It’s almost two months that protesting farmers, primarily from Punjab, have stationed themselves along Delhi’s borders, seeking the repeal of the three farm laws—nearly 60 days, during which they have inconvenienced the residents of Delhi-NCR, apart from causing immense financial losses to businesses. The farmers have taken an absolutist position, where they are not ready to discuss anything short of a repeal of the laws. They are not interested in any clause-by-clause discussion, which the government has offered to do, right from the beginning. Instead, all that they seem to be keen on is that the Centre must bend its knees in front of them and roll back these laws—in other words, the Government of India should not only eat humble pie, but be seen to be eating humble pie and that too over laws that have found support among most farmers in the rest of the country. It is obvious that the aim is to turn the Narendra Modi government into a lame duck, where it cannot bring in any reforms for fear of street agitation. Hence, in spite of claims of being apolitical, the whole premise of this agitation is political and the possibility of political players working behind the scenes to fuel it cannot be ruled out, whatever be the public posturing of the farmer leaders.
Of course this whole escalation could have been avoided when the protests started two months ago if the government had been proactive and not allowed them to assemble. It would have been easier to remove a few hundred protesters then, instead of now when thousands have been mobilized. Why is it that the government did not learn any lessons from the Shaheen Bagh protest, which too was allowed to grow before it could no longer be managed? The Delhi riots of February 2020 were a direct fallout of it, and but for the outbreak of coronavirus the protesters could not have been removed.
While peaceful protests are a democratic right of every citizen of this country, no protester, even if one’s cause is justified, can inconvenience fellow citizens or bring normal life to a halt while holding such protests. And this when one side is more than willing to discuss the problems that the protesters have. This “annadata” narrative, while talking about the farmers, has been taken too far. Just because farmers are growers of crops, and providers of food, does not mean they are above the law. Also, why will an elected government repeal laws that have been passed by Parliament? In this context, without going into the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction about suspending the farm laws, a valid question that has been raised is, from now on will groups of people be allowed to decide what an elected government of a democracy should do? Status quo, which keeps 85% of the country’s farmers poor cannot be acceptable. Change is a must. Laws evolve. The farm laws too will evolve and loopholes will be discovered and repaired, but reform cannot be stalled for that. It is obvious that a campaign of misinformation and disinformation has been launched by vested interests to mislead the protesting farmers about the farm laws. This must be countered.
Also, isn’t it time that the country got to know about the funding of these protests—both Shaheen Bagh and the farmers’ protests? Where is the money coming from so that thousands of people can be mobilized every few days and a lavish amount can be spent to keep them hale and hearty—and sometimes even in luxury—in the bone-chilling cold of Delhi? The other aspect is the Khalistani angle. Since the Attorney General has told the Supreme Court that Khalistani elements have infiltrated the protests, it is hoped that NIA’s investigation into the matter will shed some light on it.
The farmer leaders are now adamant about holding their tractor rally in the national capital on Republic Day, in spite of knowing that Delhi is a high security zone on 26 January. Do they realise that their rally can be hijacked by the elements who have infiltrated the protests, to stoke violence, which will thus grab eyeballs internationally? In fact, right from the start, the focus of these elements has been to internationalise a purely domestic matter, give it a colour of human rights violation and ensure censure of the Indian government. Republic Day is a matter of pride for all Indians; it is sacrosanct. The farmer leaders should desist from taking out their tractor rally on that day. Nothing should be done that can be taken advantage of by elements that are inimical to India’s interests.
One way out of this deadlock could be to give the states the choice of implementing these laws. Considering a majority of states are now ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the laws will come into effect in vast swathes of the country anyway. If they are found to be beneficial for the farmers, the push for these laws to be implemented in Punjab will come from the state’s farmers themselves. The bottom line is, street protests cannot go on when the option for discussion is available. And the farmers themselves need to object to attempts being made by some people to disrupt Republic Day. It is their Republic Day too.
The farmers have taken an absolutist position, where they are not ready to discuss anything short of a repeal of the laws. They are not interested in any clause-by-clause discussion, which the government has offered to do, right from the beginning.