The combination of cynical disregard for the truth, fear of change, and emotions trumping reason, can crimp policy reform. That is happening today, with some in the Opposition preying on farmers’ insecurities and feverishly trying to incite panic among them, in total disregard of the facts and even of their earlier, committed positions.

By no stretch of the imagination can it be argued that introducing new options for beleaguered farmers to sell their produce, while also retaining the old system, is somehow against their interest. Yet, that is the perception that Congress and some others are trying to create, to instigate farmers to agitate, and to browbeat other parties.

This deeply cynical tactic is a repeat of what the Congress has been doing for six years, blindly opposing everything the Modi government does. It is based partly on sheer cussedness, that is, its leadership’s personal antipathy towards Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, no matter how much it harms the nation. When they repeatedly parrot the stands taken by Pakistan and China against India’s military response to cross-border terrorism and hostile troop movements, this attempt to foment trouble in the heartland should only have been expected.

The reality is clear to any thinking person who has engaged with this topic earlier, or at least taken the trouble to read about it now. Until the current reforms, India’s farm policies dated from more than half-a-century ago, when we faced immense shortages and depended on “ship-to-mouth” foreign aid. Those policies restrained farmers to where and to whom they could sell produce, thus making it a buyers’ market.

That system of monopoly buyers skewed the power balance in favour of middlemen, hurting farmers. Thus, farmers’ incomes did not rise commensurately with economic growth, unlike in many sectors. Such restrictions were lifted long ago on most other sectors and it is unconscionable to continue restraining farmers.

This is particularly so because, in recent decades, India has become surplus in foodgrains, and, in fact, has a storage problem. For long, most stakeholders, in fact, everyone other than far Left ideologues, have been clamouring for these changes. And it is part of the Congress election manifesto, too.

As noted agri-economist Ashok Gulati has written, the recent trio of legislation “breaks the monopolistic powers of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) (in order) to provide greater choice and freedom to farmers to sell their produce.” Equally importantly, the safety net of government procurement through the minimum support price (MSP) will also continue, thus leaving the old mechanism in place for those who want to continue with the tried and tested. All these together shift the balance in favour of the sellers, that is the farmers.

Now the Congress is trying to justify its hypocrisy with shameless dissimulation. Its claim that these reforms somehow run counter to what it had committed to is a bald-faced lie. Since that has become obvious, at least to those willing to engage in the debate with reason rather than emotion, the formerly grand old party is now desperately trying to shift the goalposts. Its choice of tactic for that is to demand that the MSP mechanism be a part of legislation rather than the administrative orders it has always been, and to insist that all new buyers pay for produce at the MSP level or higher.

This is calculated as an emotive appeal, but does not withstand rational scrutiny. For the party that has governed the Republic for the vast majority of its existence, and sustained the MSP regime as an administrative framework, to now suddenly demand its legislation, takes the cake for brazenness. MSP always was, and continues to be, a safety net, a fallback option for farmers. It was never intended, nor is it wise, to legislate it as the desirable, default option. That would permanently cap the upside for farmers.

The opponents’ related second demand to make MSP compulsory for even private buyers would have a similarly disastrous effect. It would ensure that no new private buyers would enter the fray. In other words, it would help the current, politically-connected middlemen to stay empowered as the monopolistic buyers. As Gulati puts it, governmental procurement via MSP covers only 6% of farmers, and there isn’t the wherewithal for covering the entire spectrum. Without these long-pending reforms, 94% of farmers would continue to be at the mercy of imperfect markets.

Apart from visceral antipathy to the PM, the Congress leadership’s opposition banks on two flawed strategies. Both are based on classical propaganda principles, which, however, are out of sync with realities today. The first is to brand him a non-reformer, who talks but does not deliver. Of course, a quick look at the track record of the past six years unravels that allegation. And as former deputy chairman of Niti Aayog, Arvind Panagariya, has tweeted, “Those who thought the PM is not a reformist must be stunned by the last two weeks, with changes that were due for more than two decades in medical education, agriculture and labour laws.” And the final Congress hope, of denting the PM’s popularity by repeating a lie often, does not work. In this era of information ubiquity, a lie cannot sustain when the reality is unambiguous, like the Centre’s early announcement of the MSP hike last week.

Twenty years ago, as a new Member of Parliament participating in international Track-II events, two themes made a big impression on me. The first was how much influence China had managed to acquire globally. At dozens of gatherings, I saw influential personalities from politics, diplomacy, think-tanks, and Fortune 500 corporations speak emphatically in favour of China. The second theme was many commentators saying they wished India would step up and play a larger role in geopolitics, but also bemoaning that we had a long way to go.

Indeed, we did. For in the preceding two decades, from 1980 until the turn of the century, China had transformed itself in comparison to India. From an economy with per capita income similar to ours, its GDP had already become nearly thrice India’s size, eventually to become five times larger. That growth in wealth afforded it much more military and economic clout around the world.

But over the years, there have been big changes in both these themes, in opposite directions. These have only intensified in recent months. On the one hand, during the coronavirus pandemic, the number of nations that are unhappy with China and suspicious of its motives has grown exponentially. On the other hand, the goodwill for India and its actions, and respect for its capabilities, have grown equally sharply. Our path forward requires understanding both these trends.

It was a dozen or so years ago that I first ran into western companies complaining about doing business in China. After years of praising the ease of doing business there, and contrasting it with India, they had begun sounding off about Chinese partners appropriating their intellectual property rights and unexpectedly turning into competitors.

China used its growing wallet to push its strategic aims around the world, using “aid” funding in a uniquely new manner. While traditional aid by developed nations consisted of subsidised, long-term, low-interest funding, Chinese projects, like those under the One Belt One Road (OBOR) came with high commercial rates of interest. At least one such project, the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, has been directly taken over by China after it defaulted on those usurious repayments.

China also became increasingly assertive in geopolitics, such as in its South China Sea disputes with neighbours and others. Some commentators sensed hubris in this, and a shift away from the path of Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic prowess, who had advised his successors to “maintain our position, meet challenges calmly, hide our capacities, and bide our time, remain free of ambition, never claim leadership.”

Gradually, diplomats and Track-II delegates began using different terminology in reference to China. From the turn-of-the-century phraseology that the rise of China was inherently beneficial to the world, within a decade, the tenor shifted to an insistence that it must play by the rules of global engagement from which it had itself benefited.

With the growing tensions over trade in recent years, and the pandemic this year, the wheel has turned further. Last week, a White House report titled The US Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China did away with all previous diplomatic euphemisms and asserted it “is responding to the Chinese Communist Party’s direct challenge by acknowledging that the two powers are in ‘strategic competition’.”

The US is not alone, as many nations around the world have taken a stand demanding China come clean about the origins of the coronavirus and the beginnings of its spread in Wuhan. After initially rebutting such demands, China has acceded to an inquiry by the World Health Organization. But at the same time, it has lashed out against Australia, one of the lead signatories, with punitive economic measures.

China has also taken steps in its own immediate neighbourhood that are raising eyebrows. India, too, is experiencing yet another face-off across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), in Ladakh. To be sure, the border dispute has not seen a shot fired in anger in decades. Yet, recent years have seen a series of such incidents, the last one being at Doklam in 2017. India has demonstrated that, while remaining peaceful and reasonable at all times, it is capable of being resolute in defending its territory.

All these developments present opportunities for India, which has been gaining respect in the world’s eyes since the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era, and more rapidly in recent years. This has defence aspects, of course, including the acquisition of equipment, technology, production, and joint exercises.

However, the economic aspect will be crucial. And whatever your views on India’s ~20 lakh crore economic stimulus, the policy reforms built into it are the key. Making available large chunks of land, rejigs in labour and other laws, and especially opening up all sectors to private investment are what India has long needed.

As China was the latest to demonstrate, it is far, far easier to win friends and influence nations with a bigger wallet. India is set to follow the same path, without the hubris.