Protest ranks swell in Haryana- Support for farmers grow in spite of vilification campaign

More farmers are heading towards Delhi from other parts of the country

Farmers offer tea to security personnel on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Delhi on Friday

Prem Singh

Anita Joshua   |   TT   |   New Delhi   |    12.12.20  :  Support for the farmers’ movement has grown so far in spite of a vilification campaign by gimlet-eyed propagandists loyal to the Narendra Modi government.

More farmers are heading towards Delhi from other parts of the country. Besides, the participation from Haryana, where the farmers are massed along the Delhi border at various points, is now vying with that from Punjab.

The Punjab farmers are keeping the agitation energetic by getting people by rotation. The first batch of farmers who have been here for a fortnight are returning home but a new set is coming in daily to relieve them and keep up the momentum.

Haryana, which has a BJP-led coalition government, is getting restive. This was reflected in mass resignations from the panchayati raj institutions in solidarity with the farmers. In Hisar alone, 35 members of the panchayati raj institutions resigned on Thursday amid suggestions that elected representatives from Fatehabad, Sirsa, Jind and Kaithal are likely to follow suit.

The impact on the ground has been perceptible. Dharmendra, the actor and former BJP parliamentarian whose son Sunny Deol has been fighting shy of taking an unequivocal stand, was compelled to tweet: “I am extremely in pain to see the suffering of my farmer brothers. Government should do something fast.”

The Right-wing storm-troopers will find it difficult to pounce on Dharmendra, especially since his wife Hema Malini and Sunny are sitting BJP parliamentarians now.

With the government claiming that the farmers’ organisations have walked away from the talks, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee said: “Farmers’ organisations are always ready for talks and have responded each time the government has called. It is the government which is adamant on continuing with not repealing the three acts and the Electricity Bill 2020 which is the main demand of the farmers.”

Further, the farmers’ union leaders underlined that they had engaged with the government even though members of the ruling establishment, including a Union minister, had cast aspersions on them and called them names.

“Who is vitiating the atmosphere? Us or them? We are exercising our democratic right by protesting peacefully, yet we are called Khalistani and what not,” said a farmer leader.

The government’s camp followers have latched on to the observance of International Human Rights Day at the Tikri border on Thursday as evidence of the farmers’ agitation being hijacked by “Left extremists”.

Farmers’ union leaders have distanced themselves from this event and iterated their call to keep contentious issues out of the movement, which is essentially a broad coalition of organisations from across the spectrum.

The International Human Rights Day event was organised by the Bharatiya Kisan Union-Ekta (Ugrahan) and saw their members hold up posters of people the Right wing describes as “urban Naxals”.

Asked about the emergence of posters of civil rights activists like Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha at the protest in Tikri, farmers’ union leader Darshan Pal said some unions had decided to observe International Human Rights Day at the protest site.

Conscious of how this would be used against the agitation, the peasants’ leaders are said to have iterated on Friday at their daily meeting the need to keep such issues out of the joint movement against the three new farm laws.

“We have been very careful about keeping politicians from using our stage. Though they have visited us to extend solidarity, not one has been allowed to address the gathering,” a union leader said.

While several retired bureaucrats and veterans from Punjab have already expressed solidarity with the farmers, on Friday they had Constitutional Conduct — a collective of former civil servants — pick up the cudgels for them.

I’ve now studied India’s new farm bills & realize they are flawed & will be detrimental to farmers. Our agriculture regulation needs change but the new laws will end up serving corporate interests more than farmers. Hats off to the sensibility & moral strength of India’s farmers.

— Kaushik Basu (@kaushikcbasu) December 11, 2020

In a statement, Constitutional Conduct said: “The protests have spread across many states and are being supported by several other groups even though a largely complicit media refuses to report their true magnitude and reach.

“In our capacity as former civil servants who stand up for constitutional freedoms, we would like to emphasise our support for the democratic and constitutional right of peaceful protest being exercised by farmers and others. It is time that the ruling dispensation listens carefully to the demands being made and demonstrates its respect for democratic traditions, procedures and practices by engaging in dialogue inside and outside Parliament.”

Referring to the haste in which the farm laws were enacted, the retired bureaucrats noted: “Time was not given to debate the bills and they were railroaded through Parliament; the demand for a division in the Rajya Sabha was not accepted and a voice vote was held amid tumult and confusion, leading to suspicions about the procedure employed….”

About the vilification of those who dare to differ with the government, they said: “The facile option of labelling all those who disagree with one or other of the actions of the government as ‘anti-national’, ‘pro-Pakistani’, ‘award-wapasi gang’, ‘urban Naxals’ and ‘Khan Market gang’ is chosen to avoid substantive discussion and debate, the very heart of the democratic process, and to vilify and criminalise dissent.”