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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Farmers scream 'vendetta'

While top leaders of both countries cheer, the reality on the ground is very different Mumbai : Top leaders in the US and India hailed the latest trade deal between the two leading democracies as at least 32 farmers ended their life in Maharashtra in January, officials said.   Farmers' leaders like All India Kisan Sabha President Dr. Ashok Dhawale and Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti Chairman Kishore Tiwari promptly slammed the NDA Government of 'vendetta' and 'victimising' the Indian...

Farmers scream 'vendetta'

While top leaders of both countries cheer, the reality on the ground is very different Mumbai : Top leaders in the US and India hailed the latest trade deal between the two leading democracies as at least 32 farmers ended their life in Maharashtra in January, officials said.   Farmers' leaders like All India Kisan Sabha President Dr. Ashok Dhawale and Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti Chairman Kishore Tiwari promptly slammed the NDA Government of 'vendetta' and 'victimising' the Indian agriculturists.   "On one hand the Union Budget has nothing spectacular for the farming community and on the other the government has virtually opened the doors for American agriculture corporations to enter India. This will further ruin our farmers," Tiwari told The Perfect Voice.   "The US-India trade deal is a clear vendetta against the farmers for their long and successful struggles against the BJP government in the past over seven years. Even the earlier agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union and now the latest (USA) have been on the same lines," fumed Dr. Dhawale.   "There was no anticipated relief in the Budget 2026-2027, and there's a spate of suicides being reported from Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh mainly from the cotton and soybean regions. On the contrary our farmers are being punished for taking a stand against the government," Dr. Dhawale told The Perfect Voice.   Attacking the government, Tiwari said that PM Narendra Modi only talks of Atmanirbhar and Swadeshi but his actions are exactly contradictory.   Referring to the US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins hailing the US-India trade deal, both Tiwari and Dr. Dhawale fear that doom looms over the Indian farming community.   Rollins said on X today: "New US-India deal will export more American farm products to India's massive market, lifting prices, and pumping cash into rural America. In 2024, America’s agricultural trade deficit with India was $1.3 billion. India’s growing population is an important market for American agricultural products and today’s deal will go a long way to reducing this deficit." Dr. Dhawale said that the three big recently concluded free international trade agreements may be disastrous not only for the cotton-soybean farmers but the entire Indian agro-economy. Tiwari feels the distress in the farmlands is bound to worsen with such questionable FTAs as all the aid packages of successive Indian government's in the past 20 years have failed as they did not address the core issues affecting the farmers. "Instead, of MIGA, we seem to be obsessed with MAGA. The BJP must first make our own farmers prosperous before looking at the world," said Tiwari in a swipe at the government. Core farm issues ignored The AIKS and VJAS have stressed the need to issue the primary issues like input costs reduction, providing irrigation in dryland regions, monitoring and restoring soil health, effective reforms in the MSP, village base storage and processing facilities.   The two organisations also seek long-term credit policy to replace the existing political doles or loans waivers, attractive incentives for diversification from cash crops to food crops, millets, or pulses.   India–US trade deal has NOT been signed yet: Goyal Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the India–US trade deal has NOT been signed yet. He said it will be inked soon. He said core interests are protected: India’s priorities, farmers, MSMEs, dairy, and agriculture, remain non-negotiable. "India is negotiating, from a position of interest, not impulse," asserted Goyal.

Can India Rely on an Unpredictable America?

From tariffs abroad to coercive policing at home, the United States is signalling unpredictability—precisely what strategic partnerships cannot afford to ignore.

From New Delhi to Mumbai, Indians are watching with unease as the United States descends into chaos. For a country positioning itself as India's strategic partner against China, America's trajectory raises uncomfortable questions about reliable commitments.


The most disturbing developments are in Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents have killed two American citizens in less than a month. Renée Good was fatally shot on January 7, and Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, on January 24. The second killing sparked Minnesota's first general strike in 80 years.


For Indians familiar with colonial-era policing, the images are jarring: over 170 U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents, some held incommunicado for days. The Trump administration's "Operation Metro Surge" deploys agents who, according to their own Border Patrol chief, consider suspects based on how someone "looks". This is profiling India, which spent decades escaping.


The dragnet has grown indiscriminate. Nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records were arrested in the first nine months of Trump's term, while over 73 per cent of those in ICE detention have no criminal conviction. For Indian professionals on H-1B visas or families awaiting green cards, the message is chilling: legal status offers no protection.


India's diaspora has felt the sting. Military deportation flights now land in Punjab, carrying Indians who attempted irregular migration. A Punjab cabinet minister pointedly asked whether Modi's friendship with Trump would help "Indian citizens in need".


Then there are the tariffs, imposed with imperial caprice. The average U.S. tariff rate has reached 14 per cent, the highest since 1946. South Korea's tariffs jumped from 15 per cent to 25 per cent because its legislature had not ratified a trade deal quickly enough. Eight European nations faced tariff threats over Greenland. India and the EU announced a trade deal this week—conspicuously, while U.S.-India negotiations stall amid Trump's 50 per cent tariff on Indian exports.


Trump has promised to use tariff revenues to pay off USD 36 trillion in debt, fund a USD 1.5 trillion military budget, and cover tax cuts—nearly USD 6 trillion in spending from tariffs generating perhaps USD 264 billion this year.


Most bewildering is Trump's Greenland obsession. He threatened military invasion, imposed tariffs on Denmark and seven other European nations, and posted maps of Greenland draped in the American flag with "SOON". He told Norway's prime minister he no longer felt obligated to "think purely of peace" and that complete control of Greenland was necessary for "world security". For Indians accustomed to China's territorial adventurism, watching America threaten a NATO ally is surreal.


This follows Trump's most brazen move: the January 3 military operation capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump openly declared America would "run" Venezuela and seize its oil reserves as reimbursement for "damages"—raising profound questions about international law and sovereignty.


From India's perspective, the pattern is troubling. The Quad partnership and Indo-Pacific strategy depend on American predictability and commitment to a rules-based order. Yet the same president expecting India to contain China threatens allied democracies, imposes arbitrary tariffs, and suggests international law does not bind him.


Prime Minister Modi faces a delicate balance. India needs American technology, defense partnerships, and support against Chinese encroachment. But Trump's America increasingly resembles the transactional, might-makes-right powers India sought American partnership to counterbalance.


The tragedy is that ordinary Americans appear as bewildered as external observers. Minneapolis residents witness their city occupied by federal forces. Farmers face worker shortages from deportations. Consumers brace for tariff-driven inflation. Meanwhile, their president threatens invasions and claims to possess a secret weapon called "The Discombobulator".


For India, the lesson is clear: even the closest partnerships cannot substitute for self-reliance. As America unravels its social fabric, threatens allies, and abandons predictable governance, New Delhi must prepare for a world where the "indispensable nation" has made itself dispensable.


The question is no longer whether America will lead the free world, but whether the free world can survive America's leadership.


(The author is a US citizen of Indian origin, residing in Washington DC. Views personal.)

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