scorecardresearch
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeNational InterestModi govt has lost farm laws battle, now raising Sikh separatist bogey...

Modi govt has lost farm laws battle, now raising Sikh separatist bogey will be a grave error

This crisis requires political sophistication & governance skills, Modi-Shah BJP has neither. It would be nuts to reopen an issue in Punjab that was closed and buried by 1993.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

Protests over the three farm reform laws are well into the third month now. There are six key facts, or facts as we see them, that we can list here:

1. The farm laws, by and large, are good for the farmers and India. At various points of time, most major political parties and leaders have wanted these changes. However, many of you might still disagree. But then, this is an opinion piece. I explained it in detail in this, Episode 571 of #CutTheClutter.

2. Whether the laws are good or bad for the farmer no longer matters. In a democracy, all that matters is what people affected by a policy change believe — in this case, the farmers of the northern states. Facts don’t matter if you’ve failed to convince them.

3. The Modi government is right when it says this is no longer about the farm laws. Because nobody is talking about MSP, subsidies, mandis and so on. Then what’s it about?

4. The short answer is, it is about politics. And why not? There is no democracy without politics. When the UPA was in power, the BJP opposed all its good ideas, from the India-US nuclear deal to FDI in insurance and pension. Now it’s implementing the same policies at the rate of, say, 6X.

5. As far as the farm laws are concerned, the Modi government has already lost the battle. Again, you can disagree. But this is my opinion. And I will make my case.

6. Finally, the Modi government has two choices. It can let it fester, expand into a larger political war. Or it can cut its losses and, as the Americans say, get off the kerb.


Also read: Time for Modi to play the elder statesman and repeal the farm laws


Here is the evidence that lets us say that the Modi government has lost the battle for these farm laws. First of all, there is the unilateral offer of an 18-month deferral to implementing the laws. Count 18 months from now, you will be left with only another 18 before the 2024 general elections.

You see even a Modi-Shah BJP is unlikely to risk reopening this front at that point. In fact, the bellwether heartland state elections, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, will be exactly 12 months away. Two of them have strong Congress incumbents and in the third, the BJP has bought and stolen power. Nobody’s risking losing these to make their point over farm reforms. These laws, then, are as bad as dead in the water.

Again, unilaterally, the government has already made a commitment of continuing with Minimum Support Price (MSP), although there is nothing in the laws saying it will be taken away. With so much already given away, the battle over the farm laws is lost.

The Modi government’s challenge now is to buy normalcy without making it look like a defeat. We know that it got away with one such, with the new land acquisition law. But that issue was still confined to Parliament. This is on the streets, highway choke-points, and in the expanse of wheat and paddy all around Delhi. This can spread. If the government retreats in surrender, this issue may close, but politics will rage. And why not? What is democracy but competitive politics, brutal, fair and fun? The next targets will then be other reform measures, from the new labour laws to the public listing of LIC.

What are the errors, or blunders, that brought India’s most powerful government in 35 years here? I shall list five:

1. Bringing in these laws through the ordinance route was a blunder. I speak from 20/20 hindsight, but then I am a commentator, not a political leader. To usher in the promise of sweeping change affecting the lives of more than half a billion people, the correct way would have been to market the ideas first. We don’t know if Narendra Modi now regrets not having prepared the ground for it. But the fact is, people at the mass level would be suspicious of such change through ordinances. Especially if you aren’t talking to them.

2. The manner in which the laws were pushed through Rajya Sabha added to these suspicions. This needed better parliamentary craft than the blunt use of vocal chords. This helped fan the fire, or spread the ‘hawa’ that something terrible was being forced down the surplus-producing farmers’ throats.

3. The party was riding far too high on its majority to care about allies and friends. If it had taken them along respectfully, the passage through Rajya Sabha wouldn’t have been so ungainly. At least the Akalis should never have been lost. But, as we’ve said before, this BJP does not understand Punjab or the Sikhs.

4. It also underestimated the frustration among the Jats of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, disempowered by the Modi-Shah politics. The senior-most Jat leaders in the Modi council of ministers are both inconsequential ministers of state. One is from distant Barmer in Rajasthan. The most visible of them, Sanjeev Balyan, won from Muzaffarnagar, where the big pro-Tikait mahapanchayat was held. In Haryana, the BJP has no Jat who counts. On the contrary, it found the marginalisation of Jat power as its big achievement. It refused to learn even from statewide, violent Jat agitations for reservations. The anger then was rooted in political marginalisation, as it is now. Ask why the BJP’s Jat ally Dushyant Chautala, or any of its Jat MPs/MLAs in UP, especially Balyan, are not on the ground, marketing these reforms? They wouldn’t dare.

5. The BJP conceded too much, too soon, unilaterally in the negotiations. It doesn’t have much more to give now. And the farm leaders have conceded nothing.


Also read: 7 reasons why Modi govt is in retreat on farm reform laws


In conclusion, where does the Modi government go from here? One approach could be to tire the farmers out. On all evidence, that is not about to happen. Rabi harvest in April is still nearly 75 days away, and with much work done by mechanical harvesters and migrant workers, families would be quite capable of keeping the pickets full.

The next expectation would be that the Jats would ultimately make a deal. This is plausible. Note the key difference between Singhu and Ghazipur. In the first, no politician can even go for a selfie. Ask Ravneet Singh Bittu of the Congress, who was turned out unceremoniously. But everybody can go to Ghazipur and be photographed hugging Tikait. The Congress, Left, RLD, RJD, AAP, all of them. Even Sukhbir Singh Badal comes to Ghazipur, instead of Singhu to meet his fellow Sikhs from Punjab. Wherever there is politics and politicians, conflict resolution is possible. But what happens if this becomes a reality?

This will leave India and the Modi government with the most dangerous outcome of all. It will corner the Sikhs of Punjab. Already, the lousy barricading visuals and government’s prickly response to something as trivial as some celebrity tweets is threatening to redefine the issue from farm laws to national unity. The Modi government will err gravely if it changes the headline from farm protests to Sikh separatism.

This crisis requires political sophistication and governance skills. This BJP has neither. It has, instead, political skills and governance by clout, riding an all-conquering election-winning machine. It is the party’s inability to accept the realities of Indian politics and appreciate the limitations of a parliamentary majority that brought it here.

Does it have the smarts and sagacity to negotiate its way out of it? We can’t say. But we hope it does. Because the last thing India needs is to start another war for national unity. You would be nuts to reopen an issue in Punjab we all closed and buried by 1993.


Also read: Teflon Modi does not have one Achilles heel, but two


 

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

118 COMMENTS

  1. I have stated many times Modi and the BJP know how to win elections but do not know how to govern! They do not know how to run an economy or communicate well with others. They use the blunt force of police, tax man or their favorite foreigners are the enemy!
    The BJP and Modi only know division and bigotry and as long as they are in power India will continue to decline!

    • Decline and fragmentation are what will happen when you are brought up in an organisation where all methods are fair and passed off as nationalism and in the national interest – murder Gandhi, organise pogroms, use IT cell to spread fake messages, encourage lynch mobs, arrest critics and journalists and students, and dub them as anti-nationals; then EVM tampering and demonetisation scams will look ordinary. Violence against citizens is passed off as necessary for the national interest. And if citizens protest, more violence will be needed to preserve the nation from breakdown; many will go along with this logic.

      It has been seen before. It failed everywhere.

  2. Hilarious, latest news is there is no Sikh bogey. But there is a foreign bogey for which Modi has coined an acronym, FDI (= foreign destructive ideology) !

    Since there is no foreign direct investment and a 5 trillion economy on the horizon, a foreign bogey is apt !

    Mani Shankar Aiyar was right that Modi has a chai wallah’s brain in a PM’s suit and now a Tagore beard !

  3. what happens when you can no longer bullshit, browbeat, bulldoze or buy out people? well, you can always try out honesty, sincerity and truth. they just might turn the trick.

  4. the movement was not political till january 26th, till the time it was sabotaged by the stooges of the current dispensation. the agitating farmers had managed to keep politics and politicians of all hues at bay since the time the protests started after the ordinances were promulgated. no politician was even allowed to be present on the farmers’ stage, let alone speak. after january 26 every political party and two-bit politician jumped on the bandwagon to take advantage of the situation which had put the government on the backfoot. how could those who would not hesitate deriving political capital even from the crowd collected by a ‘madari’ performing in a street not be tempted to suck on the juicy fruit that fell in their laps?

  5. what about the Khalistani flag you Shekar Gupta. We know you have your personal agenda. But that should not be at the cost of our nation. What is your problem with the farm laws. The PM is repeatedly asking which clause of the new laws is cause of concern. How long you will indulge in rumour mongering. Moreover
    Who are these farmers who are spending so much everyday to participate in rallies spending so much diesel and money on food? may be the new farm laws are meant for small and medium farmers. not the rich tractor roaming farmers.
    You always have a anti BJP stand. Why dont you give issue based support.

    • I think you completely missed the point of this article. He has very clearly mentioned what the modi-shah govt has done right and that the basis for the farm laws is correct. They are in fact good for farmers (as he has clearly written in the article). He’s only said that no groundwork was done to correctly implement the laws and market them to the farmers to get them to understand how it would benefit them. This would have got the farmers on their side and no opposition party could have done anything about it.

  6. Shekhar Gupta is using false comparisons. He is not talking about specific issues that Punjab legislature law jails the farmer for not fulfilling the contract. However Central law is much more lenient.
    Many journalists in 2012 believed that Modi cannot become PM. Many super secular journalists are busy in making caste equations.
    Off course the Khalistani flag was seen at Red Fort but he wish to deny that.

  7. Isn’t the opposition equally responsible for maintaining national unity and integrity? I agree that opposition can play politics but not at the cost of national unity. There is always a red line and I hope our opposition can understand it.

  8. I think all those who decided to support The Print financially die its claim of “neutral journalism”, should see the reality of how antiHindu and anti BJP Shekhar Gupta is, after this article.
    It’s pure vitriolic trying to create a false narrative, when the so called “Farmers protest” is fast loosing momentum, Government is gaining support of real farmers in all other states except Punjab/ Haryana, and the Government has clearly won this round by showing the reality of this middlemen protest to thd entire nation.
    He is playing by the ” toolkit” , and that he had to come out with such a farcical article putting his image at stake, tells you something about how deep this antiIndia network is. May be he is getting enough from such forces, and doesn’t need the support of neutral readers anymore.

  9. Shekhar Gupta stretegy : LIE nd propogate falsehoods on good laws and then say they cannot be implemented because some people believe the falsehoods.

  10. Every sensitive bill or issues are political used by BJP government led by Modi. The farm law also fall under this category. After getting the bill passed by voice vote. A divide got created and there after BJP went on to organise out reach campaign. Any beneficial law, if the Govt was serious, they would first reach out and not the other way. When Dr Singh wanted to sign Indo US Nuclear deal , he reached out first and when the then opposition party opposed, he took the parliament to endorse.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular