If there is one message from the last month it is this: The spirit of Punjab is very much alive and kicking. The Modi government may have brought in the farm reform bills with the best of intentions, and had probably expected some opposition but certainly not on this scale. BJP spokespersons may claim that only six percent of the country’s farmers had benefited from the MSP and mandi regime; that only two-and-a-half states are out in the streets protesting (that is Punjab, Haryana and western UP) but when one of these states is Punjab, then the Central government has a mammoth—and very vocal—protest on its hands. The media may not be playing it up much, the government certainly is trying its best to shift the narrative to the Bengal polls, but the Punjabi farmer is having none of that. Fed up of what they (somewhat justifiably) refer to as “Godi Media”, they have made placards of whom they clearly regard as sycophantic anchors at the protest site. More important, they have floated their own social media platforms to get their point of view across. The Supreme Court order asking the government to consider a stay on these farm bills till it looks into the matter is being seen as a shot in the arm for the protestors.
What stands out in the month-long protest is the well-planned execution of a stake out, all with a huge dose of Punjabi pride. And a lot of tamasha. If PM Modi is the original tamasha man, then he has met his match in the Punjabi farmer. For instance, when the farmers were invited to by the government for talks, they went but also carried their own food in tiffins, refusing to partake of the government fare. When the Haryana government ruthlessly asked its police force to douse the protestors with water cannons, they faced the onslaught and in the evening, shared their langar with the police force, realising that the poor policeman was simply doing his duty. And now, they have decided that everyone will clap their hands during the PM’s Mann Ki Baat next Sunday. All this will culminate in a long march to Rajpath on 26 January. You can try arguing with them that the Republic Day Parade is not an ad hoc march but a choreographed procession held under strict security control, but the tractors are being readied none-the-less. This is the Punjabi Farmers› Day Out, a little thing like protocol is not going to dampen the event.
And yes, support has poured in, in the form of tents, gyms, boilers and even washing machines to help them in their stakeout; mothers and wives are seen at the camp site as well as Kangana Ranaut realised to her cost when she took potshots as one Mahinder Kaur as Shaheen Bagh Ki Dadi, she was slammed by the Sikh community from all over, even those who belong to the BJP. True, the BJP doesn’t have much of a presence in Punjab, even during the Modi wave, whatever seats it got, it piggybacked on the SAD alliance. The party’s mascot and the PM’s good friend, Arun Jaitley, lost his seat from Amritsar. However if this is the calculation with which the party decided to take on the spirit of Punjab, it should think again. The shrewd Amit Shah perhaps realised it because he himself made a rare televised appeal to the farmers to stop agitating and meet the government for talks. This is a far cry from the cold shoulder shown to the CAA protestors not so long ago. The PM too has been making appeals to the farmers, speaking to their brethren in Kutch, in Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, asking them to come to the negotiating table. And indeed the government has gone out of its way to reassure the protesting farmers, meeting most of their demands. But all this is a post factor. And that is not how you negotiate with a Punjabi. They don’t take too kindly to the politics of patronage. Till date any journalist or well wisher or even a policeman at the site has been welcomed to partake in the langar. And treated to the choicest of Punjabi eloquence as they vent against the bill!
Claiming that these bills are meant to favour the likes of Adani and Ambani, the farmers announced a boycott of all Jio products. Sensing a marketing opportunity, Vodafone immediately put up a stall selling SIM cards at the venue!
While speaking to NewsX, Harsimrat Badal had pointed out that the government strategy would be to divide the movement but it hasn’t got very far with that plan. In fact, one Sikh farmer who appeared on a BJP advertisement claiming to be very happy with the farm laws has since protested that far from being happy he was there at the protest site for the last month. That advertisement was quickly withdrawn. Harsimrat also pointed out that the other step would be to discredit the movement by painting it as a pro-Khalistani or a Naxal-sponsored movement. As Vir Sanghvi pointed out in his column, “I am waiting for someone to call them Turban Naxals.” That attempt too has been made and foiled. Also, seen at the site are NGO activists and student volunteers from Punjab, such as a group of five students from the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar who organised a ‘pizza langar’ at the Delhi-Haryana border. They had collected money and drove down to the protest site, figuring that perhaps the farmers would be fed up with the same ‘daal-chappati’ meal for a month.