JOIN USWhat's the road ahead for the farmers' protest?
The farmers' protest has entered 168th day on the borders of Delhi. Farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh are sitting on the borders of Delhi. Farmers moved to these protesting sites on November 26th, 2020, and have established concrete and non-concrete structures on the borders to keep the protests going.
A lot has happened in these six months. From braving the brute force on their way to Delhi’s borders or the harsh winters, farmers have persisted in their demands of the repeal of the three laws and enactment of the MSP (minimum support price) regime in agriculture.
What have farmers achieved in these six months?
The argument that all the meetings between the Centre and the unions have failed does not give us the whole picture of the achievements of the protest.
The farmers' protest has brought the agrarian crisis to the forefront. It is a widely accepted fact on all sides of the political spectrum that agriculture in India is facing a crisis and the crisis has not been looked into. The farmers' protest has created awareness about basic terms like MSP, mandis, PDS, food security, etc.
Most farmers did not even know about the existence of the MSP regime before the farmers' protest, which bolsters the argument that knowingly or unknowingly farmers have managed to shift the attention to important aspects. Farmers across the country are now demanding MSP and fair prices for their crops. The farmers' protest has thus created a wave of awareness that will not let eyewash policies float for long.
Farmer mobilisations have not happened on this scale post the 1980s. There have been stray movements but none on the scale of this movement. The reasons lie in the unions that lead farmers across the country. The farmers' protest has for the first time witnessed all the major unions come together under one roof to advocate a common cause. The unions may differ in their ideologies but have selflessly been standing up for the causes of farmers. This development, if looked at from Punjab’s point of view is important in the context of the elections in the state in 2022.
The farmers protest has shifted the narrative from ‘Sikh politics’ to ‘agriculture’ for the first time in Punjab’s politics. In Punjab, there is a long pattern where the two main parties have used the bandwagon of ‘peaceful Punjab’ or ‘drug-free Punjab’ as their election war cries. This time, however, the parties are hard at work to woo the state's major vote base, the peasantry. Captain Amarinder Singh, the Punjab chief minister, for example, has allocated Rs 200 crore for diversification in Punjab’s agriculture. The Akalis meanwhile are making sure they highlight every procurement problem from the shortage of bardana (gunny
bags) to the sluggish lifting by the Food Corporation of India. The farmers' protest has resulted in putting farmers issues on the table for 2022. In the words of farmer union leader Balbir Singh Rajewal, “If we can come to Delhi, we can very well move to Patiala as well.”
The farmers' protest has influenced politics not just in Punjab but in other states as well. Punjab saw the ousting of the BJP and a decrease in seats of the Shiromani Akali Dal in the civic polls. Similarly, tremors were felt in Haryana as well with a no-confidence motion against the ML Khattar government. Irrespective of the result of the motion, the sentiment on the ground in Haryana has changed for Khattar’s ally in the government, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). Haryana’s politics has become more interesting with the Khaps standing in solidarity with the farmers since day one. In West Bengal, even though farmers rallies did not affect the vote shares but will be considered significant given that the BJP, seen now as an enemy of farmers, was unable to win the elections.
A major achievement of the farmers' protest is the ‘rise of movements’ or ‘legitimisation of dissent’. Many people who talk and follow the protests globally acknowledge that dissent under Narendra Modi governments I and II fell significantly. Dissent was demonised and criminalised with the help of the law and order machinery acting at the behest of the government. The fact that none of the protests from 2014 onwards could survive the delaying tactics of the government makes the farmers protest the tallest protest of the last two decades. The protest has not only inspired many other smaller groups, like tribals but has also restored belief in democracy’s most important pillar, ‘protest’.
A slightly less talked but important aspect of the farmers' protests for the Sikh community has been the coming together of the community for a common cause. The Sikh diaspora and Indian Sikhs have had differences of opinion on how things shape or work in India. But the massive support by the Sikh diaspora has made things between the two groups better and fluid. This can be seen in the emergence of better panthic resolutions and moves. Several Sikh scholars think that this coming together of thinkers under one Nishan Sahib may see changes in how the prime Sikh body, the SGPC, works and operates.
What's the road ahead?
The estimated number of farmers sitting on Delhi's borders as of this day is not more than 10,000 people. The farmers, however, are still focused on the repeal of the laws. There has been attrition and the causes are none that are portrayed by media. This is strategic attrition done as a cooling-off period. The farmers' protest sites are still up and running. The period when the government is dealing with the Covid situation and is called out daily for major failures is probably the time that farmers would like to cool off. Farmer leaders have maintained that there is no going back and that they can sit until 2024 as well.
Farmers are getting vaccinated on the borders. More than 2,200 farmers have taken the jab as on this day. The medical facilities are emerging on the sites. It is important to mention here that farmers are looking forward to the talks with the government. It is probably the best time for the Narendra Modi government to repeal the laws and enact new ones in the post-pandemic stage. For now, one thing is clear that we are not going home without the repeal of the laws.
(The writer describes himself as a blogger, writer, political analyst (Kashmir relations), music lover and an engineer at heart)