Different strokes for different folks: Modi government and farmer protest

BJP - like any other political party - has to make an assessment of whether any particular protest has the potential to harm its electoral prospects. It will act only where they seem threatened

While public protests against the Modi government seem to progressively increase in size and intensity, none has so far impacted the electoral wins notched up by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The government has dealt with some protests with alacrity and ignored others.

Since coming to power in 2014 the nation saw farmers’ protests against a proposed amendment to the Land Acquisition Act in 2014-15, protests in universities after Dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide in 2015, by veterans demanding one-rank-one-pension again in 2015, a countrywide “Not In My Name” protests of June 2017 against Hindu mobs lynching Muslims on accusations of beef eating and Dalits being killed in caste driven frenzy. The one-day flash strike by Dalit organisation against the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of) Atrocities Act in 2018, was followed by a farmers’ march on Delhi in November 2018 demanding remunerative prices and freedom from debt. Open-defiance of government directives and lack of faith in it was shown by millions of migrant workers choosing to walk home during the pandemic induced lockdown. Now it is faced with another farmers’ agitation against new farm laws introduced stealthily during the pandemic.

While growing public resentment and electoral outcomes seem somewhat disconnected in India, the BJP like any other political party has to make an assessment of whether any particular public protest has the potential to harm its electoral prospects. It will act only where they seem threatened. 

The amendment to the Land Acquisition Act was dropped in the face of widespread resentment amongst farmers because it threatened to affect a nationwide cross-section of voters. The amendment to the SC and ST (Prevention of) Atrocities Act was rescinded because although Dalits are not the BJP’s core constituency, the party would like to woo Dalit voters into the Hindutva fold. So while the prime minister was photographed ritually washing the feet of five Dalit sanitation workers, the government had already made a serious attempt to disable all other movements with the potential of taking Dalits away from its Hindutva politics. The Bhima-Koregaon and Elgar Parishad related arrests of Dalit intellectuals, lawyers, sympathisers and activists under harsh anti-terror laws were an exercise precisely aimed at preventing the radicalisation of Dalit. 

The one-rank-one-pension protests threatened to diminish the Modi government’s perceived commitment to militarised-nationalism, central to its Hindutva ideology. But tactically also, it was electorally imprudent to antagonise veterans who have strong leadership in their communities across the country. And so the Modi government addressed the issue seriously. Its response to the farmers’ agitation in late 2018, virtually on the eve of the last general election, was the announcement of a dole of Rs 6,000 per year under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. This tried to douse the fire before the general election. The non-compliance of migrant workers to stay put during the lockdown was dealt with by offering free food. Eventually migrant anger did not matter to the party electorally even in an election-going state like Bihar where they perhaps had little impact as they were dispersed across 243 constituencies.

Some public agitations were positively beneficial for the government such as the agitations against lynching by cow vigilantes, the removal of special status of Jammu and Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens. Provocative statements by party leaders helped the party to counter-mobilise against them and consolidate its communal vote base. The CAA controversy is again sought to be revived in the run up to the West Bengal elections with the government likely to announce the rules to implement the CAA on the eve of the state elections.

So far however, the Modi government seems confident that the gathering social support for the ongoing farmers’ agitation can be dismissed as nothing more than an attempt by ultra-Left politicians “to regain (political) ground”. Its strategy of staring down the farmers’ agitation presumes that after three weeks of the agitation, it is likely to be associated in public mind with only the Sikh farmers of Punjab, a constituency that never belonged to the BJP in any case. Unless the agitation spreads to other parts of India, which it has not so far, it can safely assume that it will not harm the BJP.

Farmers during a protest at Singhu border near New Delhi. Photo: Reuters

By targeting the political parties as betraying the “real economic interests” of the farmers, the government has dismissed the voice of the farmers making it into a misguided rant by motivated elements. It must hope that this will allow it to convert the agitation into a “manageable” problem of law and order created by the usual suspects. They can then be dealt with harsh police methods. With the articulate leadership cowed down, it probably hopes that the farmers can be fobbed off by institutionalising a negotiating process. The Supreme Court’s expressed eagerness to mediate between the Executive and the Public in the farmers’ agitation is a pointer in this direction. 

Meanwhile, in the BJP-ruled states a counter-mobilisation is planned where “Kisan Sammelans (farmers’ gatherings)” are being organised culminating in a big event on Christmas day, ostensibly because it is the birthday of Late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Prime Minister himself will address farmers reminding them of what his government has done for them.

In all likelihood, the government will seek to settle the farmers’ agitation before the coming Republic Day. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade and if the farmers’ issues are not resolved by then, he could come under domestic pressure from the Punjabi diaspora in the United Kingdom to cancel his visit. Referring to the ongoing protests, his Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has already told India that “your politics – in some sense – because of the Indian diaspora in Britain, is also our politics.” The urgency of where an unresolved agitation blocking the highways might lead is underlined by the memory of the violence that occurred during the visit of US President Donald Trump to India last year.

Twitter: @Bharatitis