New Delhi: As the Supreme Court stepped in to resolve the deadlock between farmers and the central government, prime time debates Monday focused on issues related to the new farm laws and the ongoing protest at Delhi’s Singhu border.
NewsX’s Uday Pratap Singh discussed the farm laws. In a hearing of the matter Monday, the SC had come down harshly on the Modi government, expressing deep “disappointment” over their handling of the farmers’ protest.
The SC also recommended forming a committee to mediate between the farmers and the government.
“Certainly not a good day for the Centre in the Supreme Court. The observations [by the court] were very stern…,” said Singh.
“We have always been saying that let us form a committee and resolve the issues from the start. It was the farmers that were adamant,” said BJP spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal.
Singh retorted, “Couldn’t this point have been conveyed in the meetings. Why did it have to take for the court to intervene?”
Agarwal then accused farmers of “playing the victim card”.
All India Farmers Association President Sanjay Nath Singh said the farmers need assurances that “nobody is going to take your land away” or “destroy your farming”.
He added: “The best thing is to keep these laws in abeyance”.
India Today anchor Rahul Kanwal wondered whether the Supreme Court will break the impasse between the farmers and the central government. The court had indicated that it may stay the three laws to facilitate a solution.
Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde pointed out, “The Supreme Court can legally stay these laws as it did in the late 1980s with the Mandal Commission under V.P. Singh’s cabinet.”
He added that just because a parliamentary majority passes a bill, it does not make it “lawful or wise”.
Kanwal then asked whether such a stay would make it judicial activism, to which Hegde responded: “If people are on the streets telling you that a law is unworkable then at least listen to them.”
However, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “A law can only be stayed under three circumstances by the Supreme Court and these farm laws fall under none of these three clauses, there is no fourth clause to validate the stay.”
Aaj Tak anchor Anjana Om Kashyap also discussed the Supreme Court’s role in the farmers’ protest.
On the show, Rohan Gupta, Congress’ social media chief, said, “The BJP government has used the last six years to snatch away the trust of the farmers, only to hand it over to their suited-booted confidants”.
BJP leader Om Prakash Dhankar clapped back at him, “Farmers cannot function within a single dynamic, and they need both sarkaar (government) and bazaar (market).” Dhankar further said that with the Supreme Court taking charge, the deadlock will be resolved.
Alok Ajay, Janata Dal (United) spokesperson, added, “If the court is putting a stay on these farm laws then what about the farmers who were in favour of these laws being passed?”
On Mirror Now, anchor Tanvi Shukla discussed WhatsApp’s contentious new privacy policy that has led to a mass migration of users to other apps such as Telegram and Signal.
According to the new policy, some data from WhatsApp will be mandatorily shared with its parent company Facebook.
“WhatsApp has simply said either you agree to these terms and conditions or you don’t get to use the platform anymore,” noted Shukla.
She added: “Now, WhatsApp largely says this is largely business transaction-related, commercial data, but the concerns really are — to what extent?”
Nikhil Pahwa, editor at Medianama, said, “There is a global market failure in privacy. Many of these apps are collecting a disproportionate amount of data about us. This specific WhatsApp policy does not affect the messages that we send but other metadata which can be taken by Facebook to either improve its services or to serve advertising to users.”
Advocate Pavan Duggal offered more graphic imagery — “If you are going to cut your hands and put it on the dining table for WhatsApp to relish, there’s no way there’s any gum existing anywhere in the world to get these cut arms back on your body.”
Rubika Liyaqat discussed the many tactics adopted by the BJP to sway elections in their favour on ABP News.
One of them, she noted, was cashing in on Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary and organising a procession in his honour in poll-bound West Bengal.
BJP MP Arjun Singh clarified, “We do not want to politicise Swami Vivekananda Jayanti, this procession should remind people of the legend and how he was a supporter of Hindu religion.”
Advocate Touseef Khan, a TMC supporter, fired back, “Amit Shahji garlanded the wrong statue thinking it was Birsa Munda, which proves he is unaware and uninformed. BJP leaders even have a problem with the national anthem penned by Tagore. Therefore, the BJP has definitely politicised these legends.”
With inputs from Unnati Sharma