Supreme Court intervention fails to end deadlock between government, agitating farmers

 

Supreme Court intervention fails to end deadlock between government, agitating farmers

Jagtar Singh

Ground Zero

 

What happened today in the Supreme Court in the context of the agitation by the farmers pressing for scrapping of the three contentious farm laws should be viewed in the backdrop of the affidavit submitted by the centre yesterday asserting that the demand for repeal was “neither justifiable nor acceptable”.

The setting up of the 4-member committee by the apex court to hold talks with the farmers becomes meaningless in the context of this affidavit as the main demand is to junk the three laws. The farmer organisations hours later after the Supreme Court verdict rejected the panel. Moreover, the committee should have been set up having experts from both the sides to reformulate the reform framework in the farm sector and not thrust amended form of the same on the unwilling farmers.

The status quo thus continues.

The government has added a new factor officially and that is of Khalistan thereby indicating the strategy of the government to deal with this unprecedented and the most peaceful struggle in the country since 1947.

As per the media reports, the affidavit maintains that the agitation was limited to only one place. It is not. Even if one goes by the government’s contention, how can the farmers who provided food sovereignty to the country be ignored? It is the farmers in Punjab who made the Green Revolution a success and made India food sovereign ending dependence on US food grains under PL 480. And it is the Green Revolution that has boomeranged resulting in the present crisis in which they have landed. The government should own moral responsibility for this plight of the farmers in Punjab who made India Atamnirbhar. It is the farm sector that sustains the economy of this sensitive and volatile border state.

The food security was not provided by the farmers who, the government say, have welcomed these reform measures. Even at the cost of repetition, it must be mentioned that this very model has failed in Bihar and the government has been mum when questioned by the farmers during talks.

Ironically, all the four members of the panel set up by the SC are those who are ardent protagonists of the so-called reforms in the framework of these laws that the agitating farmers have rejected. The Supreme Court earlier had talked of inducting experts like P. Sainath who has spent about four decades in studying India’s rural economy as a journalist.

The panel has been given eight week time that can be interpreted as the period during which these laws would be held in abeyance.

While staying the implementation of the laws without specifying any time limit,  the Supreme Court stated the MSP system as it existed before the enactment of the laws must be continued and no farmer must be dispossessed or deprived of his title as a result of any action taken under the laws.

This is what the government too has been maintaining all the time, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The farmer leaders at various meetings with the government have rejected these laws clause by clause and hence had refused to continue debating the same. The farmer leaders quote the government offering to amend the laws even upto 99 per cent and argue when the authorities admit the laws are flawed, why the same can’t be repealed.

The committee holding dialogue with the farmers had three ministers and thus represented the Parliament that had  adopted these laws. This is not the case with the four member SC panel.

The new aspect taken up on the record by the government is that of alleged hijacking of the agitation by the Khalistanis and the name that has been mentioned is that of the US based Sikhs for Justice that was banned a few weeks back. This organisation has little support base in Punjab.

Interestingly, the farmer leaders within days after starting dharna on Delhi border had taken the position that religious exhibitionism should be avoided. It is normal for Sikh protesters during such agitations to carry along Nishan Sahib, the Sikh religious flag.

No farmer leader has talked of hoisting flag on Lal Qila.

Even the call to take out tractor parade in Delhi on the Republic Day has been distorted reviving bitter memories of 1982 when the Akali Dal during Dharam Yudh Morcha had given the call to stage protests in Delhi during Asian Games.

The UNI filed a distorted story saying the Akalis would gherao Asiad  that was not the intention. All hell broke loose and the Sikhs were insulted and humiliated while passing through Haryana. It was part of a design. The cost was too heavy.

The issue is that the new farm laws affect the farmers in Punjab, Haryana and the Western Uttar Pradesh the most and hence they are offering resistance.

The status quo and the induction of Khalistan narrative by the government can further raise tension and that situation must be avoided as part of the dharna on Delhi borders are thousands of old men, women and children who have wowed not to return without the acceptance of their demand to repeal these laws.

The democratic government should avoid stream- rolling the people who made India food sovereign.