Nails at Tikri: Normandy fortifications had failed Hitler

 

Nails at Tikri: Normandy fortifications had failed Hitler

Jagtar Singh

Ground Zero

Operation Overlord was launched by the Allied forces against Germany at fifteen minutes past midnight on June 6, 1944. That was the turning point in World War II.

Hitler had never dreamt that the highly fortified beaches of Normandy would be the main theatre of attack in the Western sector. The Red army had already started the main push from the East.

The highly fortified iron and concrete defences on the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword on the French coast started falling under combined sea and air offensive from the Allied forces. This was the beginning of the fall of Hitler.

Germany after overrunning neighbouring countries undertook in 1942 to 1944 an extensive programme to construct coastal defence system as Allied offensive was expected from the sea. Hitler opted for what he called ‘Atlantikwall’ stretchinGermany g for over 4000 kilometres having bunkers, pillboxes and other such systems.

There is a reason that the strategies and tactics of World War II have been recalled.

Hashtag #FencingLikeChinaPak has been trending on Twitter since Tuesday morning focussing on the unprecedented fortification of Delhi.

The fortifications at Tikri, the border between Delhi and one of the entry points from Haryana from Rohtak side, have striking parallels with Hitler’s Atlantic Wall of which the Normandy defence was the part.

India is the largest functional democracy in the world, though not participatory but colonial. During no protest since 1947 when this land was partitioned that such tactics have been resorted to by any government against a mass struggle by the people on the issue that is not political but viewed as issue of their very survival. This is the struggle by the farmers for the scrapping of the three farm laws that they fear to be threat to their very existence. One of these laws would also facilitate monopoly by private sector – read corporates – on food grains that would affect the consumers too. At that level, the farmers are battling for every section of society in the country and not just their own survival.

But for some aberration on January 26 during Tractor Parade, this agitation has been  an example of peaceful mass struggle.

The fence constructed at Tikri gives the impression that it is some international border. The design seems to be to make Delhi ‘Tractor Proof’. But then a tractor is not a tank but a farming machine. Farmers in France bring their tractors to Paris when staging protests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no Hitler and he heads the biggest democracy in the world. The power to bring about a change wrests with the people. And the farmers are not some armed organisation planning coup. Their only weapon is the vote.

The popular struggles can’t be confronted by hiding behind fortifications. It may be mentioned that already, the ruling elite in India has created the façade of security threat and members of this class move around protected by posse of security people at the cost of the taxpayers. These defences are also coming at the cost of the taxpayers.

And this strategy has been put in place against the very people who feed this nation.

Going by the data quoted by the farm economists, the farm sector progressed over the years but it resulted in pauperisation of peasantry. The push factor has been operational for years and this factor would be accentuated under the new farm laws.

India needs pragmatic farm policy and not these laws that would hand over the farm sector to the corporates. This is the sector whose output is not impacted by any pandemic or war and hence is eyed by the corporate sharks.

The people know as to what is good for them. The farmers know these laws are bad for them.

The government is yet to come out with the answer as to why paddy from Bihar is brought to Punjab for sale and why the farmers in that state come to Punjab as farm labourers despite that state having introduced similar ‘reforms’ in 2006.

The nails at Tikri would bleed democracy.