Seven-eight months on, some of Delhi’s borders are still blocked by groups of farmers sitting in protest against the three farm laws passed by Parliament following due legislative process and with a majority vote. Much has happened in these months, including the deadly second wave of the coronavirus that has left thousands dead and hundreds and thousands infected and often battling with post-infection complications. Amid this, these farmers have defied every Covid protocol including social distancing and masking, while staying put on Delhi’s borders. Allegations are that these gatherings have proved to be super-spreader events, with the farmers taking back the infection to their villages whenever visiting home, which has resulted in certain areas in states neighbouring Delhi becoming corona hotspots. But obviously, such has been the level of misinformation and disinformation spread about the farm laws that the protesting farmers are ready to put their and their loved ones’ lives at risk to try and put pressure on the government to repeal the farm laws.
Also in these months, what was initially proclaimed to be a non-political protest fighting for the rights of farmers has shed the fig leaf of being above politics. The fundamental premise of the protest was always political—to turn the Narendra Modi government into a lame-duck one by making it repeal the farm laws and thus not allowing it to undertake any reform-oriented activities. The only difference now is that the leaders of the protest have taken clearly partisan positions and are openly hobnobbing with opposition parties, a case in point being Rakesh Tikait, the leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. Tikait is an ambitious man and does not believe in staying confined to Delhi’s borders and so travelled all the way to West Bengal ahead of the Assembly elections there to campaign against the Bharatiya Janata Party. And now he believes he can play a role in the formation of a second/third political front in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024 against the BJP.
Recently, he again travelled to Kolkata and if media reports are to be believed, offered West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee the Prime Minister’s post if any such political formation comes to power in 2024. It’s a different matter though that Tikait’s immediate focus is on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections that are scheduled to be held around February-March 2022. Ahead of that, whether he is working to establish himself as a Jat leader in the Jat belt of western Uttar Pradesh, or is working in tandem with opposition parties, particularly the late Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, or both, is a matter of speculation. But what is more than apparent is that he is enjoying the national limelight and has no intention of calling off the protests in the near future—not at least up to the UP elections.
However, whether or not these protests have an impact on the elections next year will depend not so much on what Rakesh Tikait and fellow farmer leaders do, but on what both the Central and state governments do in terms of reaching the benefits of their schemes and their development work to the people, apart from of course ensuring the revival of the economy in a post-Covid situation. Also, healthcare infrastructure has to be kept in top shape so that India does not pay a high price in terms of either human or economic terms in case a possible third wave proves to be as virulent as the second one. For this vaccination has to be ramped up, while also giving a booster dose to the public health system in terms of infrastructure.
As for the farmers, it is time they looked after their own interests. As the government has been saying repeatedly, neither would MSP go nor the mandi system. The new laws offer the farmers certain choices, but do not scrap the old system. The protesting farmers need to realise that the “leaders” who are instigating these protests are driven by self-interest—political interest or financial interest or both. They are not driven by the farmers’ interests. The poor farmers are allowing themselves to be exploited by these leaders. It is time they returned home and took another look at the farm laws.