This hashtag refers to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) that farmers have been protesting for more than 6 months.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation at 5pm on June 7. In his address to the PM Modi announced a centralized Covid-19 vaccine policy. “Twenty-five per cent of the vaccination work with states will now be handled by the Centre, it will be implemented in the coming two weeks. Both State and Centre will work as per new guidelines in the coming two weeks,” Modi said.
He also announced that from June 21, all citizens above the age of 18 years will get free vaccines, and asserted that vaccine supply would be increased significantly in the country in the coming days. “Work on producing an intranasal vaccine for Covid is also happening,” he said.
The Prime Minister’s address to the nation came on a day when India reported 1,00,636 new Covid-19 cases and 2,427 deaths, the lowest in 61 days. Part of it has to do with low testing on Sunday. Only 15.87 lakh samples were tested on Sunday, compared to an average of more than 20 lakh in the last week.
Twitter and PM Modi’s Address
The official twitter handle of PMO India informed the nation of the Prime Minister’s impromptu address with the following tweet:
As soon as the tweet went live, users started hurling jokes about it and shortly after the address, the hashtag #भाषण_नहीं_MSP_चाहिए started trending on the micro-blogging site. This hashtag refers to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) that farmers have been protesting for since more than 6 months. The hashtag has around 78k tweets under it and is trending at number 3 in India.
The Farmer Protests and MSP
The MSP is a minimum price guarantee that acts as a safety net or insurance for farmers when they sell particular crops. These crops are procured by government agencies at a promised price to farmers and the MSP cannot be altered in any given situation. The concept of MSP, therefore, protects the farmers in the country in situations where crop prices fall drastically. Wheat and rice are among the top crops that are procured by the government at MSP from the country’s farmers. A total of 22-23 crops are procured under MSP.
It is somewhat strange that the concept of minimum support price — an important aspect for boosting farmers’ income — finds no mention in any law even if it has been around for decades. While the government does declare the MSP twice a year, there is no law-making MSP mandatory. What this technically means is that the government, though it buys at MSP from farmers, is not obliged by law to do so. As a matter of fact, there is no law which says that MSP can be imposed on private traders as well. The CACP had asked earlier recommended legislation to iron out a concrete MSP law for farmers, but it was not accepted by the Centre.
The fact that there is no law safeguarding MSP worked in favour of the government. While farmers have been allowed to sell their crops to any entity including private corporates, they have demanded a written promise on MSP from the government as they are afraid that corporates will start exploiting them in the absence of a minimum support price. Several farmer groups have explained that the new farm laws do not require prices for sales to private parties to be linked to the MSP — a key factor governing the mandi structure. Without this protection, farmers with small landholdings will be vulnerable to price exploitations by corporates or large-scale purchasers. It may be noted that 86 per cent of the country’s farmers have landholding less than 86 per cent.