Shadow Slugfest

4 February 2021

Did Carribean origin pop icon Rihanna achieve what she set out when she tweeted why we were not discussing the farmers agitation in India? It was stupendous to see that the social media platform was agog with tweets trending, her individual tweet alone was retweeted a quarter million times in first 24 hours. She was quote tweeted and liked and more by people in India who were already for months doggedly explaining the farmer agitation in simple terms to those who cared to understand:
Per se the Farm Laws are as predictable as this Government has been since 2014 when it first assumed office. It contains a rehash of proposals discussed earlier, promised by parties including Mr Rahul Gandhi’s. Only there is a context.
Farmers are in this, not just farmers from Punjab or Haryana or Western UP, farmers from across India are in this movement, only the winter weather, the lack of roadside space in any of these places where the farmers have been halted and now barricaded, allows for far fewer physical representation.
Farmers do not fully understand what this package actually does for them in terms of safeguards and boosts to their farming, but they have not bought the assurances of the Government interlocutors, and now they await the SC appointed panel to hold discussions with them.
Farmers are deeply hurt that unlike how Mr Modi had heeded them when land reforms modification was proposed and entirely withdrawn, some of the provisions of that ‘reform’ got back through a judicial process involving the famous SC Justice Mishra (who had earlier authored the judgement on it, and refused to recuse himself which would have been judicially proper) but those affect too few farmers and it was a judicial process, so farmers do not apportion blame on Mr Modi. Farmers were a bulwark of his vote bank in 2014 and 2019, because Mr Modi as CM Gujarat has been espousing their cause relentlessly, imaginatively capturing their vote by promising them a doubling of farm income within their life times!
Farmers are feeling betrayed by the harassment that the police have subjected them and their supporters to, including custodial interrogation, judicial custody, jail without bail and charges ranging from those under UAPA to violation of Penal Code concerning traffic, assembly and protest. The latest trigger was the UAPA proceedings against one of their leaders Mr Tikait, which led to this current series of Mahapanchayats.
Farmers are annoyed with the media, including now freelance media MoJo of Barkha Dutt for trying to first place the fiasco of 26 January Tractor Rally events with what transpired at Red Fort. If one looks at how peacefully farmers actually entered the demarcated roads and did their protest tractor rally, you will realise that what happened in Red Fort was not even a sideshow. Yet, Indian media and this government do not have a sense of proportion. The miscreants who staged their ‘flag hoisting protest’ at the Red Fort, were denounced as runaways from the Farmers Agitation even prior, including a person of interest who led this mob, and who has photographs of himself with actor and MP Sunny Deol and in the company of Mr Amit Shah, Mr Modi and other who’s who of the Government and BJP. The demand for an independent inquiry into these events which saw curiously a group of police jump into a moat trench several dozen feet deep, which also involved the alleged ‘shooting’ of one youth who was driving a tractor, has received little attention. Whereas the alleged ‘insult to the Tricolour’ has been highlighted by the President in his Address to Parliament, by the PM in his Mann Ki Baat of 31 January 2021, besides the Twitter storm that erupted over it.
Farmers are in disbelief and disgust that many players are trying to portray them as being not patriotic, accusing them of being agents of forces inimical to India and even labelling them as ‘terrorists’.

So from all of this, I can see only one strategy here at stake- legitimacy. For farmers it is their legitimate cause for the pro Government array, it is to delegitimise the farmers in any and every manner. In such a winner takes all sweepstakes that legitimacy brings to any context, the Government not only suspended internet services, arrested dozens of youth activists involved in the organising of farmer protests, involved NIA in investigating the funding for this movement and some key players, but also now has erected a barricade system of iron spikes, concrete road blocks, concertina coils and other space denying systems, effectively walling off the farmers in Singhu border and other places where the SC has ruled that they can continue to assemble and agitate. Much of these draconian moves to squeeze the farmers coincided with the aftermath of the Tractor Rally of 26 January, and has negated what ever schisms and doubts that arose after that Red Fort incident within the farmer groups.

Naturally, one would expect this government to fear mass agitations, since it rode an anti incumbency wave triggered by one itself- the IAC Anna Hazare movement which was staged in Ram Lila Maidan inside the National Capital. Since this government has come in, it has first shut down Jantar Mantar as a venue for protest, even lathi charging the veterans who were staging their protest over OROP in that venue. So this current police action of keeping protestors outside of Delhi is part of the same political mindset that seeks to deny space to agitation within the NCR. That is why the Dadis of Shaheen Bagh were such a disturbance to the Government. If you tabulated the responses of the government to Shaheen Bagh then you would know that what the Government did then, is what it has further improved with Farmers Agitation, including the use of ‘motley locals’ who protest at the ‘inconvenience’, presence of thugs who harass the protestors at the site, petitions in the SC to vacate the protests. Only, the government fails to appreciate the limits of such judicial intervention, because, if the SC were to seek to vacate these protests, it would stake its very reputation as upholder of the Constitution. Unlike those agitated over how an elected government can bear with protests against laws passed in Parliament, those who know democracy as it existed in India so far and in other Western countries upon which India is modelled, can see no reason why they cannot. After all what was IAC movement and seeking a legislation that involved a Constitutional Amendment (Lok Pal) then?

The charade this government’s wellwishers and its minders put up after Rihanna’s tweet is perhaps going to remain our collective moment of sillyness. First IT Cell trolls got after Rihanna trying to prove that –
she was assaulted by a man, and she got that as advance karma for her tweet now
she is no great shakes as a social media influencer and she is a paid troll
she is intellectually challenged and has no comprehension of the issues at stake with our farmers

Then we had the MEA himself tweet, wading into an arena where the country’s top diplomat is not meant to ever- cross swords with a global icon which would place a target on India’s soft power and understanding of soft power, by promising that ‘India would push back’. This was then quote tweeted by the Union Finance Minister no less, whose tweet was actually the correct response- placing the record straight- that farmers and government have been talking, the PM has suspended the farm laws in accordance with SC orders and beyond for a period of 18 months, but I am sure, in the melee of deafening drum beat of jingoism trending about nationalism and patriotism, her correct response was lost!

Then the ‘Major Squad’ led by one handle called Major Jolly, got after Greta Thunberg, asking her how she is not concerned at farmers causing climate crises by ground water extraction and stubble burning and how she is effectively batting for ‘gross polluters’. Then a thread launched which wanted to show how Greta is an agent for hire, because, she quoted a Google Factsheet, the kind most celebrity endorsers get, when they acquaint themselves with any cause, prior to endorsing or not endorsing it themselves. Remember this is within 48 hours of a Budget Speech where the Defence Allocation was not even mentioned, and these familiar ‘staunch military nationalists’ would have been outraged if such a lapse had happened during UPA.
Of course, Akshay Kumar, Sr Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Shetty were ‘launched’ to rally the faithful. This was more an acute comparison about how these very worthies would voluntarily protest petrol prices, inflation and other issues on Twitter, and how now since 2014, they have gone into a Rip Van Winkle mode to astir only when tasked.

Why I mention these twitter trends and threads is because, it is relevant to how the plot is getting lost. If Rihanna’s tweet was just ignored, or even replied to in the language of our Finance Minister, by an Indian citizen, it would been alright. But to treat Rihanna as if she were a Diplomatic entity herself was a senseless disproportion. Secondly, why is India so thin skinned over opinions of others when we are so opinionated ourselves over Brexit, over Trump, over Bolsonaro, over Biden and everything else! Like how we don’t hold an opinion of Xi or the CCP and how China hardly occupies our social media, disproportionate to her occupation of our frontiers the last 9 months, why cannot Indians understand that social media is just a noisy echo-eco system, and if we conflate social media with ground opinion then we are sadly mistaken. How many voters in mofussil UP know about Rihanna? Or Greta Thunberg? How many farmers themselves are knowledgable about Climate Challenge issues? But here we have our TV studios talking up conspiracy, The Republic Hindi channel even made a screamer that Rihanna was a Congressi!

For any western person, what was at display was India desperate for validation from the West which had once colonised her. What was at display was how the might of the State was being used to crush protests, by a group of citizens whose patriotism can never be questioned for they are the meek, the tillers, of the land, the settlers who alone can claim to be sons and daughters of the soil, a claim that belonged only to ‘natives’. What was at display in our responses to Rihanna and Greta was misogyny, patriarchy and stereotyping with a fair measure of Q Anon conspiracy theory which until now was the staple of daft racist White Americans and Europeans!

The last 24 hours saw the collective credibility of India go down several notches. Like the CAA crises over NRC, I am hoping that PM Modi will step in and reign in the minions who think they have his best interest in their silly actions. That the PM will take charge, even if it is to demonstrate to Mr Rahul Gandhi who challenged him to take charge in his presser yesterday, that he is fully in charge.

Played by a pragmatic polity, Rihanna’s interest in Indian farmers could have been milked to obtain concessions in Climate Crises responses, by getting preferentially funding, FDI in agriculture and innovations in agriculture on priority to India’s distressed agrarian sector. Instead, intemperance and silly emotional responses have displayed a ‘weak’ insecure polity to the world and to ourselves. It is high time, the anachronistic one size fits all IAS bureaucracy which has misled this government’s better political and governing instincts takes a back seat. India could treat this proverbial Twitter storm in a teacup as a sign that calls for course correction. After all, 180 characters or less, cannot determine any issue, not in a democracy, where ideally we must not question the legitimacy of any concern!