The Bharat Bandh referred to as by the protesting Punjab farmers for Tuesday, hopefully, will pass with no violence and disruption of standard life. The organisers themselves have curtailed the bandh period to 4 hours, from 11am to 3pm, exempting all crucial services from any curbs. This is welcome. The protest against the 3 farm sector reform laws ought not to descend into violence and chaos.
On its portion, the Government has issued an advisory to the States and UTs, emphasising the need to have to make certain all Covid-19 precautions. The reassuring function of the farmers’ protest is that its organisers have consciously sought to maintain away extraneous components with their personal diversionary agendas. Though the Opposition parties have lent overt and covert assistance to the protest, its leadership has remained with several farmers’ unions. Even the on-going negotiations with the Government are performed by the farmers’ leaders, even though a quantity of busybodies who show up at all such events have presented gratuitous tips.
The Prashant Bhushans and Yogendra Yadavs and other such anti-government activists have paid effectively-publicised visits at the protests web-sites exactly where the farmers are huddled with each other in groups. However, the onus to break the impasse remains with the Government. The seventh round of talks is scheduled to resume on Wednesday. Farmers anticipate the Government to come up with a concrete proposal to allay their suspicion that the reform legislations had been a precursor to the dismantling of the Minimum Support Price mechanism for the procurement of foodgrain. Multiple iterations at the official level have failed to assuage the farmers’ doubts.
Instead of standing on false prestige, the Government need to do all that is legally feasible to persuade the farmers. Even even though it is extremely selfish of the Punjab farmers to more than-exploit the MSP regime and therefore burden the FCI with extra than twice the expected levels of wheat and rice, alternatively of switching to higher-worth crops and livestock, as is the case in other States, the protest obtaining reached this far requirements to be resolved right away. Meanwhile, the Modi Government really should at final understand from this bitter knowledge and quit acting in a unilateral manner. Its substantial majority in the Lok Sabha does not for a moment justify its habit of taking key choices with no prior consultations with the stakeholders. In a democracy to seek the advice of folks is statesman-like, and not a sign of weakness.