Dear Friends,

Pheroze Vincent is travelling Panjab and filing reports on the build up to elections. We were talking and I mentioned a big lacunae I have noticed over years of election reporting, opinion and exit polls – basically when we try to gauge the mood of the people.

The lacunae is: for various reasons such as most reporters being male, inherent patriarchy in society, the reports are largely from a male point of view. On ground, as I experienced last time, it is difficult to access women’s opinions. It is assumed women in a family will vote where men are voting. I find that problematic simply because women no longer vote where the men vote. They have their own mind.

In my view, last time in Panjab assembly elections, women who form nearly 50 per cent electorate, across class, religion and caste, voted in favour of one party.

I stated that to Vincent and he quoted me. Please see here …

Sorry this is an old post that somehow went into draft. My bad! Processed it today. It is from July 2, 2021.

Dear Friends,

recently AJ Singh contacted me to speak on the #FarmersProtest. Anand Vardan from The Public India and I spoke on various issues old and new: solidarities in the protests, January 26th, SKM, foreign funding, role in state elections.

Here is the interview in Hindi. 27.15 minutes.

Dear Friends,

Over many months Raksha Kumar worked on a story probing of of the most well kept secrets of the Indian IT sector: caste.

She had a long discussion with me and quotes me in the story.

Please read here …

Dear Friends,

the year long Farmers Protest and victory has become a model for resistances across the world. Sonali Kolhatkar invited me to write this piece for YES! Magazine. Thank you!

‘One of the main slogans of the protests was “Kisan Mazdoor Ekta Zindabad,” or “Long Live Farmer-Worker Unity.” When young and old Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh farmers, supported by urban folks, came together, they negated the right-wing BJP ploy to divide society along cleavages of religion, caste, and gender. Instead, the protests united the farmers through their kirrt—work.’

Please read here …

Dear friends,

This interview on the farmers protest is for in laws, in laws land Kerala and language Malayalam.

Thankful to Aswathi from Woke Malayalam for the long interview and reproduction.

Please click here …

Day -

Toll 720

Flank Attack

Yesterday we saw the farmers return home triumphant after quelling the front attack on them through the three Farm Laws. The farmers return to the comfort and familiarity of their home and hearth, their families, their familiar beds and bathrooms. Another winter has set in, it is high time the Bebe and Bapus, the grandparents, feel secure and safe.

Yet, what do the farmers return to?

The Farm Laws were a spin on the already depressed conditions of agriculture in the country. Especially ?in the erstwhile food bowl of India – the north India states: Panjab, Haryana, West Uttar Pradesh, to some extent Uttrakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The depression in this region is a result of government ignoring the agrarian sector for the last 50 years in its policies. The depression in rest of the country if from governments never really focussing on the agrarian systems, in spite of the demands rising, votes being manipulated.

Urban middle-class consumers are so cut off from the modes of production of all that is essential that they keep paying through their nose yet do not raise their head in dissent. The farmers protest pushed the government to withdraw laws but did not pull the urban middle-class to the protest sites.

When the laws were repealed, I wondered about the heavy investments the Adani and Ambani groups had already made in storage and retail. Farmers knew the fancy term ‘free market’ basically means a duopoly. I wondered what did the government do to appease these corporates?
As with everything, one needs to pull back and see the pattern. It is clear:

- Ambani is now attacking the local kirana – grocery – stores and salesmen, ejecting them out of the $700 billion retail sector business. In the June quarter of this year, JioMart signed up 56,000 kirana stores across 30 cities to pilot this direct-sale system. I hope this move galvanises the middle-class to oppose it. At least 4 lakh salesmen are already up in arms.

- We know how the government has been centralising the State Bank of India over the last few years. While banks routinely enter agreements with Non Banking Finance Companies, now SBI has entered an agreement with the Adani Group to issue farm-related loans. The Adani Group will be the disburser of the loans and a brutal recovery agent.

The reason the agrarian sector needs loans is because there isn’t enough money to go around in it. But what will the Adani group do? Fix the terms and conditions of the loans, push the farmers and labour to default. Adani recovery agents will auction off the lands of the defaulters to Adani and other corporate owners. The point is: corporates continue to eye that famers saved from them in this protest. The battle has now moved from the front to the flanks and the rear.

The message is clear: unless we infuse funds in rural economy, the majority of this country will keep plunging into poverty. Food, as a commodity, is vital to the nation, but corporates have ways of importing what is needed, giving kickbacks to the government, while farmers languish. Farmers and labour commit suicide – 4 lakh in the last two decades.

That is why, even more so now, though farmers are taking a much deserved hiatus, it is their compulsion to push for Minimum Support Price on 23 crops across the nation as a mechanism to bring money into the agrarian sector.

Let us see what the committee on MSP decides and how Samyukt Kisan Morcha responds on January 15th. Be ready, as long as there is corporate greed and a pliant government, the battles do not cease.

Signing off /-

Day 380

Toll 715

Mubarak

The victorious farmers protest wishes mubarak to all of us.

It does not matter whether you were part of the protest, whether you spent time on the protest, whether you contributed to the protest, whether you supported the protest, whether you were sympathetic to protest, or whether you were unmoved by it, whether you did not understand the reasons for the protest, whether you opposed the protest, whether you indulged in state created and corporate media disseminated lies about the protest, whether when farmers and labour were asking to be seen as united over kirrt – work/labour, you wanted to look at the protesters through the prism of religion, caste and class, whether you have reservations about the timing of the ending of the protest, the congratulations are for all of us.

The reasons the farmers protest is congratulating everyone is because though for the past many decades there is a narrative that modernity – cities, urban spaces, bookish intelligentsia – seems to understand the world, can negotiate with ‘powers that be’ to create a better world, the farmers protest, rooted in villages, aware of both tradition and modernity, inspired by sewa and langar, adept at the digital world, knows that everyone of us who lives in cities came from villages – one or two or three generations back. They know that English alone is not the language of change, betterment, their own languages can do the job as well.

Unlike how the urban has turned its eyes away from the rural, associates values with itself, in the creation of middle class, in the support to governments who draw policies to suit their funders and electoral banks, preys upon the rural to sustain itself, screams outrage on social media but does not step on the streets, the rural which has been neglected in the past decades knows that beyond a point, outrage alone does not help – they need to step out, resist on ground zero.

Unlike the city, the village is wise to know that we all come from the same source and our markers of birth, our religious identity, our locations, our professions, our prejudices need not define our intentions and praxis. If we are resolved, organised, our resource lines remain intact, we are willing to sacrifice, the harshest of regimes will have to agree to our demands. The village knows its roots, it has the ability to float.

This is not to paper over the gross inequalities of the village but to learn that just because power dictates some narratives, they need not be sound. The solutions to our woes are not outside but inside us.

Please accept the congratulations but when you do so, own it. Know that wishes are also responsibilities. Ask yourself what does that mubarak say to you when it takes its place in your heart. Does it sit fleetingly or tentatively or does it sit easily and fill your heart with joy? If the mubarak opens a door to courage in your heart to stand against tyranny, indeed the farmers protest has succeeded for you. The next time, you will rise. Like the farmers did this time.

Indeed, the road is long. There are many challenges in front of us. Let us make a better world, together.

Day 379

Toll 715

Hostage

Ever since Modi announced repeal of farm laws on November 19 and farmers won the round, a bit of hostage situation developed on the borders. Through their ideology and solidarity the farmers remain committed to fight for other points in their agenda, but the power to decide on the retreat lay with the government.

As we know we have not only an apathetic but also an extremely myopic government. Tt dilly-dallied. It can’t part with control easily. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha even presented a 5-member committee but the government did not budge. Finally two days back parleys started through letters. The government did not invite the committee for discussion.

The committee now finds itself in the position of a negotiator in a hostage situation. If you are aware of how negotiations in such situations go, you know the negotiator is not at liberty to disclose everything to everyone, especially to media and public. Too many questions will be asked, there might not be enough answers.

That is why for last too days we see a lack of transparency on the part of the 5-member committee and SKM in general. Ambiguity is okay but the core question remains: would the committee compromise with the government on key issues?

The key issues were:

1. Cases on farmers: most of us might not be aware what a pain pending cases can be when the main issue is solved. That the government has agreed to withdraw all law and order cases in all states is a big victory for farmers.

2. Stubble burning: that the government has decriminalised stubble burning is another huge victory for farmers and prevents future cases on them. Especially now because Centre has confessed in Court that paddy stubble burning does not cause Delhi air pollution.

3. Electricity Bill: the government has agreed to discuss provisions with farmers, especially on why corporates will be given subsidy and farmers will be denied subsidy. This to me is a fairly decent victory for now.

4. Minimum Support Price: This is a demand for the whole country. This demand has the potential to infuse funds in the rural economy, kickstart the economy. In my opinion, within SKM the focus on this demand shifted from pushing the government to include the term ‘legally guaranteed MSP’ in the Terms of Reference of the committee to how many members will be part of committee, who else will be part of it. We must recognise, under pressure from WTO and IMF, with a pro-corporate government intending to benefit its own crony capitalists, it is very difficult to include the terms ‘legally guaranteed’ in the charter and make the committee time bound.

Yet, there is also a big question to us middle-class and to rest of the nation’s farmers: the protesting farmers have won so much, why have us and farmers from other states not even budged to their state capitals? If it is a nation-wide demand, should the whole nation not stand up for it? We will see what the committee will do, SKM leaders will be part of it, but to me MSP now seems like an election plank for 2024.

5. Martyr’s compensation and memorial: the intent of this demand was that government recognise the martyrs but we know how small-hearted is the government. For now Centre has agreed to instruct state governments to pay compensation, like Panjab has promised. On such a demand, with such a government, we can only hope it abides by its promise.

On Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra Teni, the farmers have done well to raise the issue to the skies. But who listens? Once any government is elected, people can only do that much to raise a voice against it. If the government is rigid, people have no mechanism to change its organisation.

Look at the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. How much the Sikh community and civil society demanded that Congress get rid of some leaders. Has Congress budged? Over 43 per cent of elected MPs in Lok Sabha have serious cases against them. This is the politician-criminal nexus in the country.

BJP is of course even more arrogant than the Congress plus it has a reason to keep Teni – to retain Brahmin vote in Uttar Pradesh now that Jats and Muslims may likely not vote for BJP. This must now be an election plank for Uttar Pradesh elections 2022.

The farmers have won well and fair. A year and a half back, the atmosphere in which we were living, with the pandemic upon us, we never imagined anyone could take on Hindutva fascism in such a sustained manner. It was a moral fight. No government anywhere should be allowed to throw 53 per cent of the population to corporate sharks because for half a century the government itself did not frame policies to suit the work those people did. That too, unconstitutionally. After all, they produce food – the most essential and basic requirement for the country.

The farmers have shown if they can feed the country, they can also resist the forces that seek to erase them. The farmers have opened a door, now it is up to rest of civil society to take up the many battles.

The farmers have asked the government to now commit its promises in writing on the official letter head and start quashing the cases. Once that happens, SKM will likely announce withdrawal of the protest. SKM meets at 12 noon today.