One of the most historic protests of democratic India has come to its conclusion, declaring people who are affected by policies should be taken into consideration before forming one.
Farmers in India, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, have been protesting against the three farm laws for more than a year.
The farmers taught us how to brave the extreme weather and an extremely reluctant government that welcomed them with tear gas, spikes, water cannons and lathi charge to stop the people who feed us.
The protest taught us how it takes a village to bring about a change. It teaches us that merely an announcement is not enough, and materialisation of the claims should be presented for the protest to end.
The three laws which were bought to enable the farmers to a direct contract with the bulk buyers and suppliers had a lot of loopholes that suggested that it would end the mandi system, which is made keeping the small farmers in mind.
On November 19, Prime Ministers Modi’s surprised the country by apologising for not convincing the farmers that the three laws were in their favour.
The question arises: how come Modi, a champion of communication, known for making you listen to his ‘Man ki Baat’, couldnt convince the benefit of the laws to the farmers?
As P. Sainath writes in Pari, ‘Well, the Khalistanis, anti-nationals, bogus activists masquerading as farmers, have graduated to being, ‘A section of farmers’ who declined to be persuaded by Mr Modi’s chilling charms.
Refused to be convinced? What was the manner and method of persuasion? By denying them entry to the capital city to explain their grievances? By blocking them with trenches and barbed wire? By hitting them with water cannons? By converting their camps into little gulags? By having crony media vilify the farmers every day? By running them over with vehicles – allegedly owned by a union minister or his son? That’s this government’s idea of persuasion? If those were its ‘best efforts, we’d hate to see its worst ones.
The timing of the announcement removes the doubts of the intentions behind it. Modi knows that even repealing the laws might improve his chances of winning the assembly elections in Punjab but still makes it difficult for him to make a clean sweep.
Still, he has a state to focus on that is even more important, Uttar Pradesh. The Lakhimpur violence and the government’s incompetence in providing justice to the killed farmers were getting attention.
Modi forgot to mention more than 600 deaths of farmers that happened while protesting because he couldn’t ‘convince’. Modi has proved the mantra of politics that we are voters, and our votes have more value than our lives.
Also Read: The deliberate attempts to wipe out the legacy of Bhopal’s Muslim rulers from the city.
