Beginning in November 2020 over half a million Indian farmers have been gathered in protest against three new agricultural laws on the borders of Indias capital, New Delhi. The protests began with agriculturalists from the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, but have spread far beyond with farmers from many states joining the struggle. On the 26th of November over 250 million working people across the country declared a general strike in support of this ongoing movement. The immediate impetus for these protests is the passing of three new Farm Bills by the BJP-led government that seek to decisively change the current landscape of agriculture by easing the entry of agri-business into the agricultural sector and move farming towards a corporatized model.
Yet the protests have become much more than the Farm Bills. The farmers protesting on the borders of the national capital are asking much larger questions: Is there a different way to do agriculture which sees farming as the future not the past? Is agri-business and the corporate control of farming the only possible solution to rural distress and poverty?
This panel discussion, led by Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Aarti Sethi will focus on what the roiling of the countryside has to do with the very structure and nature of economy and state power in contemporary India, and what possible futures agrarian India holds for a new democratic vision of society.
Panelists include:
Sudha Narayanan, agricultural economist and Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research.
Prabhakar Rao plant geneticist and founder of Hariyalee seeds.
Amandeep Sandhu, Punjabi novelist and writer
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DATE: Thursday, February 25, 2021
TIME: 9am Berkeley | 12 noon New York | 5pm London | 10pm Lahore | 10:30pm Delhi | Calculate Your Local Time
This event will also be live streamed on the Institute's FB page: ISASatUCBerkeley
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About the Panelists
Prabhakar Rao holds a PhD in plant breeding and genetics and has spent several years traveling across the world, collecting native indigenous seeds of endangered vegetable species. He is the founder of Hariyalee seeds, a family-run farm, which curates species of endangered seeds from all over the world and sells them.
Sudha Narayanan is Associate Professor of Economics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. Dr. Narayanan's current research consists of a cluster of studies focused on social protection programs, food and nutrition policy, agricultural markets, rural labour markets, gender and financial inclusion.
Aarti Sethi is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist with primary interests in agrarian anthropology, political-economy and the study of South Asia. Prof. Sethi holds degrees in political science, and cinema and cultural studies, from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 2017. Before joining Berkeley, she had postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Brown universities.
More about Prof. Sethi HERE.
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The event is FREE and OPEN to the public.
