Delhi, news media, social media, and the whole nation are churned with only one thing and that is the Farmers Protest.
People and some farmers from Punjab and Haryana protesting on the borders of Delhi for the demand of repealing the 3 Agri laws.
There have been 11 rounds of meeting between the Protestors and the Government. But the deadlock is still intact.
But in the last few months, many incidences happened that have misled the agitation. This has created a big question of whether the protest is actually for the welfare of farmers?
1. Very firstly if we see about the APMCs, there are many states which don’t have APMCs. Either some of them have not yet accepted or have dissolved the act in history. There are 16 states which do not have APMCs. This means that the Agriculture reforms act is less effective in most of the states.
States like Bihar and Kerela don’t have APMCs.
Similarly, regarding Contract farming, a state like Maharashtra is already practicing Contract farming. The Cooperative sugar factories are working on the same model. That is the reason why the state is less involved in the Protest.
Also, the protest has no support from south India.
2. There were some genuine demands of the Protestors regarding the amendment into farm laws like regarding the MSP, contract farming, land security in case of failure of contract or issue settlement with Larger firms.
The leaders of different unions were in talks with the representatives of the farmer’s protest. There had been 11 rounds of negotiations. But no outcome as of now. The government, on one hand, is ready to negotiate on few issues and amend few provisions in the laws but the Protestors are still not satisfied with this.
3. The protesters on 26th Jan decided to have a tractor rally around Delhi. All the legal permissions were sort. But a group among them revolted and destroyed the sanctity of the protest. They broke all the rules and agitated to enter Delhi City. A group even had confrontations with the police. In the agitation, more than 80 police staff members were injured.
A group of few agitators went to the red fort and with the purpose of raising their own organization’s flag, they disrespected the Indian flag.
This attempt to disrespect the national flag that also on Republic Day, hit the nationalistic sentiment of the people. People started expressing their concerns/views on social media. People even started questioning whether the protest is anymore a farmers protest or something else?
4. There was another diversion into the protest when an American pop star Rihanna tweeted about the farmer’s protest. Her single tweet led to a perfect storm in India. Social media got divided into the support or opposition of the pop star.
5. A strong doubt was created on social media regarding the piousness of the protest when Greta Thunberg tweeted for the farmer’s protest with a toolkit. The toolkit had much doubtful content in it. The doubt got stronger when she deleted the toolkit after few hours when she realized that she shared a document which she was not supposed to share.
This not only created a doubt on her tweet but on the genuineness concern about the farmer’s protest. Many of them openly claimed that the tweets of the celebs were a paid one or a part of a pre-planned conspiracy.
6. In response to Greta and Rihanna many Indian celebs started tweeting and reacting on social media. Celebs like Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Lata Mangeshkar tweet with a nationalistic message. They advocated for the sovereignty of the nation. Due to their similar tweets, their followers were divided into supporters and opposers.
7. It went to a height when the Home Minister of Maharashtra Shri Anil Deshmukh ji stated that they will investigate whether the tweets by the Indian Celebs were under the pressure of any person or organization.
The honorable minister was deeply criticized for his statement and his stand. Many even questioned whether the Home Minister is left with this work of investigating the tweets of the Indian celebs.
And in this way, we could see that the protest has diverted into different directions leading nowhere.
The Protest Started with a strong demand for the concerns of the farmers. But now it has transformed into the Nationalism Debate, Celebrity War, Tweeter War, and tweet investigation.
The real concern is remaining behind due to these diversions.
I hope the farmers get justice in a much proper and effective way.
Samruddha Bharatam 