Farmers who fear that these reforms will make them dependent on large corporations have been protesting since last November.
The repeal of the reforms was announced before the elections in the states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, home to India’s largest farming communities.
For the nationalist government led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the peasant unrest has become the biggest challenge since coming to power in 2014.
In India, with a population of 1.3 billion, almost 70% of workers earn their living from farming.
Laws deemed necessary by the government to modernize the agricultural sector sought to ease the rules for storing and marketing grain, and farmers feared that only large corporations would benefit.
In an unexpected address to the people, Modi said on Friday that the laws were aimed at making small farmers stronger.
“Only some of them opposed the law, but we continued to try to educate and inform them,” Modi said.
However, he acknowledged that the government had failed to convince these farmers of the benefits of the law, so the parliament would repeal the law during the winter session.
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