Pause, rethink, restart
It was as if a Republic Day tableau took a violent life of its own and ended in a sad, silly skit at the Red Fort. The genuine fears of farmers about the possible privatisation of procurement of foodgrains were sustaining the two-month-long agitation that had become some sort of a model for protesters. The langar, community living and the peaceful, resolute and joyous mass mobilisation triggered by idealism had captured the imagination of the nation. Despite certain elements in the electronic media trying to unleash a smear campaign, all that the farm protests elicited was sympathy and solidarity. Yet, it took just a few agent provocateurs and saboteurs to derail the protest, turn the tide, transform the flower petals of adulation showered by supporters into stones of anger. This should never have happened.
Does a negotiation hold any meaning if one side has to win and the other lose conclusively and completely?
Pause. Every mass movement ought to stop to catch breath when its just demands are met halfway. When the government on January 20 agreed to suspend the contentious farm laws for 18 months (with one of the negotiators suggesting even two years), the farmer leaders should have agreed to reciprocate this gesture. Mature leadership demands a transactional strategy of giving in to take more or ceding to claim the moral high ground. The farmer leaders ought to have sought a longer period of suspension — say, two or three years — and returned home like victors and giant-killers. That a duly elected government agreed to suspend a law for about two years was in itself a great victory for the protesters. Suspension, after all, was just one step short of the repeal or withdrawal of the laws.
But this offer was not accorded the respectful deliberations it deserved, and instead was rejected by certain hotheads. It was widely reported that 15 of the 32 farmer unions from Punjab had voted to suspend the agitation and return home. That was the turning point. The 17 who made the 15 succumb to their wishes were taking over the agitation in a show of majoritarian strength and not in the true spirit of democratic decency towards the minority opinion. The more extreme elements who voted against accepting the government’s offer should be held responsible for all that went wrong on Republic Day. The intriguing details of hooliganism by some protesters — like former BJP supporter Deep Sidhu — turn the entire drama at the Red Fort into a multi-act conspiracy play with more prompters backstage than actors upfront.
The farmer agitation was a sort of pilgrimage for many Punjabis. Those who chose to see only multi-million tractors, blaring speakers worth lakhs, pizzas and foot massages obviously did not look at those who walked hundreds of kilometres to reach the protest site — a practice of piety for Indians across the country. It was this sombre, prayerful protest that got discredited because some of the units of the Bharatiya Kisan Union decided to take a maximalist position. Does a negotiation hold any meaning if one side has to win and the other lose conclusively and completely? That does not happen even in an outright war unless it is something akin to the destruction of the LTTE and its maximalist chief V Prabhakaran, which resulted in untold misery and racial humiliation to an entire community. The 17 hotheads need to analyse the loss of integrity of the farmer agitation.
Rethink. When the President, while addressing the joint sitting of Parliament, on Friday reiterates the government’s commitment to respect the Supreme Court’s decision to keep the farm laws on hold, soon after the government’s representatives offering to suspend the laws, the farmer unions ought to recalibrate their next move. The government’s suggestion to suspend the laws, obviously, was a face-saving exit from the cul-de-sac of its own making. Now, by not accepting this proposal, the farmers are walking into a dead end of another kind. They need to rethink their strategy all over again, while keeping the idealistic embers burning for the long haul.
For all we know, this Gandhian agitation had the potential to throw up a political alternative for the next general election. By the end of two months, there were comparisons drawn between the farmer agitation and the Anna Hazare movement against corruption that destroyed the credibility of the UPA government and laid the ground for the BJP’s return to power in the 2014 election. The anti-corruption protests had never descended into violence or chaos and were carefully crafted to create a new political platform, which became a nationwide phenomenon, putting the Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal in positions of power. Instead of taking a similar trajectory, the farmer protests have been reduced to an identity play with religious symbolism and brainless bravado as the primary scripts. Non-stop protests by hotheads who mistake negation for negotiation can only promise a comic show of athleticism atop a slippery pole, which the entire Republic Day fiasco was finally all about.
Restart. The gains thus frittered away could be best recouped by taking a break now for a new beginning. Government procurement had helped lift masses of farmers from poverty. They would all gradually get aligned with the protesters if they continue to walk the narrow path of non-sectarianism and non-violence, transforming the movement into a national campaign. But that requires the masses to be reassured that this is a farmers’ movement and not a clash of inflamed egos of a few wealthy Punjabi landowners. A decent interval can bring down the tempers and soothe bruised minds and rebuild the protest, if required. On its part, if the government has understood the mood of farmers and does not attempt to implement these laws at all, then the slogan of ‘repeal’ becomes an empty threat of disruption. Our farmers should not turn victory into defeat. How unfortunate it is not to realise that you have succeeded and to keep chasing a mirage!
