one of those flash in the pan
protests you know about a Walmart being built or something
and and a ton of people vultron's up together. Like
I I don't know about you guys, but I had
no idea just how many farm unions exists in India.
(30:29):
The answer is a lot. It's it's a lot more
than you thought if you thought there was one. I mean,
it makes sense given the stats we list to the
top of the show, considering that what is it, fifty
percent 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. You have a lot of different states,
a lot of different areas, a lot of different products
(30:50):
and 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 of vulture on man and they did all
kinds of stuff that you do in a protest. And
one of the big first things was essentially the the
old school civil disobedience. Let's not necessarily let's not do
(31:13):
anything violent in the beginning. Let's block progress for something
small like blocking a road or you know, a border too,
so people commerce can't continue to happen while we are protesting. Um,
it's like hurt the purse, right rather than the person. Yeah,
that's a good way to put it. And this this
(31:33):
kind of organization at this level is pretty impressive, especially
when you consider just how diverse the population of India
is across numerous swaths of demographics. And that will come
into play later as well. We're where, I know, we're
we're building up a lot of stuff here, but we
we want to provide clarity and context. Yeah. They also
(31:56):
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,
and then also creating barricades of their own to both
(32:21):
reduce the mobility of the protesters or fence them in
wherever they were camping out, and then also to deny
the UH wrong type of journalists access to speak with
these folks directly. The media is a huge player here.
The media also got conflicted about how to report the protest,
(32:44):
and you can very easily read a lot of things
that just if you are just sitting and reading various
competing articles, you might think they're talking about two different protests,
two completely different protests. Yeah, that's very true, especially when
you see some of the footage and and some of
(33:04):
it is alarming. We were talking about these UH detractors
that were being led through. You can see footage everywhere
from the BBC to the Times of India the other
places where it seems scary with with individuals on tractors
driving towards large crowds, um pretty scary situations. You're also
(33:27):
going to see tons of um government security response just
dozens and dozens and dozens of people with large weapons
like batons, essentially running at crowds and hitting farmers or
at least you know, getting in scuffles with farmers. So
there's definitely a violence that's represented either more or less
(33:49):
in in the reporting, depending on how I I you
can easily slant to this story, is what I'm trying
to say, And you will see has been said both sides.
Oh yeah, yeah, there's you always have to ask, right
the the motivations for a source or they're bad actors?
(34:10):
Is there an olterior motive or are people sincerely telling
the truth as they see it? But there's 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 poorer operations,
at the mercy of large corporate forces. That this will
(34:32):
further enrich the powerful while passing the cost of change
onto the disadvantage tail 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, some
of these visuals and as they're being described of like
you know, um, anti protest kind of almost like goons,
(34:55):
you know, with batons or whatever beating these people down
makes me think of like bo tweed union busting type
scenarios you know from days of of your here in America. Um,
But it's not that far off. I mean there there is.
It's a different system, there's different elements of play, and
there's different stakeholders. But at the end of the day,
(35:17):
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 afford. That's exactly what the
supporters of the protests would would clearly argue. You know
what I mean, big Pinkerton energy right now in these
protests and the and the way people are cracking down,
(35:39):
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
on your browser of choice. That's another difference between this
and UH some earlier protests like the Occupy movement, which
critics alleged did not have a focused list of demands,
(36:01):
which is very important in these kind of protests. 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 will be gone. We'll be out of here.
But it's not that easy. It's never just that easy.
(36:21):
There's should we get into the pros and cons? Or
do we want to do that later, maybe after we
take a quick break or something. Yeah, let's pause for
a word from our sponsors, and then let's let's pro
some stuff and let's con some stuff and we're back. Ben.
(36:41):
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 that before
you need to TM that put it on a T shirt,
Big Pinkerton Energy, Like whoa bro, that's some big Pinkerton
energy bust unions, right, oh boy? Uh yeah. We it's
(37:07):
weird that we have not done an episode on the
Pinkerton's in this in this show, but they 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
uh and I think we talked about this a little
bit on ridiculous history right now. Well, they were also
(37:27):
instrumental in a lot of dastardly events. Well, they're they're
kind of the first extra government 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
(37:49):
deniability or whatever, which is why you know they were
employed for those kind of things because they were they
were able to be kept at arms length so that
the government or whomever there you know, agents were could
could kind of distance themselves, right yeah, yeah, And you
know there were some there were some people who did
amazing work in the Pinkerton organization, like Kate Warren, who
(38:11):
was the first i think female detective of the Pinkerton's
her first female she's known as the first female detective
and she she protected was it, President Abraham Lincoln with
her life. They're they're they're heroic stories. But when we're
talking about big Pinkerton energy, we're talking about the bad stuff. Uh,
(38:34):
we're so we're talking about exactly what you're talking exactly
what all described, which is circumventing regulations and laws in
a way that allows for plausible deniability on the side
of the people who should be obeying the law anyway.
That's what the that's what the protesters are saying. If
we look at the pros and cons here, then we
(38:55):
know one of the pros is that the idea. Yet
one of the pros for people who support these bills
is the concept of freedom of choice. I don't have
to just sell to this government entity. I can sell
to whomever I please. Right, So that's that's tricky because
(39:18):
you know, freedom of choice is one of those words
or one of those phrases that gets thrown around a
lot because it sounds good, right as a as a
talking point, you know, like here in here in the US,
um we I don't know if we ever talked about this,
but here in the US there was a huge hubub
(39:38):
when I sp s internet service providers and the f
c C. We're we're getting into it into what can
be regulated, how pricing works, etcetera. And a couple of
a couple of internet providers in the US, there aren't
a ton of them, A couple of the big ones,
(39:59):
uh flashed. I think they increase what people paid for
the amount of internet speed they got, and all the
while it was being advertised as responding to the consumers
demand for freedom of choice. I love the nod there,
but yeah, sorry, I'm nodding for YouTube. Yeah. It's sort
(40:21):
of the same way that like the big polluter shifted
the burden of pollution onto the consumer with these ad
campaigns for recycle, reduced reusing all that, you know, Yeah,
right exactly, like, hey, we are we are giving you
the power. The power is yours. Also, all our mistakes
are now your fault. Yep, We're gonna keep doing exactly
(40:41):
what we're doing. Yeah. Um, should we keep going down
the pros or give a con for every pro to
like keep it balanced? How do you want to do this, guys? Well,
let's let's let's back and forth with it, because, uh,
one one thing that we should be clear about is
the man of hum sale price guarantee. It's a It's
(41:03):
a huge issue that gets brought up pretty often, but
a couple of estimates suggests that only about six per
cent 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
(41:24):
disappointed everybody at some point. So you can find other
bite size facts. You can find the pros and cons
listed to plenty, but be very careful where you read
those pros and cons, because some people do have a
horse in the race in their reporting. Uh. You can
very easily get into the weeds of the bureaucratic process
(41:48):
of the system as it stands. But I think maybe
the best way for us to get a sense of
the conflict here is to, you know, is to read
the farmers demands themselves, which easily available absolutely because we
we read the laws right. Essentially, we reread the main
parts of the laws. Let's tell you exactly what the
farmers are demanding. We'll just go down the list here.
(42:10):
Number one is, as we said, roll back all of
the legislation that just went through. Those three mandates, those
three laws. The second one is to make sure that
this mandy system that is that is in place right
now or has been in place historically for quite a while, remains. Also,
they they demand that their loans be cleared um and
(42:33):
also that a law should be made for minimum support
price to be at least fifty 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.
This feels like a very basic thing. Pay us what
you owe us, right yeah, but you know, right right
(42:55):
after also clear all our all our loans that we've taken,
right which is like, you know, to me, feels a
bit like a poison pill, because 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 through for agricultural purposes in India,
(43:19):
it just doesn't seem possible, right yeah. Yeah. But the
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 uh what's
that song, there's some much better have my money vibes
(43:39):
for sure. Shout out to Riata, who will make an
appearance in this series. It's a cameo or setting up. Seriously,
believe us, the last and the Big Five demands is
that a law should be put in place that guarantees
payment from the buyers through middlemen, UH, to ensure that
(44:01):
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 I R s might garnish someone's wages.
They said, Okay, don't stop getting a vague banks. Those
are their demands. I like what you say about poison pill,
because it may it may indeed be a deal breaker there.
(44:22):
I just 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? Yeah, like a garnishment almost, Yeah, like tweet said,
I just, um, like I can imagine a man. I
(44:44):
don't want to be on the side of banks Jesus
or big government coming through and making regulations and making
harder for everybody. But I can understand why they're doing
that and why those interests are very powerful right to
push or this legislation. You can see that happening totally.
I mean, you know, when we look at what these
(45:05):
opposing sides want, we see understandable things like 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,
if imperfect, first step in fixing an admittedly imperfect system.
(45:30):
But from the farmer's perspective, from a lot of farmers perspectives,
these bills will have the opposite effect. They're saying, we're
gonna have to negotiate with corporate sharks from a massively
weakened position, and these big companies are going to be
able to come to us and dictate the terms of
any given deal. So instead of someone protecting us with
(45:52):
our ten dollars 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 ten dollars. If they don't, maybe we
get three. We have lost the ability to predict what
will happen in the future. But there's one more group
(46:15):
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 this story.
They believe that when it comes to the protest, there's
something the protesters or maybe the government doesn't want you
(46:35):
to know. And when we when we return in part two, Uh,
we have a quick here 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 favorite phrase
in this in the entire sty of our research, a
hidden callus stinny hand love it big big conspiracy energy there.
(46:59):
We're all were going to talk about authoritarian concerns. We're
going to talk about a war for hearts and minds online. Uh,
this this is gonna be a crazy journey. I think
it was the right thing to make this a two partner.
What do you guys? I completely agree because, like we
said at the top, even like with the surface e
scratch we did on that listener Mail episode, it really
(47:21):
took a whole episode to fully define all these terms
and even wrap our heads around. And so by the
time you're in episode two, we're you're gonna be fully
armed to take this very real and very current and
evolving issue on. Yeah, this is how it's going to go.
In part two, Ben's gonna say, here are the facts,
and then I'm gonna say, listen to part one, and
(47:42):
then Ben's gonna say here's where it gets crazy. Oh boy. Yeah.
And in the interim, of course, we we want to
hear from you. You know, we're very cognizant. We're very
aware of the fact that we are uh, we are
not native speakers, we're outside ters. We have we have
learned what we know U through reading and through conversation
(48:06):
with the best part of our show, your fellow listeners.
So please reach out to us with your thoughts on
on this protest and how it's being reported. Uh. Please
let us know about, of course, other pieces of news
in your neck of the global woods, because a lot
of a lot of these stories aren't making it to
(48:28):
the West in a comprehensive way, 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 Pinkerton's get us. That's right. You can find
us on Facebook and Twitter, where we are Conspiracy Stuff
or Conspiracy Stuff Show. On Instagram, you can also follow
(48:48):
us as individual human people. If you wish. You can
find me on Instagram at how now Noel Brown. You
can find me on Twitter at Ben Bolen hs W
if you'd like to write to me directly. Uh. You
can also observe me having various misadventures on Instagram, which
I've named in a Burst of Creativity app and Boland
bow l I N Matt. Is this one of the
(49:12):
episodes where you disclose your personal social media? Yes, behind me,
there's a Jim Bay drum that is illuminated and if
you can visualize that in your mind to a sharp
enough level, you can commune. Commune with me at any time.
It's sitting right here. It is a vessel for spiritual contacts.
(49:34):
So please reach out to me via Jim Bay. Uh,
whenever you get a chance. That's the best way, the
only way to fly. You're You're way faster with Jim
Bay than you are with text. You will admit that
it just resonates and immediately I'm like, huh, what was that?
And then we have a conversation. And speaking of conversations,
if you're not someone who SIPs the social meads, why
(49:56):
not give us a call directly. We have a own number,
that's right, It's one eight three three st d w
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And when you finished telling us your name, please leave
(50:19):
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
all mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. As we record today, India is a
wash in a series of enormous protests in multiple places
(00:51):
with multiple groups participating, particularly farmers unions. You may have
heard some stuff in the news about the farmer protests
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
(01:14):
out personally to give us, at times conflicting perspectives on
this continuing situation, because according to some sources here, there's
more to the protest than you might think. And and Matt, no,
I think it's safe to say a lot of people
(01:34):
in the West aren't maybe read a couple of headlines
but aren't totally aware of the situation. Would you agree,
I would fully agree. And a lot of that has
to do with it being a kind of difficult topic
to pass through. There are a lot of places and
organizations and rules that exist that are that they just
(01:58):
don't exist within a lot of our frameworks, right, So
then you have to do a lot of educating yourself
to uh, don't do it as a no but as
a as a as an individual. There's a lot of
learning you have to do to even really digest what's
going on. Even even an outlet like the BBC, when
(02:19):
they're going through and trying to explain exactly what's going on,
it's it feels a bit difficult because there's just so
much to get through. And honestly, we we heard, for
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 the main players
(02:41):
version in a listener mail episode. But that listener did
right back and say that, you know, they thought that
we basically got the gist of it, so obviously this
is a deeper dive into that topic. Um, and I
think this might even make for a two parter, right right,
That's correct, as I was gonna say, this is going
to be a two parter. I want to thank everybody
(03:03):
reached out UM 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 your recall
when we talked about this in our previous Strange News
and listener mail segments, we did explicitly ask for some
(03:25):
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, you delivered, and not everyone agreed.
Not everyone I spoke with at least agreed on the
ultimate motive of the protests, the origin and the what
(03:48):
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 his story, right and as
we'll see, uh, this may also rope in other nearby
countries that all that come with their own complex historical
(04:12):
baggage with India. That's one way to put it. But
I love the point about just how fundamentally different and
unfamiliar this 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,
(04:35):
some somebody in overalls they got a John Deere tractor,
you know what I mean. They're like getting up and
they they they're getting up before the sun. And then
you know, there's a moment on a lazy Saturday afternoon
where they, uh, 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
(04:58):
of Midwest, uh, United States, but it's not true all
around the world. So when we 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. Okay, So,
the farming industry in India is absolutely massive. Uh. The
Economist has a report indicated nearly six of all Indian
(05:22):
citizens depend on agriculture for their income um. And that's
fifty of the people in a country with a one
point three billion population. So I mean, this is an
incredibly uh incredibly staggering number of people that depend on
this industry. UM and anything that affects farming has a
(05:42):
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 fifty years running of
Indian farmers selling only in these um state controlled wholesale
mark It's that are you know, absolutely regulated and monitored
(06:04):
by the government, but they're not able to sell directly
to buyers. And this makes for kind of an interesting situation. Yeah,
this is one of the first places where we can
bring in a vocabulary word. I believe what we're talking
about here. These state run areas where you can sell
these are what would what are referred to as Mandy's.
So that's something to keep in mind if we ever
(06:26):
mentioned that again in the show. Is that like shorthand
for mandatory Uh, you know, I don't know. That's it's
an interesting question. Is in a n D I as
this for for somewhat similar US comparison, consider buying a car,
(06:48):
Like for the longest time, you if you wanted to
afford you couldn't just right to the Ford Company and
have them ship you a car. You had to go
to a middle and a dealership, right, you know, like
Loco Johnny's uh fantastic Ford Fiesta outlet, they only sell
(07:09):
Ford Fiestas and and that, 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 those the traditional dealerships that
you're talking about, but a different model entirely well, and
(07:30):
a lot of that was put in place, at least
theoretically to prevent um 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 a thing from happening. A
(07:52):
lot of times, that's why middlemen get involved. 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 a good place.
So the the idea, A lot of the issues here
hinge on something called MSP, or minimum sale price. This
(08:17):
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. The government agencies by
these crops at a promised price to the farmers, and
this MSP cannot be altered. So when you work growing
you know, onions or whatever you're growing. Uh, the MSP
(08:41):
in theory means that you will know and 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
again in theory of prices skyrocket, right, so you know,
(09:03):
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, 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 uh, you know if if a commodity becomes
worth more, but you're never going to be beholden to
(09:25):
you know, the floor dropping out of the market. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's the basic idea. According to McCalla Krishta Murty
of the Shoka University, this means that wherever you find
a large number of small sellers, they can be vulnerable
(09:46):
to the actions of larger monopolies. Right, so without like so,
imagine if we want 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.
(10:09):
We make a small amount of rubber, and you say,
you'll say five hectares worth of rubber plants. Yes, perfect,
that's exactly how much rubber we make. And the five
of us on the show today, you listening, and Paul
and Nolan, Matt and myself, we all live kind of
in the same area. We all have our hecktakers of rubber. Uh,
(10:31):
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 for ten dollars
per unit or whatever, but we will will buy it,
but we'll only give you three bucks. If there was
an MSP law of some sort. Then the government would
(10:52):
step in and say no, sorry, we'll buy the rubber
and we'll buy it for ten dollars because that's the
minimum price we guaranteed eye 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. Uh. You know,
(11:14):
farmers will say there's a lack of transparency, which is true.
They may say there's collusion amidst different players or stakeholders,
which obviously is going to happen at some point. And
they'll also say the price there are problems with price
fixing agreements and then this leaves them out in the
cold financially. Yeah, and under the current system, at least
(11:37):
according to numerous government officials, one in particular, who was
interviewed by the BBC, they state that under this 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 fifty efficiency level essentially with
(11:59):
the farming what actually gets produced and what is actually
sold compared to what is being um grown. So like
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
(12:19):
it was intended to work right, because it's still like
it are rubber example, Uh, we're talking about monopsony, not
a monopoly. A monopsony which means there's only one buyer. Uh.
So you could level the same criticism at times at
the Mandy system. I say there is only one buyer
(12:40):
and it's the government for the farm and and technically
both monopolies and monopsonys 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
(13:00):
case of monopoly. 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
(13:24):
debt forgiveness, like have our have are 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 farmers in this country. Yes,
(13:49):
farming is an absolutely demanding occupation across the world, no
matter what you're growing or who you are, but make
you know, living this way is particularly difficult, increasingly difficult
for a lot of farmers in India. Yeah, with with
any farmer, you're at the mercy of the weather and
(14:11):
and you know, in a lot of places here in
the United States, it's food is grown in places where
the weather is a little less unstable. But if you
if you look at India, there's there are quite a
few areas, especially with the amount of land there, in
the number of places where food is grown. Considering the
percentage of you know, farmers versus other occupations, I think
(14:36):
the BBC quoted for inten for inten, people in India
are farmers essentially. We we we mentioned it was like
are are mostly basing their income on farming, But like
for intent 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
(14:58):
there there are a lot of particularities you're in India
that make it different. And the price fluctuates on on
various crops a lot. So I mean, it's not easy
to predict what you're going to be able to make,
what you're going to be able to spend in order
to make money. And it's also not easy to make
a sharp turn in terms of what you're producing. Right
(15:20):
if you if you're if you're like an onion guy
and you know that the onions onion market might not
look that great. Uh, it's tough for you to suddenly say, Okay,
well you know what my thing is gonna be now
is wheat? You know what I mean. 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
(15:45):
of the agricultural system of India UH, and also have
a very small share of land they actually owned by comparison.
So that's one of the other factors that comes into play.
Another one is the lack of what we call mechanization. UH.
There's there's an economy of scale with farming. Right, anybody
(16:07):
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 lot of
modern farming interest they're not as present for for a
lot of farmers in India. And this stymies progress, you know,
(16:27):
it makes you work harder for less, really is what
it comes down to. And this leads us to um
a tragic fact that has to be acknowledged here at
the top. Shocking numbers of farmers have been driven to suicide.
And this was a trend that was occurring far beyond
(16:49):
the new laws that triggered the protest before the COVID pandemic.
When those laws were pushed through and what is arguably
a conspiracy, India's Economic Times reported that as many as
forty two thousand, four hundred and eighty farmers and daily
wagers took their own lives in was a six percent
(17:11):
increase from eighteen So the situation was already dire for
many many people. That's heartbreaking. Um, well, we're gonna take
a quick ad break and then we're gonna 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. We're back, yes, conflict and laws,
(17:41):
as Noel said. So in September of as the world
struggled amid the COVID nineteen pandemic, the government of India
initiated what was called the Indian Agricultural Acts of their
street name is just the farm Bills. Yes, and and
(18:02):
there's this is 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 produced from these select
areas to quote, any place of production, collection or aggregation.
I know that sounds a little bit dry, but it
(18:25):
essentially what we're going to see as these acts are
removing so many of these protections that we're 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. So in in the government itself,
that specific part of this first Act is saying that, oh, well,
(18:48):
now the farmer is free to sell their from to
anyone and everyone. 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
(19:10):
a step toward the future. UM. And then the third
part of the first Act prohibits state governments from levying
any market fee uh SESS or levy on farmers, traders,
and electronic trading platforms for the trade of farmers produce
conducted in a quote outside trade area. So it's just
saying like, we are not going to subsidize the trades
(19:31):
that are outside of our little agreement or those mandy
um markets. Yeah. And just to be clear, ss C
E s S is UH isn't a synonym for like
attacks or a levy or a fine. Yeah. And and
it's really interesting because it's just it really is trying
(19:52):
to revolutionize the current system. And what this whole are
two episodes that we're gonna be covering on this is
does that mean who does that mean revolutionizing it? For? Yes, Yeah,
because that's exactly what what's happening here. It's tough because
if you listen to the official statements it does. It
(20:15):
has this spin to it that feels like, yeah, this
is the this is feeling good, the right way to go.
But as we go deeper and deeper into learning about
what this first Act does, it's just it seems like
there's a different picture there, that's that's being hidden. Yeah,
you're right. And this the second Act gives a what's
(20:37):
best described as a legal framework for farmers to enter
into contracts with buyers directly. These contracts me you know,
pre arranged before the harvest. They can mention pricing, so
you can go directly too this customer, whomever they may be,
without having to go through this government mandated system. There's
(20:59):
a just resolution mechanism without getting too much in the weeds. Uh.
The third Act removes what's called stockholding limits on agricultural items.
So this means that before this Act was proposed, there
(21:21):
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, Yeah, potatoes and onions are too
of main food stuffs with it within UH India, right cooking,
when you think about Indian dishes, you know there's always
an onion based potatoes are huge staple food in various
(21:44):
curries and and you know um dishes. Uh, it makes
a lot of sense. 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, right right,
(22:05):
And we'll talk about it. Well, yes, yes, and uh,
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 what constitutes a steep price rise?
That's another question. Oh hey, really before we go back
(22:25):
in that in the second act, there's that thing on
the dispute resolution process. Yeah, because that that one really
is about legal framework overall. It reminds me a lot
of this thing we've discussed on the show before called arbitration.
Yeah they I'm assuming we're going to talk about that more,
But it gets rang very much like that to me
(22:48):
as I was reading through some of it. Well, let's
talk a little bit about it now, because arbitration can
definitely feel conspiratorial. Um 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 go
(23:10):
to court. It is instead going to go to another
a body of some sort that will here here what
your beef is and then decide whether they think you're
legit or whether they disagree with you. Arbitration the a
(23:30):
lot of arbitrators, and a lot of ar arbitration clauses
get a ton of criticism because they're seen as crazily biased.
Like let's say you're working for, um, what's the what's
the silly company? You're working for a company that makes
zip lines as remember zip lines from the outside those alright, great,
(23:52):
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, um,
(24:12):
your boss or a co worker does something egregious. You know,
they are like making you feel unsafe, same weird sexual
in your windows at you and you're like, hey, I'm
just here to make these zip lines cool your jets. Uh,
And then it becomes you know, untenable, and you say, Okay,
(24:33):
I'm gonna go to the zip line Arbitration Council and
they hear your claim through whatever process they have, and
they come back and they say nah, Then that means
it's a legal dead end for you. And that's that's
one of the concerns, right, Is that where we're going
that through the Second Act? Yeah. Essentially, the way I'm
thinking about it is the system is being set up
(24:54):
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
not like you like 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 like
take action against this thing. Rather than doing that independently
or doing that, you know, with the the laws that
(25:18):
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, like what the government is setting up
is a kind of an internal way to settle these disputes.
I don't know, I maybe I'm completely wrong and somebody
(25:38):
called me out on it. It's just that's I got
a whiff of that from this. Now, that's that seems
like a reasonable assessment. Yeah, the potential is definitely there.
If not, you know, if if there isn't a proving
case of this yet because as we'll find, the laws
are on hold currently. Um, the yeah, being naive to
(25:59):
say that the potential all is not there, I mean
in in some form of arbitration exists in pretty much
every legal system, right, every state level legal system. And
that's why the criticism of this is so profound because
people have, if not in the case of Indian farmers,
(26:19):
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 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 US
(26:44):
back in September. But in Punjab people were having 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 a very shady way, forced
through without counting votes, not really consulting the farmers who
(27:07):
would be affected by this. When that happened, the protests
kicked into high gear. There was really some octane added
to them. And that's why per reports from trade unions
that UM instituted a nationwide general strike, they say that
on November two d and fifty million people participated. And
(27:29):
as we said earlier, that's out of one point three
billion people. But that's still a huge chunk, you know,
and that those weren't all farmers, those were a bunch
of other like union members. Yeah, and this is highly
highly important to this story. It was it was made
public in August and then the next month it was passed.
(27:50):
And as Ben said, those are trade unions. There are
like essentially farming unions that needed to be consulted in
order they should have been assaulted in order for this
to become a law. Uh. 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 UM at the top here, but the
(28:15):
general view of these protests that the Prime Minister himself
and those around him are the ones who made it
happen so quickly because they knew it was going to
be so unpopular, right, Prime Minister Moody. Yet, who was
who was the main character in this story? I mean,
it's a fair question, is it not. If this bill
(28:35):
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 countries population was
a bunch of chickens and they had elected a fox,
and the fox said, I've got this new hen house policy.
(28:55):
It's amazing. You're gonna love it. We're getting rid of
all those tiresome fences. Anyway, this is gonna be great
for everybody. Don't worry. It's already passed. Stop you have
you have the freedom to go wherever you want, right right. Uh.
And we're we're going to make We're gonna make bigger
doors too, so that you know you don't have to
(29:17):
squeeze through them, right, And you can that way, you
can carry a whole nest of eggs out with you
if you have to. You don't need an emergency. It's
for your safety. It's for the greater good. Really. Uh.
The protest occur in multiple places, so it has some
similarities to here here in the US, A lot of
people will be thinking of Black Lives Matter protests, maybe
(29:42):
earlier protests like Occupy, which was also a multiple cities UH.
This occurs in Punjab, in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, UH, Kerala
and more. We should also know, of course, that we
are not native speakers, so apologies for any unintentional mispronunciation.
People marched, They literally marched the Delhi once the railway
(30:06):
services got suspended in October. This is a mass movement.
This is not one of those flash in the pan
protests you know about a Walmart being built or something
and and a ton of people vultron's up together. Like
I I don't know about you guys, but I had
no idea just how many farm unions exists in India.
(30:29):
The answer is a lot. It's it's a lot more
than you thought if you thought there was one. I mean,
it makes sense given the stats we list to the
top of the show, considering that what is it, fifty
percent 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. You have a lot of different states,
a lot of different areas, a lot of different products
(30:50):
and 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 of vulture on man and they did all
kinds of stuff that you do in a protest. And
one of the big first things was essentially the the
old school civil disobedience. Let's not necessarily let's not do
(31:13):
anything violent in the beginning. Let's block progress for something
small like blocking a road or you know, a border too,
so people commerce can't continue to happen while we are protesting. Um,
it's like hurt the purse, right rather than the person. Yeah,
that's a good way to put it. And this this
(31:33):
kind of organization at this level is pretty impressive, especially
when you consider just how diverse the population of India
is across numerous swaths of demographics. And that will come
into play later as well. We're where, I know, we're
we're building up a lot of stuff here, but we
we want to provide clarity and context. Yeah. They also
(31:56):
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,
and then also creating barricades of their own to both
(32:21):
reduce the mobility of the protesters or fence them in
wherever they were camping out, and then also to deny
the UH wrong type of journalists access to speak with
these folks directly. The media is a huge player here.
The media also got conflicted about how to report the protest,
(32:44):
and you can very easily read a lot of things
that just if you are just sitting and reading various
competing articles, you might think they're talking about two different protests,
two completely different protests. Yeah, that's very true, especially when
you see some of the footage and and some of
(33:04):
it is alarming. We were talking about these UH detractors
that were being led through. You can see footage everywhere
from the BBC to the Times of India the other
places where it seems scary with with individuals on tractors
driving towards large crowds, um pretty scary situations. You're also
(33:27):
going to see tons of um government security response just
dozens and dozens and dozens of people with large weapons
like batons, essentially running at crowds and hitting farmers or
at least you know, getting in scuffles with farmers. So
there's definitely a violence that's represented either more or less
(33:49):
in in the reporting, depending on how I I you
can easily slant to this story, is what I'm trying
to say, And you will see has been said both sides.
Oh yeah, yeah, there's you always have to ask, right
the the motivations for a source or they're bad actors?
(34:10):
Is there an olterior motive or are people sincerely telling
the truth as they see it? But there's 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 poorer operations,
at the mercy of large corporate forces. That this will
(34:32):
further enrich the powerful while passing the cost of change
onto the disadvantage tail 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, some
of these visuals and as they're being described of like
you know, um, anti protest kind of almost like goons,
(34:55):
you know, with batons or whatever beating these people down
makes me think of like bo tweed union busting type
scenarios you know from days of of your here in America. Um,
But it's not that far off. I mean there there is.
It's a different system, there's different elements of play, and
there's different stakeholders. But at the end of the day,
(35:17):
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 afford. That's exactly what the
supporters of the protests would would clearly argue. You know
what I mean, big Pinkerton energy right now in these
protests and the and the way people are cracking down,
(35:39):
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
on your browser of choice. That's another difference between this
and UH some earlier protests like the Occupy movement, which
critics alleged did not have a focused list of demands,
(36:01):
which is very important in these kind of protests. 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 will be gone. We'll be out of here.
But it's not that easy. It's never just that easy.
(36:21):
There's should we get into the pros and cons? Or
do we want to do that later, maybe after we
take a quick break or something. Yeah, let's pause for
a word from our sponsors, and then let's let's pro
some stuff and let's con some stuff and we're back. Ben.
(36:41):
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 that before
you need to TM that put it on a T shirt,
Big Pinkerton Energy, Like whoa bro, that's some big Pinkerton
energy bust unions, right, oh boy? Uh yeah. We it's
(37:07):
weird that we have not done an episode on the
Pinkerton's in this in this show, but they 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
uh and I think we talked about this a little
bit on ridiculous history right now. Well, they were also
(37:27):
instrumental in a lot of dastardly events. Well, they're they're
kind of the first extra government 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
(37:49):
deniability or whatever, which is why you know they were
employed for those kind of things because they were they
were able to be kept at arms length so that
the government or whomever there you know, agents were could
could kind of distance themselves, right yeah, yeah, And you
know there were some there were some people who did
amazing work in the Pinkerton organization, like Kate Warren, who
(38:11):
was the first i think female detective of the Pinkerton's
her first female she's known as the first female detective
and she she protected was it, President Abraham Lincoln with
her life. They're they're they're heroic stories. But when we're
talking about big Pinkerton energy, we're talking about the bad stuff. Uh,
(38:34):
we're so we're talking about exactly what you're talking exactly
what all described, which is circumventing regulations and laws in
a way that allows for plausible deniability on the side
of the people who should be obeying the law anyway.
That's what the that's what the protesters are saying. If
we look at the pros and cons here, then we
(38:55):
know one of the pros is that the idea. Yet
one of the pros for people who support these bills
is the concept of freedom of choice. I don't have
to just sell to this government entity. I can sell
to whomever I please. Right, So that's that's tricky because
(39:18):
you know, freedom of choice is one of those words
or one of those phrases that gets thrown around a
lot because it sounds good, right as a as a
talking point, you know, like here in here in the US,
um we I don't know if we ever talked about this,
but here in the US there was a huge hubub
(39:38):
when I sp s internet service providers and the f
c C. We're we're getting into it into what can
be regulated, how pricing works, etcetera. And a couple of
a couple of internet providers in the US, there aren't
a ton of them, A couple of the big ones,
(39:59):
uh flashed. I think they increase what people paid for
the amount of internet speed they got, and all the
while it was being advertised as responding to the consumers
demand for freedom of choice. I love the nod there,
but yeah, sorry, I'm nodding for YouTube. Yeah. It's sort
(40:21):
of the same way that like the big polluter shifted
the burden of pollution onto the consumer with these ad
campaigns for recycle, reduced reusing all that, you know, Yeah,
right exactly, like, hey, we are we are giving you
the power. The power is yours. Also, all our mistakes
are now your fault. Yep, We're gonna keep doing exactly
(40:41):
what we're doing. Yeah. Um, should we keep going down
the pros or give a con for every pro to
like keep it balanced? How do you want to do this, guys? Well,
let's let's let's back and forth with it, because, uh,
one one thing that we should be clear about is
the man of hum sale price guarantee. It's a It's
(41:03):
a huge issue that gets brought up pretty often, but
a couple of estimates suggests that only about six per
cent 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
(41:24):
disappointed everybody at some point. So you can find other
bite size facts. You can find the pros and cons
listed to plenty, but be very careful where you read
those pros and cons, because some people do have a
horse in the race in their reporting. Uh. You can
very easily get into the weeds of the bureaucratic process
(41:48):
of the system as it stands. But I think maybe
the best way for us to get a sense of
the conflict here is to, you know, is to read
the farmers demands themselves, which easily available absolutely because we
we read the laws right. Essentially, we reread the main
parts of the laws. Let's tell you exactly what the
farmers are demanding. We'll just go down the list here.
(42:10):
Number one is, as we said, roll back all of
the legislation that just went through. Those three mandates, those
three laws. The second one is to make sure that
this mandy system that is that is in place right
now or has been in place historically for quite a while, remains. Also,
they they demand that their loans be cleared um and
(42:33):
also that a law should be made for minimum support
price to be at least fifty 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.
This feels like a very basic thing. Pay us what
you owe us, right yeah, but you know, right right
(42:55):
after also clear all our all our loans that we've taken,
right which is like, you know, to me, feels a
bit like a poison pill, because 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 through for agricultural purposes in India,
(43:19):
it just doesn't seem possible, right yeah. Yeah. But the
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 uh what's
that song, there's some much better have my money vibes
(43:39):
for sure. Shout out to Riata, who will make an
appearance in this series. It's a cameo or setting up. Seriously,
believe us, the last and the Big Five demands is
that a law should be put in place that guarantees
payment from the buyers through middlemen, UH, to ensure that
(44:01):
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 I R s might garnish someone's wages.
They said, Okay, don't stop getting a vague banks. Those
are their demands. I like what you say about poison pill,
because it may it may indeed be a deal breaker there.
(44:22):
I just 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? Yeah, like a garnishment almost, Yeah, like tweet said,
I just, um, like I can imagine a man. I
(44:44):
don't want to be on the side of banks Jesus
or big government coming through and making regulations and making
harder for everybody. But I can understand why they're doing
that and why those interests are very powerful right to
push or this legislation. You can see that happening totally.
I mean, you know, when we look at what these
(45:05):
opposing sides want, we see understandable things like 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,
if imperfect, first step in fixing an admittedly imperfect system.
(45:30):
But from the farmer's perspective, from a lot of farmers perspectives,
these bills will have the opposite effect. They're saying, we're
gonna have to negotiate with corporate sharks from a massively
weakened position, and these big companies are going to be
able to come to us and dictate the terms of
any given deal. So instead of someone protecting us with
(45:52):
our ten dollars 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 ten dollars. If they don't, maybe we
get three. We have lost the ability to predict what
will happen in the future. But there's one more group
(46:15):
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 this story.
They believe that when it comes to the protest, there's
something the protesters or maybe the government doesn't want you
(46:35):
to know. And when we when we return in part two, Uh,
we have a quick here 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 favorite phrase
in this in the entire sty of our research, a
hidden callus stinny hand love it big big conspiracy energy there.
(46:59):
We're all were going to talk about authoritarian concerns. We're
going to talk about a war for hearts and minds online. Uh,
this this is gonna be a crazy journey. I think
it was the right thing to make this a two partner.
What do you guys? I completely agree because, like we
said at the top, even like with the surface e
scratch we did on that listener Mail episode, it really
(47:21):
took a whole episode to fully define all these terms
and even wrap our heads around. And so by the
time you're in episode two, we're you're gonna be fully
armed to take this very real and very current and
evolving issue on. Yeah, this is how it's going to go.
In part two, Ben's gonna say, here are the facts,
and then I'm gonna say, listen to part one, and
(47:42):
then Ben's gonna say here's where it gets crazy. Oh boy. Yeah.
And in the interim, of course, we we want to
hear from you. You know, we're very cognizant. We're very
aware of the fact that we are uh, we are
not native speakers, we're outside ters. We have we have
learned what we know U through reading and through conversation
(48:06):
with the best part of our show, your fellow listeners.
So please reach out to us with your thoughts on
on this protest and how it's being reported. Uh. Please
let us know about, of course, other pieces of news
in your neck of the global woods, because a lot
of a lot of these stories aren't making it to
(48:28):
the West in a comprehensive way, 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 Pinkerton's get us. That's right. You can find
us on Facebook and Twitter, where we are Conspiracy Stuff
or Conspiracy Stuff Show. On Instagram, you can also follow
(48:48):
us as individual human people. If you wish. You can
find me on Instagram at how now Noel Brown. You
can find me on Twitter at Ben Bolen hs W
if you'd like to write to me directly. Uh. You
can also observe me having various misadventures on Instagram, which
I've named in a Burst of Creativity app and Boland
bow l I N Matt. Is this one of the
(49:12):
episodes where you disclose your personal social media? Yes, behind me,
there's a Jim Bay drum that is illuminated and if
you can visualize that in your mind to a sharp
enough level, you can commune. Commune with me at any time.
It's sitting right here. It is a vessel for spiritual contacts.
(49:34):
So please reach out to me via Jim Bay. Uh,
whenever you get a chance. That's the best way, the
only way to fly. You're You're way faster with Jim
Bay than you are with text. You will admit that
it just resonates and immediately I'm like, huh, what was that?
And then we have a conversation. And speaking of conversations,
if you're not someone who SIPs the social meads, why
(49:56):
not give us a call directly. We have a own number,
that's right, It's one eight three three st d w
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And when you finished telling us your name, please leave
(50:19):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.