India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has surprisingly given in to street pressure after around a year of peasant protests.

As Modi announced in a speech to the nation on Friday, the government would withdraw three controversial laws aimed at modernizing the agricultural sector against which tens of thousands of farmers had demonstrated for months outside the gates of the capital New Delhi.

Till Fähnders

Political Correspondent for Southeast Asia.

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Efforts to bring the laws closer to farmers have failed, Modi said.

It was always about their well-being: “The aim of the three agricultural laws was that the farmers in our country, especially the smallholders, should be strengthened.

They should get the right price for their products and the maximum opportunities to sell them, ”said Modi.

For the government, peasant resistance had also become a problem in view of the upcoming elections in the states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, in which strong regional parties will run against Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

There are also many Sikhs from the grain-growing areas of Punjab among the demonstrators.

Your alienation from the government is likely to affect the election as well.

More freedom or more dependency?

Opposition and peasant representatives spoke of a great victory for the movement.

Farmers from the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh had set up a huge protest camp after the laws were passed.

In the following months, dozens had died as a result of heat, cold and Covid-19 diseases.

In January, a demonstrator was killed and hundreds injured in unrest, some of which was violent.

In talks with the agricultural associations, the Indian government had tried in vain to convince the farmers of the reforms.

According to them, the laws have a negative impact on the prices of grain and other agricultural products.

Instead of being on state-regulated markets as before, they can now sell their products directly to private companies.

The minimum prices guaranteed by the state have ceased to exist.

According to the government, this gives farmers more freedom and a better negotiating position.

However, many farmers fear that wholesalers will use their market power to drive down the prices of agricultural products.