Farmers’ agitation: End of stalemate alone will bolster Government image

While farmers are rejecting the laws, which were brought with the ostensible claim that they would do good to them, the government is proposing to keep the laws at abeyance for a year and a half. While the farmers are demanding legality to the minimum support price, the government is ready to give only a written assurance to them.

Hyderabad: The agitation being staged by the farmers at the borders of the national capital can be at best described as the struggle for existence. The agitating farmers are of the opinion that the laws that were enacted by the Center in the name of achieving 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' (Self Reliant India) will deprive them of their livelihood.

Farmers participated in 11 rounds of talks while continuing their agitation in the biting chill of winter, even when the threat of Covid pandemic loomed large and even after epithets calling them terrorists and Khalistanis were hurled against them.

The talks, however, went in vain. The Prime Minister himself announced that he was just a phone call away from the farmers’ unions.

Proving itself to be more loyal than the king, the official machinery subjected farmers to untold miseries during their ‘Republic Day Tractor Parade’. It also gave a glimpse of its evil-mindedness by laying siege to the agitators from all sides with barricades, trenches, high walls, barbed wires and nail strips.

The oppressive measures reached their peak with the stoppage of the internet, diversion of trains, efforts to divide the ranks of agitators, foisting false cases against the agitators and depriving them of sanitation and water facilities.

Is the officialdom not aware that the right to peaceful protest was guaranteed by the Constitution, which “we the people of India” gave to ourselves?

While farmers are rejecting the laws, which were brought with the ostensible claim that they would do good to them, the government is proposing to keep the laws at abeyance for a year and a half. While the farmers are demanding legality to the minimum support price, the government is ready to give only a written assurance to them.

The government’s image will be bolstered only when it gets the agitation withdrawn.

The huge scale of the present peasant movement has only two precedents in the history of India. The Pagdi Sambhal Jatta (Save your turban O Jatt) movement led by the martyred freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s uncle, Sardar Ajit Singh, had forced the British government way back in 1907 to withdraw three black laws in a similar fashion.

Nearly eight decades after that, the farmer's movement popular as Boat Club agitation, led by Mahender Singh Tikait had brought the then Rajiv Gandhi regime to its knees.

In the present movement, there is honesty in the claims being made by farmers, who are refusing to budge in spite of the death of at least one agitating farmer a day due to the inclement climate. They are seeking withdrawal of the laws notwithstanding the oppressive actions being taken against them.

In the year 2014, the NDA had promised to implement the recommendations of Dr Swaminathan Commission. It, however, backtracked from the promise but it brought in these contentious laws claiming that they would double the farmer’s income. Though agriculture is a State subject, the Center did not consult the States before bringing the new laws.

Before enacting the laws that are linked to the livelihood of the farmers, the Center did not hold talks with farmers’ unions.

The government either knowingly or unknowingly gave its assent to the laws drafted by the officials enjoying the comforts of AC rooms, in gross disregard to the ground realities. It is strange to note that the government continues its refusal to backtrack, even after coming to know the farmers' objections. Instead of keeping the laws in suspended animation for a year and a half, why doesn’t the government give a total burial to the laws and enact fresh legislation that is acceptable to all?

The farmers’ agitation has once again manifested how weak the Opposition is in the country today.

Absence of strong leaders like N.G. Ranga, who was committed to protecting the interests of the farmers, lies at the present predicament of the farming community.

Amidst all this uncertainty, the question remains, when will the stalemate come to an end?