By Sushil Kutty
The lethally sharpened wooden stakes jutting out of the horrendously nail-studded blacktops are a throwback to Medieval Delhi. The rolls of concertina laid across the breadth of the highways are meant to keep the Jat farmer out of Delhi. They say if anybody can beat the stubborn out of determination, it is the Jat. And the Jat farmers of Western Uttar Pradesh are as bull-headed as are the Jat farmers of Haryana.
Then again, is the Modi Government buckling under pressure? Afraid of the farmers “who are not farmers” massed at Delhi’s borders? The government’s response so far has been to remain basically absolutely unresponsive. The Modi Government’s inability to cash in on the BJP’s brute majority in Parliament betrays an innate weakness in the Modi Government. It puts a question mark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 56” chest, and Home Minister Amit Shah’s writ at home.
Nobody dare say it aloud, but there appears to be a yellow streak in the Modi Government, something of the coward. The Government appears to have totally capitulated in the face of the determined push of the bunch of farmers who are not loathe to digging trenches to dig their heels in. Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait says farmers will stake out at umpteen roadblocks across India for as long as till October this year if it comes to that.
From all indications Tikait’s brag is not mere boast. He may have wept tears of frustration post-Republic Day events, but the tears pricked at Jat pride and now even if most of the farmers have retreated and politicians have taken over, Rakesh Tikait and the BKU have challenged the Modi Government and Modi cannot do anything else other than erect barricades and embed nails. Political power has shifted from the political neta to the political kisan.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut acknowledged this when he met Rakesh Tikait at Delhi’s nail-studded Ghazipur border crossing and promised him that the Shiv Sena, the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP stood with the farmers. Without doubt far tougher days are ahead for the BJP in Maharashtra where farmers make a substantial chunk of the electorate. Most of all, Maharashtra’s farmers are an organized bunch, maybe far more orderly arrayed than their Western Uttar Pradesh counterparts. And the Maharashtra Government is not going to encircle Mumbai with concertina! Imagine farmers laying siege to every state capital in the Union. Maybe that’s in the pipeline, too. Maybe somebody will whisper that into Rakesh Tikait’s ear!
So, considering all that, now, why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing on prestige? Cannot he succumb to pressure, and, come to think of it, why did he have to bring in the new farm laws at all, aren’t they piffling compared to see peace prevail in the country? Calm and peace should be first and foremost thought in a Prime Minister’s mind, his duty. If farmers do not want the new farm laws to muck up their pasteurized existence why thrust it down their unwilling throats?
Modi may not yet be aware, but legions of his supporters and definitely most of his hardcore vote-bank see the slow but steady encircling of Delhi and Modi, and they are asking themselves the question, almost in panic, is Modi heralding his exit? Does Modi yearn to retire to Vadnagar in Mehsana district of Gujarat and live the rest of his life wondering how the BJP’s brute majority was washed away in the tears of a rough-and-tough farmer?
The legitimate question to ask now is should January 26 be repeated on February 6, the day the farmers plan to enforce a ‘chakka jam’ across India? More to the point, does the Centre want an encore? Cannot Modi just up and give in, give up, scrap the three farm laws and be done with them? For the umpteenth time, the farmers do not want these “black” laws. C’mon man, scrap the black laws, think of India, as Prime Minister your first allegiance is to India, not to the crony capitalists who line their pockets and line up to be counted in the Forbes list of billionaires!
So, why the barricading of Delhi, why the separation of Delhi from the rest of India? It’s as if “We the People” do not count anymore. India without Delhi is headless, and imprisoning Delhi’s denizens in Delhi is no solution to New Delhi’s problems – Modi’s problems. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shut himself and his government up in Delhi. This when Covid-19 is rampant world-over. Does encircling Delhi in barbed wire solve anything? All that the farmers have to do is stick to where they are stuck now and very soon the Guinness Book will have a new world record. Narendra Modi is up against tunnel vision and at the end of this tunnel there aren’t any of the three farm laws.
The worst is, the wear and tear is showing on the Modi Government. The spark is missing. The Government cannot think up a solution to the self-inflicted crisis. Not even the coronavirus and Covid-19 have done anything to dampen farmer spirits. The Centre has thrown everything it could at the farmers, but nothing hurt the farmers – not even the tricolor coming unstuck from atop the Red Fort. And when the Red Fort itself is leased to a (“adopted by”) private party, where’s the sanctity left?
To reiterate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is losing his grip on the nation. His loyal voters of 2014 and 2019 are so frustrated, so despondent they can barely keep their tears suppressed. Many of them are cursing Modi and Shah for their lack of guts. Modi is under tremendous domestic pressure. And international figures are gunning for him. Twitter is hell bent on doing a Trump on Modi. American crooner Rihanna, who recently launched her own lingerie brand, is asking “Why are we not talking of this…” and Speaker Nancy Pelosi found that music to her ears. Modi and his bed of nails are suddenly the talk of the globe. Will it be his epitaph, too: Modi and his bed of nails? (IPA Service)