Arguing on behalf of the Central government during a hearing in the Supreme Court on January 12 on the new farm laws and the farmers’ prote...
Arguing on behalf of the Central government during a hearing in the Supreme Court on January 12 on the new farm laws and the farmers’ protests demanding their repeal, Attorney General KK Venugopal claimed that the demonstrators have been “infiltrated by elements that support the idea of Khalistan”.
This was not the first time that such an allegation had been made by the ruling establishment. Some senior ministers of the Central government and spokespersons of the ruling party have also repeatedly made such allegations. They have also taken issue with the fact that some of the participating farmers’ organszations are left-leaning and raise issues of human rights. Farmers ought to be speaking only about farming-related issues and nothing else, they insist.
However, if we look at it closely, the stated position of the farmers’ unions and their leaders is not very different. You just need to listen to the videos of the lectures they have been delivering at the protest sites, all easily available on YouTube.
This is not to suggest that farmers movements are “non-political” or “pre-political”. Social movements are always constituted by politics, often producing unintended consequences with far-reaching political implications. The reference point here is the party or electoral politics.
What has been the relationship...
