Farmers, especially of Punjab and Haryana, are worried over the end of the mutually-beneficial relationship between them and the Union government with the passage of the three agriculture bills in the monsoon session of Parliament that ended on September 23. Their key apprehension is that the minimum support price (MSP) for crops may be stopped by the Centre, a fear that has been allayed repeatedly by the latter.
The government-farmer relationship goes back to the mid-1960s when India was battling food grain shortage and fear of famine loomed large. To remedy the situation, the Union government ushered in the Green Revolution to make India self-reliant in food production by adopting modern methods and technology.