Around last week of November, the nation woke up to the fact that lakhs of farmers in Punjab have been protesting against legislation that came into being in September by a noisy voice vote in the parliament. This news of farmers protesting and blocking railway tracks in Punjab were hitherto relegated to inside pages of newspapers and largely skipped attention of national TV news channels. Then the farmers decided to march to Delhi. And, India woke up to visuals of large containers and massive concrete blocks and digging up of highways by the state and central governments to block these farmers from entering the national capital.
Enough has been written about why the farmers were protesting.
In parallel, there was a media narrative being built around how farmers were being ‘misled’, ‘brainwashed’, ‘instigated’ with some some anchors alleging Khalistani hand behind the protests. Every week, the narrative has its twists and turns and was led by half a dozen usual suspect ministers – links with JNU and Delhi riots, extreme leftists, maoists and naxal infiltration, tukde, tukde gang . Finally, it was talked as being a Shaheen bagh redux. A couple of articles have compared (spontaneity, apprehensions against new laws, localised nature, opposition to BJP, non-political affiliation and prolonged nature of protests and ) and contrasted these 2 protests. This post is why I consider the farmers agitation to be completely different from the one at Shaheen bagh.
Strong leaders and organised protests:
Contrary to it being bannerless, the protest are actually being led by strong leaders from ~35 / 41 farmers unions. These leaders are farmers themselves, well educated and knowledgeable, articulate, well respected, have been leading smaller agitations for years and more importantly tightly unified by the cause. The government has tried the usual backdoor and breakup strategy to divide them but so far has been futile.
Contrast this to Shaheen bagh where women who were at arms length from protests or politics were at the forefront. While they were calmly doing their sit ins, a set of politicians and political opportunists were spinning the narrative around them. The student community who were genuinely empathizing with these protests and protestors were having their own agendas and troubles with and around student politics.
Not letting political parties to hijack the agenda:
The farmer leaders and the protestors too were smart enough to dissociate themselves from any political party. A handful of people who came into the limelight due to their association with parties were either quick to go into the background voluntarily or were pushed back by the farmer leaders.
Yes, there are demands of releasing social activists awaiting trials. But, this was already part of the demands by almost all farm groups and comes later in their agenda.
Strong preparation and backend:
Pretty much every reporter and youtuber who was at the site has done a story about the langar services. The message is also loud and clear – we’ve come prepared. 6 months rations, tractor trailers converted into sleep quarters, whole villages taking turns to protest and unions taking care to ensure their farms are tilled and harvested in their absence. The protests are planned to be sustaining for a long time.
Contrast them with the CAA-NRC protests at Delhi and Mumbai by students which were spontaneous. They lacked preparation, lasted a night or two and fizzled out. The Shaheen bagh protest was the one that lasted but in the absence of planning and co-ordination it too was taken apart with relative ease citing pandemic.
Strong end goal / demands:
The demands are pretty consistent whoever you speak to. Be it the farmers union leaders or people from across states, they chorus one clear demand – take back the 3 laws first. Then there are some more added as part of the long list of demands. The retorts to standard questions too are amazingly consistent.
- When we don’t want these laws, why is the government forcing them on us?
- Why is the government getting laws at midnight and bulldozing them in the parliament without discussions?
- When the government is ok to amend the laws basis loopholes we’ve pointed, they’ve accepted that it is wrongly drafted. What is stopping from repealing these wrong laws?
- We’ve come prepared for 6 months and will only go back after our demands are met. We are willing to die here.
- When elections meetings happen, there is no corona. But, for protests against the government, they talk about coronavirus.
- We do not trust oral statements or even written statements. Where is the 15 lakhs promised? What happened to the 14 day guarantee of the supreme court? Where are the achche din? MSP needs to be written into a law.
- Look what happened when MSP and mandi’s have been removed in UP and Bihar.
- Why is the government shirking away from its responsibility and privatizing everything – ports, airports, railways, health care and now agriculture?
Annadata / Aam aadmi:
Unlike the Shaheen bagh protests where the protestors were labelled as a small fringe section – Muslims, Lutyens and tukde-tukde gang, the farmers comprise a large section of the society. Though an attempt was made to label the protestors as pampered, rich farmers, it quickly backfired. The farmers pushed back strongly that a section of media and politicians think farmers cannot be rich. Some other narratives too cannot be pushed lest the farmers from other states join in. If this blows up, the situation will really get out of hand with elections coming up in a few key states.
Media cannot spin a narrative:
In the student or the Shaheen bagh protests, a section of the media could present a coloured narrative by using the privilege, the religion and even the nationalism card. Here, they are unable to find the niche angle to spin. Attempts have been made but they are also being countered strongly.
There has been a strong counter to every narrative being spun by the media.
- Khalistani and Naxal backing! If we are, why don’t you arrest us?
- Woke English speaking farmers are protesting! So, you think farmers are uneducated?
- Only rich farmers are protesting! Do you know that the average landholding of a Punjabi/Haryanvi farmer is 2-3 acres?
- The laws are for your own good – it’s just that you don’t understand them! We are well educated and one person can be wrong but how can lakhs of us be wrong?
- No APMC and more private players will mean better realisation for you! Just look at Bihar and UP, their farmers come here to work in our farms.
- You are being played by political parties! Do you even see one political flag in our protests?
- Farmers are picnicking and enjoying good food! Whoever told you sleeping on the road in 3°C is picnicking. Can’t farmers eat what they produce and why isn’t
With such strong counters, the best media can now do, as of now, is to claim that the farmers are being misled.
These are just a handful of differences I felt will enable these protests to sustain till either the government capitulates to the farmer demands or there is large scale unrest.
