Capt Amarinder Singh must be cautious of creating perception of confronting farm struggle for survival

Issue is  havoc that farm acts would trigger in Punjab, not inconvenience due to struggle

Black Day is June 5, not September 17

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh threw a stone in the already troubled waters by saying that the farmers should wind up their dharnas in Punjab that were causing loss to the state and impeding development, besides causing inconvenience to the people at large.

Capt Amarinder Singh is the former Maharaja of Patiala.

A man known to study deeply the issues that concern him, he should also go into chain reaction that the carnage caused by these farm laws would spark in Punjab. This chain reaction would hit hard every section of the economy.

Punjab is the state that is going to be the worst hit by these laws followed by Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh apple growers have already started feeling the pinch of corporate marketing take over.

Capt Amarinder Singh today tried to mollify the agitating farmers saying his remarks had been misinterpreted and given political twist “instead of understanding the pain and misery caused to the people on account of their protests in the state, which were quite uncalled for, given his government’s continued support to them”.

He said, “Continued protests in Punjab will push industry out of the state which would have a severe impact on the economy”.

Every revolution  is rooted in misery and is accompanied by pain.

He should realise that the state that would be the worst affected by the three contentious farm laws where more than 80 of the farmers fall in category of small farmers. It is a different matter that by a vocal pro-corporate section and columnists, this struggle is being painted as by rich farmers. In his previous tenure, he had tried to focus on diversification but the initiative reached a dead end due to corruption in the system and subsequent lack of interest.

Once the corporates take over the farm sector, Punjab would be denied the money that is pumped into the state’s economy due to total procurement of wheat and paddy by the state agencies. It is mainly this money that creates demand and hence circulation of money that benefits trade and industry through chain reaction. The people in trade and industry should also know that any upheaval in rural sector caused by these laws would be ruinous not just for the farmers but also beneficiaries of that demand creation.

The inconvenience that this section is suffering as stated by Capt Amarinder Singh would turn into pain over the years and hence, this section should support the farm struggle.

The very objective of these laws is drive people out of farm sector. It is only the farm sector in India that has sustained the economy during Covid and hence now under focus of the corporates.

The Chief Minister talked of development projects getting hit due to certain steps like appeal to the political parties to suspend poll campaign by way of organising big rallies.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha has not issued any directive, neither it can. The SKM has only made an appeal to the political parties that has been interpreted as Farmers Election Code by the media. Of course, the political parties do run the risk of being dubbed as anti-farmer.

The tenure of the present government is nearly over. The elections to the state Assemblies including Punjab is likely to be announced in December and hence, the state government has practically just three months to “develop” the state.

What was the government doing for four and a half years?

It is the Congress rebels, both in the Amarinder cabinet and in the organisation, who are more ardent critics of the functioning (or non-functioning) of Capt Amarinder Singh. Covid came to his rescue to justify his self-confinement from the time he took over as the chief minister in 2017.

He is the man who has the capacity to deliver but for some strange reasons, he continued to live in his comfort zone.

Now he should avoid giving even slightest signal of confronting the farm struggle as that would bracket him with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress at the national level  is supporting this struggle, more out of compulsion of being an opposition party as this party is otherwise votary of free market economy from which model these acts flow.

September 17 as Akali Black Day:

Shiromani Akali Dal has given a call to observe September 17 as the Black Day in support of the farm struggle. It should be welcomed by every section as this is the first party in Punjab to have taken such initiative to stand with the farmers.

The issue, however, is with September 17 that this party perceives to be the Black Day.

It might by at one level.

It was on September 17, 2020 that Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the representative of the Akali Dal in the BJP led government at the centre, resigned from the cabinet in protest against the farm laws moved in Lok Sabha that day.

It was on September 17 that the Badal family went completely out of power with this resignation. It is only after September 17 that the Akali Dal started functioning fully as an opposition party, both in the state and at the national level.

The Bills, however, were adopted by the Modi cabinet on June 5, 2020 of which Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the part. Cabinet is a collective responsibility.

It would have been different had she resigned that very day when these bills were promulgated through an ordinance, the route that is taken by the government only in emergency situations. There was no emergency in this case.

It would be repetition to recall as to how she went out of the way by appearing on three different news channels on a single day to defend these bills followed by her husband and Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal who ratified her the very next day by addressing the media on a single point agenda.

The move to stage protest by the Akali Dal is otherwise is positive step for this struggle.