It was a quiet ‘Black Day’ protest by the farmers. May 26 was six months down the road from the heady highway protests at the entry points to Delhi-at Ghazipur, Tikri, and Singhu. Small groups gathered with black turbans and flags to remind the government that the repeal of the farm laws remained unresolved. Time and the pandemic had taken a toll on the numbers, but the spirit has not waned.
The Narendra Modi regime, in the last two years, has faced two serious mass mobilizations-the anti-CAA agitation and the farmers protest. The Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) was passed in December 2019 allowing naturalisation rights to Hindu, Sikh, and other denominations fleeing from neighbouring countries; with the exception of Muslims. It triggered huge, mainly urban protests, against the discriminatory legislation.
The anti-CAA movement was a broad alliance between the Muslims and the liberal intelligentsia, and it went on for months. The Shaheen Bagh sit-in became a symbol of resistance. However, severe repression and the beginning of the pandemic in March, last year, saw these petering off.
The trajectory of the protests against the farm acts has been different. The BJP government rushed the three farm acts through Parliament without discussion in September 2020. Ground protests broke out almost immediately. The government misread the mood and thought the protestors would melt away with the Covid-19 crisis.
The Long Haul
It all started with a huge show of strength on November 5, last year, when lakhs of farmers streamed in from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh (UP) to block the entry points to the Capital. That blockade on the doors of Delhi continues.
The government has tried its best—it has held 11 rounds of talks and offered to amend the laws. It has cajoled farmers by agreeing to keep the farm laws in abeyance for 18 months. And when these things did not work, we saw the boot of the state on January 26, when the protestors entered Delhi. More than 400 protestors have so far died-claimed by Covid, police lathis, or Delhi’s biting cold.
What is significant is their resilience. They have repeatedly said that the government narrative—that the agricultural laws would benefit farmers by opening out the markets to more players and therefore more sale options and better prices—is a Big Lie. The dismantling of the ‘mandis’ is nothing but the takeover of corporates, they point out.
That is why, the unequivocal stance: no amendments, no compromises. Repeal the acts!
The strategy of the farmers’ leaders of going for the long haul seems to be paying off. The battle at the gates of Delhi has been sending reverberations elsewhere too. It was not a major issue in the Bengal elections, but the impact was there. The BJP was wiped out. Closer to Delhi, in Haryana, the BJP and its allies fared badly in the recent urban civic body elections, even losing in some of its urban bastions.
Impending elections
The farmers unions realize if they stay their course for a few more months, the BJP will be on a weaker wicket when election campaigning opens in five states-UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. In Punjab, the ruling party as it is has been reduced to a cipher.
But the cherry in the bunch is obviously UP. The Yogi Adityanath government is already on the back foot with its lazy and inept handling of the second wave of the Covid pandemic. Thousands have died from the criminal policies of the government that persisted with the panchayat elections. And the voters hit back. Of the 3,050 zila parishad ward seats, the BJP managed to win just 900. It even lost its bastions—Ayodhya and Mathura.
One can also expect the Jat vote to turn. Last Lok Sabha election, Western UP’s Jats were firmly with the BJP. Not anymore. The mainstay of the protestors from UP are Jats from the important farm belt in and around Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. They are now firmly aligned with Rakesh Tikait’s BKU and Tikait has made it quite plain that he wants the BJP out.
For the BJP poll strategists, a sensible gambit would be to repeal the farm laws, and make peace. But the farmers are dealing with bloated egos and a patriarchal RSS ideology of dominance that does not believe in stepping back.
On a national plane, the farmers’ persistent battle has put the issues around the agricultural economy center-stage. The lack of remunerative prices for farm products, and the attempt at corporatisation of the farm economy, had been swept under the carpet earlier. When the protests first started, BJP spokespersons mocked that it was farmers only from Punjab. Then the protests spread to Haryana and UP, and then Rajasthan. Now, as the February 2022 state elections draw closer, one can expect the heat to increase.
Farmers want repeal
Protesting farmers have repeatedly said that the new laws dismantling mandis is the takeover of corporates
Protestors want the repeal of the newlaws