Bharat Bhushan: Short of answers or assurances; Govt unable to handle farmer protests
NB: The RSS-led Modi Government is politically bankrupt. It has only one mental fixation: communal hatred, which is why it is now raising the bogey of Khalistan, clubbing it together with the charge of Congress-led conspiracy. (Has it forgotten than Indira Gandhi's assassins were inspired by Khalistani ideology?). This government has only one method of dealing with protest and difference of views: intimidation and character assassination, two sides of the coin of violent suppression. If these are your sole recipes for governing India gentlemen, you will end up becoming the heralds of disintegration. Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Bharat are mutually exclusive ideals. It is no use speaking reason to the deaf, but Indians are waking up to the reality. I salute the brave kisan families of Punjab and Haryana for asserting their rights with dignity and determination. DS
Bharat Bhushan: Govt unable to handle farmer protests
A now viral image of the farmer’s agitation shows a young English-speaking Sikh explaining to a police officer why the farmer’s movement should be taken seriously. It is a revolution or “inquilab”, he says, if not addressed by the government it will “completely redefine the politics of this country”. The trolls of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), completely miss the point by ridiculing him and those who support the protest. The notions that only the extremely poor need to be protected from the free market by government intervention and that anyone who has mastered the language of the elite is disqualified from political sympathy must be quickly given up by the ruling party.
Instead of addressing fears of a deregulated market in
agriculture, the party has let its trolls play up the ostensible shouting of
separatist slogans like “Khalistan Zindabad” and death threats to PM Modi. From
here the narrative moves quickly and familiarly in the direction of “Khalistani
terrorists and (the) Congress” having conspired to organise riots in the
country. For the record, despite the accusations of Opposition forces colluding
in the farmers’ protests, the farmers have not allowed established political
parties on their platform.
Why is the BJP unable to admit to the legitimacy of issues
raised by the farmer’s agitation? And why must it smear it as anti-national?
The culture of the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS) from which the top BJP
leadership comes, is not democratic – it insists on ideological obedience and
leaves little room for discussion and debate with other points of view. Lacking
any other framework to mentally engage with differences of opinion, it
interprets all dissent from the government’s policies as anti-national.
Remember that before the accusation of “Khalistanis” other dissenters were
variously temed “urban Naxalites”, “terrorists”, “Pakistan-sympathisers”.
The government argues that it has opened up the national
market for farmers and done away with exploitative middlemen. Even now, the
farmers’ incomes have not fallen and that government procurement of paddy for
the ongoing Kharif season 2020-21 has seen a near 18% increase over the last
year. The farmers are protesting out of fear of future loss of income with the
erosion of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees mandis. There is also
a fear that the government may reduce its own procurement under the MSP (minimum
Support Price) by restricting purchases to only amounts necessary for ensuring
food security and disaster mitigation. So even though not one of the three new
farm laws mentions MSP, it is central to the agitation.
The prevailing folklore that only 6% of the farmers benefit
from MSP suggests the problem is limited. This figure, however, is based on a
report on the restructuring of the Food Corporation of India headed by former
Agricultural Minister Shanta Kumar. Based on the 2015 data of the report deals
with only those who sell paddy and wheat and account for just 5.8% of farmers.
More than 80% of these are from Punjab and Haryana. The political conclusion
usually drawn from this is that the protests will not affect the rest of India.
However, analysis of data from 2019-20 shows that government
procurement through agencies other than the FCI is not unimportant in other
crops and other regions. While it is highest in paddy (43%) and wheat (36%), it
is 29.5% for cotton, 18% for chickpea (chana), 18.8% for Arhar (pigeon pea),
5.69% for green gram (moong), 5.78% for mustard and 7% for groundnut. Figures
for 2018-19 indicate 9.87% procurement for milk by quasi-government
dairy-cooperatives. Although 80% of sugarcane is procured privately by sugar
mills, the government sets what it considers a fair and remunerative cane
price. Therefore experts claim that the beneficiaries of government procurement
may be closer to 15% to 25%, extending much beyond Punjab Haryana.
The BJP’s lack of sympathy for farmers also stems from its
own focus on religious identities and ‘hyper-nationalist’ sentiment. Both lend
themselves to mobilisation on anti-Muslim or anti-Pakistani rhetoric. Unlike
the Congress or the Left parties, the BJP has never been engaged in any
farmers’ movements and has little appreciation of the crisis of Indian
agriculture. When compelled to address the agriculture sector where it is in
government, it has tended to announce ad hoc schemes which are then hyped as
solutions to the crisis. Farmers’ agitations which have rocked the country
periodically prove that these measures have not worked.
The government is perhaps also mistaken in seeing the hand
of arhatiyas (middlemen) and big farmers in this agitation.
Political observers in Punjab say that the anger in Punjab is palpable cutting
across social, economic, occupational and gender distinctions. Entire families,
big, small and marginal farmers as well farm labour are participating in the
protests.
No government can allow street protests to last for long or
else they assume a life and logic of their own. Previous attempts at a dialogue
with the farmers, after the farm laws were passed, broke down.
The Union agriculture minister absented himself after having invited the
farmers for talks on October 14. Predictably, farmers’ leaders walked out of
the meeting as bureaucrats could give them no assurances. A second meeting
attended by the Ministers for Agriculture and of Railways on November 14 was
also inconclusive.
Now Union Home Minister Amit Shah has offered talks provided
the protestors raise the blockade of highways leading to the capital and move
to Burari grounds. But it is unclear whether the government is in a position to
concede the farmers’ demand of 100 per cent procurement at MSP or commit to
repealing the controversial farm laws.
If the farmers are not satisfied, then Burari could become
yet another iconic protest site before force is used to evict the protestors.
And if the present agitation is called off after ambiguous assurances, then
farmers across India may continue to believe that they continue to be targeted
by market deregulation. Their anger may then continue to fester only to erupt
at a future date.
Winds from Punjab:
By Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Thousands of
protesting farmers enter Delhi defying water cannon and police crackdown
