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.
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.
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