Now I'm going to do something that may surprise you. I'm going to argue for the farm laws — as strongly and honestly as the government and its supporters did. Not because I'm taking a side, but because you cannot judge a fight fairly until you've heard the best version of each side.
This part is the government's strongest, most honest case, argued the way its smartest supporters argued it. It is their case, not my verdict. Every point here has a powerful answer from the farmers — and that answer is Part 5. Read both before you decide anything.
1The big picture: a system stuck in the past
Start with how reformers see Indian farming. To them, it is a sector frozen in time: over-regulated, starved of investment, and choked by middlemen. Half the country works in it, yet it produces less than a fifth of the nation's income (remember Part 1). Something is clearly broken.
Their diagnosis: the old mandi system, built in the 1960s, has become a cage. It ties the farmer to one local market and a handful of licensed traders. It blocks big investment. And — this is their killer point — it actually helps only a small, lucky minority. The three laws, they said, were the key to the cage.
Supporters compared it to 1991, the year India freed its industries from suffocating red tape and the economy boomed. They said: agriculture never got its "1991 moment." These laws were meant to be exactly that — freedom for the farmer.
2Argument 1: Freedom to sell anywhere
Under the old rule, a farmer basically had to sell in his local government mandi. If the traders there quietly agreed to keep prices low (a cartel), he was stuck — he couldn't just walk his crop to a better buyer two districts away.
Let farmers sell to anyone, anywhere — a food company, an exporter, a buyer in the next state, an online platform. More buyers competing for the same crop should push the price up. Why should a farmer be forced to sell only in one government-approved shed?
Imagine you could only ever sell your goods in one government market in your town — and now, suddenly, you're allowed to sell in any market in the whole country. That new freedom is "One Nation, One Market."
3Argument 2: Cut out the middleman
Recall the arhtiya from Part 2 — the commission agent who takes 2.5% of every sale and often locks the farmer into high-interest debt. Reformers saw him as a barnacle on the farmer's back.
Let the farmer deal directly with the buyer and keep the middleman's cut for himself. As the government put it, the laws would "free farmers from the shackles of the arhtiyas." Fewer hands in the chain means more money in the farmer's pocket.
And here, supporters made a sharp political point: who benefits most from keeping the old system? The middlemen. So of course, they argued, the arhtiyas would fight hardest against reform — and would try to bring farmers out with them.
4Argument 3: The old system only helps a lucky few
This was the government's single strongest argument, and it is worth sitting with, because it is backed by hard data from Part 2.
Only ~6% benefit. So what about the other 94%?
A government committee found only about 6% of farmers actually sell at MSP — mostly in Punjab and Haryana. The economist Ashok Gulati pointed out that more than 90% of India's farmers already sell to private buyers outside the mandi — often below MSP, with no protection at all.
"We are not taking anything away from the lucky 6%. We are finally giving new options to the forgotten 94% — the small farmers and the poorer states that the mandi system never reached. The old system is a privilege for a few; our reform is for the many."
It's a genuinely powerful point. A farmer in Bihar or Bengal, with no working mandi nearby, was already at the mercy of private traders. For him, "protecting the mandi system" protected something he never had.
5Argument 4: A guaranteed buyer before you even plant
Now the contract-farming law. Its promise: a farmer and a company agree a price before sowing. If the market later crashes, the company still pays the agreed price — the risk shifts from the poor farmer to the deep-pocketed buyer.
Contract farming can bring the small farmer what he never had: a guaranteed buyer, a locked-in price, better seeds, new technology, credit, and a path to big national and global markets — all arranged by a company that has every reason to help him grow a good crop.
PepsiCo potatoes: for years, tens of thousands of Punjab farmers have grown potatoes for its chips under contract, getting company seed, crop insurance, and expert advice. Amul dairy: the famous cooperative model returns roughly 75–80% of the final price to the farmer. Supporters said: give this model room to grow.
6Argument 5: Money to fix the rot
India grows enormous amounts of food — and then wastes a heartbreaking share of it for lack of cold storage, warehouses, and processing plants. Fruit rots. Onions and potatoes spoil. Grain is eaten by rats.
Roughly a third lost after harvest
By some estimates, post-harvest losses run to around 37% of certain produce — food grown but never eaten, worth tens of thousands of crores every year. Fixing this needs massive private investment in cold chains and storage.
The old stock-limit rules scared investors away: why build a giant cold store if the government can suddenly cap how much you're allowed to keep in it? Freeing up stock limits (the third law) invites big money into storage and food processing — which means less waste, and steadier prices for farmers.
7Argument 6: "We're only adding a choice — MSP and mandis stay"
This was the government's answer to the biggest fear. Farmers worried the mandi and MSP would die. The government insisted, again and again, that it was doing no such thing.
"The laws take nothing away. The mandi stays. MSP stays. We're only adding a new option on top. If the mandi pays you better, keep using it. If a private buyer pays more, now you can choose him. How can more choice hurt the farmer?"
The Prime Minister said it plainly in Parliament: MSP "hai, tha, aur rahega" — it is here, it was here, and it will remain. The government also noted it had kept raising MSP and buying record amounts of grain — paying out over Rs 8 lakh crore in MSP between 2014 and 2020, well above the previous years.
This promise was spoken, but it was never written into the laws. There was no legal line guaranteeing MSP. So farmers replied: "If you truly mean it, why won't you put it in writing?" That single question became the heart of the whole movement — we'll follow it into Part 5.
8Argument 7: This wasn't sudden, or even one party's idea
Reformers pushed back hard on the idea that this was a secret BJP plot. Freeing up farm trade, they noted, had been recommended by economists and committees for decades.
A model law to loosen the mandi system was sent to the states as far back as 2003, under a different government. Many farm economists had begged for these changes for years. Even rival parties had promised similar reforms in their own manifestos. So supporters said: "Don't call it a plot. It's an old, cross-party idea that everyone agreed was needed — we finally did it."
9The government's read on the protest
If the laws were so good, why were people so angry? The government had an answer, and it's part of its case, so here it is plainly:
| Who the government blamed for the anger | Their reasoning |
|---|---|
| The middlemen (arhtiyas) | They stood to lose their commissions and their grip, so they stirred up farmers to protect their own business. |
| A rich-farmer elite | The protest was strongest among larger Punjab & Haryana landowners — the very 6% who benefit most from the old system. |
| The opposition parties | They spread what economist Ashok Gulati called a "fear psychosis" — scaring farmers that MSP would end, when (the government said) it never would. |
In short, the government argued that ordinary small farmers across India would gain, and that the protest was driven by those with the most to lose from change, plus political opponents happy to see it fail.
10An honest scorecard
Because this book plays fair, let me not pretend every government claim was equally solid. Some were strong; some never came true. Here is my honest scorecard on the government's own case:
| What the government claimed | The honest check |
|---|---|
| The old system helps only ~6%. | Strong & true. The data really does show MSP reaches very few farmers. |
| India wastes huge amounts of food for lack of storage. | True. Post-harvest waste is real and enormous. |
| Serious economists backed these reforms. | True. Many did — this was not a fringe idea. |
| "MSP will remain." | Unproven & unwritten. It stayed a spoken promise, never a law — the fatal gap. |
| Farmers' income would double by 2022. | Did not happen. Incomes rose only modestly, nowhere near double. |
11Where we go next
So there it is — the government's case, at full strength. And notice: it is not stupid. Freedom to sell anywhere, cutting middlemen, helping the forgotten 94%, guaranteed contract prices, investment to stop waste — many thoughtful, well-meaning people found this genuinely convincing.
Which raises the real puzzle of this whole story: if the case for the laws was this reasonable, why did millions of farmers reject it so completely, and sit on a cold highway for a year rather than accept it? The answer is not that they were fooled. It's that they had a powerful, specific reply to every single one of these arguments.
In Part 5, the farmers take the stand and answer the government point for point — and you'll see why, to them, every one of these bright promises hid a trap.
Part 4 — the government's case in seven lines
- Freedom to sell anywhere ("One Nation, One Market") means more buyers and better prices.
- Cut out the middleman so more money reaches the farmer.
- The old system helps only ~6% — reform is for the forgotten 94%.
- Contract farming gives a guaranteed buyer, price, and technology before sowing.
- Freeing stock limits attracts investment and cuts massive food waste.
- "We only added a choice" — MSP and mandis were promised to stay (though never in writing).
- This was an old, cross-party reform idea, backed by many economists — not a sudden plot.
Sources & further reading — Part 4
- Ashok Gulati (agricultural economist) — interviews and columns in The Wire, OpIndia and elsewhere arguing for the reforms, the "fear psychosis" remark, and that 90%+ of farmers already sell outside mandis.
- Press Information Bureau (PIB) and government statements — "One Nation, One Market," the additive nature of the laws, and MSP continuation ("MSP hai, tha, rahega").
- Business Standard / Outlook — ministers (e.g., Anurag Thakur, Amit Shah) linking the laws to the goal of doubling farmers' income; MSP payout figures 2014–2020.
- FAO / Springer case studies — PepsiCo potato contract farming in Punjab; Amul cooperative dairy model and farmer price share.
- Government / NABARD estimates — post-harvest losses (~37% of certain produce) and the case for investment in cold storage; Operation Greens.
- Shanta Kumar Committee (2015) — the ~6% MSP-benefit figure underpinning the "forgotten 94%" argument.
This part deliberately presents the pro-reform case at its strongest, in the words its supporters used. Where a claim did not hold up (doubling income; the unwritten MSP promise), I've said so in the scorecard. The farmers' full rebuttal is Part 5.