Two days after widespread acts of rioting, violence and sacrilege against the national flag at Red Fort, a popular backlash was developing against the Punjab farmers seeking the repeal of the farm reform legislations. On Thursday, hundreds of ordinary people gathered at the sites where the protesters had squatted for two months, angrily demanding that they vacate public space.
The crowd at these sites had already thinned out considerably after the shameful events of the Republic Day. Nonetheless, the faithful made a brave attempt to keep the morale high and continue with the road blockades at some of the busiest entry points into the national capital. Farm union leaders and most of the activists at the forefront of the so-called tractor-parade on January 26 have gone underground, running scared from the Delhi police, who have filed multiple charge-sheets for the violence, arson and seditious acts that day.
Several leaders were named in the charge-sheets, while the police launched a manhunt to apprehend the violators of Red Fort. The main office, regulating entry into the historic fort, was vandalised. Fearing that the farm protest may have lost steam after the self-goal of Republic Day, desperate Opposition groups sought to talk it up, saying they would boycott the President’s address to a joint sitting of Parliament on Friday in support of the demand for the repeal of the reforms. Sixteen groups, some of them barely represented in Parliament, issued a statement criticising the manner in which the farm legislations were rushed through without a debate.
However, it appears that the protesting farm unions may have to accept the offer to suspend the implementation of the impugned laws for 15 or 18 months and call off the siege. That offer is still on the table. A Government minister renewed the call for the resumption of talks, ten rounds of which have failed to produce a compromise thus far. Despite Rahul Gandhi’s valiant attempts to arouse public opinion against farm laws in the country he has woefully failed.
On Thursday, his desperation was clear when he implied that farmers in Kerala and other places were ignorant about the potential damage these laws could do, while only Punjab farmers seemed to be alive to the dangers to their well-being. The fact is that the Congress Government in Punjab instigated the farmers against the reforms, which have the potential to rescue farming in the state from an over-dependence on wheat and paddy and thus degrading the soil, the water table, people’s health, etc. Yes, even the compulsory procurement of wheat and paddy --- over 80 per cent from Punjab and Haryana alone --- also overburdens the national exchequer, with the FCI warehouses bursting with stocks three to four times over the buffer stock requirement.
Admittedly, the government was wrong in pushing through the farm laws without a debate, but it is also undeniable that most parties in the Opposition had previously called for these very reforms. And several expert committees under various Governments had recommended the same. Finding fault with the manner in which the reform legislations were hurried through in Parliament should not, and does not, detract a wee bit from the intrinsic merit of the reforms.
The truth is, a partisan political agenda instigated the protest by the Punjab farmers. The Centre did not fall in the trap but instead, it engaged the 40-odd unions in interminably long negotiations. Yet, determined not to alienate the largest single bloc of voters in the country, at every turn, it bent backwards to accommodate the protesters. After the heinous act of defiling the sanctity of Red Fort and other acts of violence in the capital, even the farming community in the rest of the country has turned its back on its Punjab counterparts, especially on finding evidence of the Khalistani elements assuming leadership of the so-called tractor-parade.
The short point is that the protesting farmers should accept the Government offer and withdraw the agitation. A wise leader cuts his losses and lives to fight another day. Relying on a rag-tag Opposition, which in fact, seeks sustenance from their protest, would prove costly, for the latter has only burnt-out generals with no foot soldiers to call their own, to implement the war plans. The time to return to their fields and tend to the standing rabi crops is here. They haven’t lost. In fact, they have succeeded in bending an otherwise unshakeable Modi. Call off the siege of Delhi, cut your losses and return home. NOW.
