A few days ago, driving back from Berkeley to San Francisco, I got held up for a while in a jam across the Bay Bridge. The cause of the jam...
A few days ago, driving back from Berkeley to San Francisco, I got held up for a while in a jam across the Bay Bridge. The cause of the jam was a mobile procession brought out by the Sikh community, bearing messages in support of Indian farmers and critical of Narendra Modi and the Indian government. The protesters were likely drawn from the Sikh diaspora, whose story is intertwined with that of California’s rich agricultural history, and who probably still have family in India whowork as farmers. Similar protests have taken place in the United Kingdom and Canada, countries with sizeable Sikh minority populations.
In India, the protests by farmers against planned reforms in the agricultural sector continue unabated, with talks in gridlock. The protests have drawn predictably ugly responses from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s mouthpieces in the media and from its troll armies. Crackpot theories about the “deep state”, fantastic speculations about Muslim-Sikh conspiracies against a noble Hindu leader, and petty memes about Khalistani terrorists are circulating on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook.
The general case for reform in agriculture aside, the pros and cons of the specific reforms have not been debated in any meaningful and sustained way by all the groups...
