Over two days have passed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, surprisingly, announced the repeal of the three farm laws that were set to reform the way farming is done in India by diversifying and deregulating the processes through which agricultural produce is procured and sold. The announcement was met with immediate shock, anger, and dismay by bulk of the supporters of the regime, at least online. Now that passions have settled a little, I take the relatively riskier job of trying to make sense of all that has happened in the last one year.
There have been broadly two reactions to the decision by the Prime Minister. People in the government and party supporters say this was done keeping national security in mind as Khalistani elements had infiltrated the protests, while the opposition as well as disappointed supporters of PM Modi say this was done to win the upcoming assembly elections, especially in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Both the states go to polls in four months.
Let me first come to the second reaction; that it was done to win elections. The opposition parties will obviously say that, but some supporters too are saying it. I won’t find fault with such supporters, because outwardly, some things don’t add up.
Presence of Khalistani elements in this protest had become clear soon after these protestors started marching towards Delhi a year ago. Remember that viral video of a Sikh guy arguing in English with a police officer? He was immediately celebrated as the modern educated farmer, but within a week, he was unceremoniously dumped by the ‘liberals’ and was branded a BJP agent when he refused to condemn Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the guy who revived the Sikh supremacist and separatist sentiments in the 1980s leading to a massacre of thousands of Hindus in Punjab and later, the Operation Blue Star.
That was followed by multiple images of posters of Bhindranwale on banners, tractors, or t-shirts used by the so-called farmer protestors. We also heard protestors openly using Sikh supremacist and anti-Hindu rhetoric. Some protestors even threatened to assassinate PM Modi like they assassinated Indira Gandhi. And finally, the entire nation saw what happened on Republic Day earlier this year. So what was the government doing all these months if the Khalistani threat was why the farm laws were repealed? Wasn’t that threat apparent for at least over ten months now?
So it’s about the timing, and I totally get the point. Khalistani threat was always there, so why repeal when elections are near? Doesn’t that hint that it was done to win the elections?
Were farm laws repealed to win assembly elections?
While the suspicion that the farm laws were repealed for some electoral benefits to the BJP in the 2022 Punjab and Uttar Pradesh assembly elections arises from the timing of the announcement, the timing itself also suggests that it might not be the case. It is very poorly timed if the aim is only to win Punjab assembly election, which is around four months away.
Four months is a lot in Indian politics and a shrewd politician wouldn’t want to give that much time to their opponent to counter strategize. BJP was outfoxed by Mamata in that sense in Bengal earlier this year, when she suddenly came up with a broken leg and a ‘victimized woman’ card barely days before the state went to polls. BJP didn’t know how to react, whether to mock her, or ‘expose’ her, or get another woman leader to call her drama out. Obviously I’m not saying that a broken leg was the only thing that helped Mamata win, but if you come up with an unexpected move, you better time it so close to D-day that the rival is left floundering.
Secondly, why would you do it on TV addressing the nation and make it rather embarrassing for yourself where you are seen as weak and not shrewd? Why not do it in a public rally once the dates are announced for the polls. Something like announcing it at a surprise joint rally with Amarinder Singh at some place in Punjab on the day of Lohri, the festival of Punjab that is directly related to farming and which falls on a date that would have been closer to the upcoming polls. Maybe followed up with merger of Amarinder Singh’s party in the BJP or announcement of a tie-up. Why would you not do something like that and shock and awe your opponent? You were going to be panned and criticised by your opponents and (many) supporters anyway, so at least make your best political move.
The thinking heads in the BJP, which is often accused of being entirely focused on winning elections, definitely can think of these pros and cons. If the aim is to win Punjab elections and negate some effects of ‘farmer resentment’ in Western Uttar Pradesh, I don’t see the timing of the announcement as being the best.
There has to be something very urgent that would make BJP rush with the timing and announce it so much ahead of the actual polls. In the beginning of this month, we had results of some byelections, where BJP scored a mixed bag. Nothing from there too suggests that suddenly BJP would have felt the pressure to do something to negate effects of these protests.
The only constituency that went to bypolls and which had impact of these protests was the assembly constituency of Ellenabad of Haryana. In fact, byelection was necessitated as the sitting MLA Abhay Singh Chautala of INLD had resigned from the seat opposing the farm laws. He won again, but BJP didn’t perform worse than how they had performed in 2019 assembly elections. It actually got higher number of votes. Thus the results were not so shocking that could have pushed BJP to act fast. Only shocking results were from Himanchal Pradesh and West Bengal, especially latter where BJP was wiped out, and they clearly were not wiped out due to farmer’s protest.
The timing is more about Sikhs than Punjab
The timing isn’t really the best if the idea is to win elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, however, the timing does reveal what it is trying to achieve. Prime Minister chose the occasion of Gurpurab, birthday of founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak Dev, to announce it. The idea is to appeal to Sikh sentiments. Or well, appease Sikh sentiments.
One can as well argue that what else is appeasing Sikh sentiments, or Jatt Sikh sentiments to be precise, aimed at if not winning Punjab elections? Not really. That could be ‘bonus’ for the BJP if that happens (I don’t think the party will benefit immensely, and we’ll see that in four-five months from now), but the primary aim can not be winning elections because as I explained above, the timing does not help in achieving that objective.
So the government was outfoxed by the Khalistani handlers? There was intelligence failure? How come they had no idea that Khalistanis were all set to use the farmer protests to further their agenda? There are mixed answers to these.
The government clearly didn’t see it coming. And they are in a very unenviable position in that sense. These reforms were demanded and promised by almost every party and entity that later turned against it. Even the so-called intellectuals could only find fault with the ‘way government was behaving’ rather than finding some serious fault with the what the laws propose. And once SAD (Shiromani Akali Dal) took a U-turn, the issue became an issue of entire Punjab, and subsequently it was exploited as a ‘Sikh issue’ by the Khalistanis who had been working on ‘Referendum 2020’ for long. We thought it was just a funny thing that some Sikhs sitting in London and Canada dreamt about, but we were wrong.
Government agencies for sure realized the Khalistani threat, they were among the first ones to highlight it but were attacked for ‘defaming’ the farmers when they did that. But we don’t know what all was attempted in all these months to neutralize it before we finally gave up on Friday, on the occasion of Gurpurab. We might never know, because issues of national security, and especially strategies to counter it are barely discussed in public. Classified information. And that will give all the opportunities for others to weave theories.
With whatever information there is in public domain, it paints a scenario where the government thought that the best way to deal with this threat – of Sikh militancy returning to Punjab – was to take a step back. Tactical retreat, which ideally should lead to a bigger victory, or losing a battle to win the war. And that bigger victory can’t be a victory in elections or not even some backdoor way through which farm laws can be re-introduced e.g. BJP state governments coming up with their own laws. If the tactical retreat is about national security, the bigger victory has to be about national security too.
And that’s where the real challenge lies. This tactical retreat will only embolden the Khalistani elements. If appeasement of Muslims never worked, why would appeasement of (Jatt) Sikhs work?
The Hindu-Sikh relationship
I know that there are concerns that this sets a wrong precedent and other groups will also start using the veto of violence and street power to get their demands met, but those are idealistic pronouncements. Our country was always like that, unfortunately.
Reservations to various groups or demand of some regional aspirations have almost invariably been met after some widespread violence. Heck, the first amendment to the constitution itself in a way legitimized veto of violence when freedom of speech was put under ‘reasonable restrictions’ if it may make some people go apeshit crazy burning buses and all. This one just follows the pattern, does not sets the rule.
My concern is not about whether other groups will follow suit, they have already been. CAA was met with violence from day one. There were violent incidents in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and at other places and finally the Delhi riots of 2020. I would end up saying something unpublishable but in short, if a government thinks some set of people can be fired bullets on, it will (well, not just governments, even journalists think some people can be fired bullets on). As it so happens, the current government just didn’t want to take that risk with Sikhs. And my worry is what next? We surely have delayed some bloodshed, but do we have plan to solve the bloody problem?
If one is trying to solve the Khalistani problem, which is far from dead as thought earlier and ‘thank a farmer’ for opening our eyes to it, one is essentially trying to solve the issue of Sikh supremacist mentality which has a warped view of the Hindu-Sikh relationship. I’ve no idea what the government or the BJP’s plan is for that, but I hope they read the book “Hindu-Sikh Relationship” by Ram Swarup, which incidentally is available on the party’s website (click here).
The book puts in detail the entire history of how a dominant part of Sikhism drifted away from being almost like a sect of Hinduism to taking forms that are mirror image of Abrahamic religions. Not just that, it also explains why this supremacist mentality exists among certain Sikhs, especially Jatt Sikhs as of today.
The book, originally published when the Sikh militancy in Punjab was at peak, incidentally mentions how agrarian issues played a part in this whole process (and well, as they say, history repeats, and now we have ‘farm laws’ being a vehicle to push the agenda). I will cite just three paragraphs from the book that in a way captures the present problem as well as the challenge that lies ahead:
In the last two decades, another separating factor too has been silently at work. Thanks to the Green Revolution and various other factors, the Sikhs have become relatively more rich and prosperous. No wonder, they have begun to find that the Hindu bond is not good enough for them and they seek a new identity readily available to them in their names and outer symbols. This is an understandable human frailty.
“You have been our defenders,” Hindus tell the Sikhs. But in the present psychology, the compliment wins only contempt—and I believe rightly. For self-despisement is the surest way of losing a friend or even a brother. It also gives the Sikhs an exaggerated self-assessment.
Under the pressure of this psychology, grievances were manufactured; extreme slogans were put forward with which even moderate elements had to keep pace. In the last few years, even the politics of murder was introduced. Finding no check, it knew not where to stop; it became a law unto itself; it began to dictate, to bully.
from “Hindu Sikh Relationship” by Ram Swarup
And that’s where we are. How exactly this bully will be tamed is the biggest question now. It’s not just the government, but the Hindu community too needs to realize the problem. I hope there is a plan. And I hope the planners have read Mr. Swarup. And you dear reader, you may too.
