What after 26 January 2021? This is a question that the citizens of this country want the government to answer. There must be accountability for the mayhem unleashed on the national capital on Republic Day, when a religious flag was put up at the place where the Prime Minister of India hoists the Indian Tricolour on Independence Day. In effect, this meant the desecration of the two most important days that are at the core of India’s nationhood—Republic Day and Independence Day. As rioters armed with swords, machetes, guns, stones and sticks ran amok in the city, the nation watched in horror the scenes unfolding on their television screens—hooligans trying to mow down the police with their tractors, assaulting them with swords, in fact not sparing even policewomen, vandalizing the Red Fort, destroying public and private property. The list is long. It was the darkest Republic Day ever, and those behind it must be punished. Punishment should not be limited to those who carried out the attack, but should also be meted out to those farm leaders who stoked the fire. And reparations should be sought from the vandals and their leaders.
The farmers’ agitation has lost its legitimacy because of the violence. It was anyway confined to a minuscule section of India’s farmers, and at best was representative of a state and some adjacent areas. In fact their demand—that the farm laws be repealed—was disproportionate to the influence they command and made their motive suspect, especially since they did not want any discussion on the laws. Their motive was political—to turn Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government into a lame duck one, fearful of implementing reforms. And after Tuesday’s violence, it is clear that the farm leaders cannot even control their own flock, and worse, some of them may even have been involved in stoking the violence. Hence, the government should stop talking to them with immediate effect. The government cannot be seen to be giving in to violent tactics. Right to protest cannot be a carte blanche to create mayhem. Tuesday saw the violation of the right to protest. There was also a breach of trust, where every rule that the farmers had promised to follow was violated. After this, it cannot be business as usual—not any longer. Violence cannot be normalized in the name of right to protest, as else this will become the practice, with different interest groups resorting to such means to force the government on the back foot. This was tried during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and now again on 26 January—and this is being done with an eye to destabilise a democratically elected government, internationalise certain matters and paint the government and the country in the bleakest possible colours.
As the Opposition is unable to counter the ruling party electorally, and as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands head and shoulders above every political leader in the country, the strategy is to ensure that the opposition to him comes from the streets, through violence and through the blocking of major arterial roads along the borders of the national capital. Now that this pattern has been established, what is the government doing to counter similar protests in the future? At both Shaheen Bagh and at the farmers’ protest the escalation could have been avoided if the protesters had been dispersed in the initial days. Refusal to sit in protest at a designated site shows malintent. Hence, protests where the intention is to disrupt trade and commerce, and cause inconvenience to the people cannot be allowed to fester.
Also, why was permission given to take out the tractor rally, especially when known radical elements are part of the protest? It’s difficult to believe that there was no intelligence that the rally could lead to a major conflagration, that also on Republic Day. Why were the farmers’ promise to stick to the rulebook taken at face value? The very fact that violence started early in the morning, hours before the designated time for the tractor rally, proves that the plan was to disrupt the Republic Day parade. This should have been obvious to the agencies. That the parade was not disrupted was because of the alacrity of the Delhi police, which must be commended for facing the weapons-carrying extremist elements with nothing but sticks, shields and some tear gas. Their restraint in the face of extreme provocation was exemplary. But now is the time for action. It is time to show that just because the state did not use its firepower, and rightly so, does not mean it is a soft state. The message should go out that being humane is not a sign of weakness. Hence, it’s time to identify the culprits and unleash the power of the law on them. Too much leeway has been given to these agitators. Not anymore.