Need to find middle ground to resolve farmers’ agitation
After a hiatus of several months, the ongoing agitation by farmers against the three farm laws appears to be gaining momentum again. After a massive show of strength in Muzaffarnagar on Sunday, where thousands gathered for a mahapanchayat and called for the ouster of the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh elections due next year, the farmers have shifted their focus to Karnal in Haryana, where there is a mini secretariat for CM Manohar Lal Khattar to operate from.
While the Muzaffarnagar gathering was called to display their level of support and make a larger political point through agitational tactics, the Karnal protest is only for a limited purpose. All that the protestors are demanding is compensation for a farmer who allegedly died in police action during their protest on August 28, aid for other farmers injured during the clashes and the registration of a criminal case against the then SDM Ayush Sinha, who asked police personnel to break the heads of farmers.
Even if it is assumed that the demands are unjustified, they are not intractable as all the three conditions lie in the administrative domain and the farmers could have been assuaged if they were handled with tact. But the Khattar government chose to deploy bureaucrats and police officers to negotiate with the agitating cultivators to not go ahead with the protest. Given the magnitude of support the farmers enjoy and the attention the movement has drawn, the political leadership of the Haryana government should have engaged with the farmers. But with the talks failing and the farmers beginning their indefinite siege of the secretariat, Karnal is staring at the spectre of going the Singhu border and Tikri way, where the farmers are still gathered in protest, although in significantly fewer numbers.
The revival of sorts of the agitation brings into question the continued impasse over the farm laws. In a few days, the protests, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of agitators and cost the exchequer crores of rupees, will complete a year. It is time both sides shed their intransigence, climb down from their maximalist positions and explore a middle ground keeping in mind the national and public good.