On 19 November 2021 PM Narendra Modi made an important announcement on TV, seemingly timed carefully to coincide with the occasion of Guru Purab. He announced that the three Farm Laws against which lakhs of Indian farmers had been protesting for over a year, would be repealed. Supporters of the current government are framing this either as a masterstroke or as a disappointing climb-down. Others have welcomed it as a good move, albeit a year too late. Here’s what the tweeple thought about the repeal of the three farm laws:
The protests were launched over a year ago. Though several political outfits have tried to piggyback onto the protests for some political mileage, the protests have remained staunchly apolitical. The protest sites did their best not to permit their platforms to be used by political entities.
This quote of Mahatma Gandhi is apt for this occasion, felt some of the tweeple.
Over a year of peaceful protests at various sites such as Sighu, Ghazipur, Tikri and elsewhere has been hugely difficult in terms of logistics and organisation. Over 600 people lost their lives in various circumstances. Those who have protested the laws and the way they were bludgeoned through parliament, see this as a victory.
Supporters of the central government have expressed their anger and disillusionment with what they seen as humiliating capitulation.
Soon after the announcement on 19 November, government functionaries started to spin the move as a sign of the Prime Minister’s ‘sensitivity' and ‘magnanimity’.
As with all such sudden decisions taken without warning by the centre, the repeal has been framed as a ‘masterstroke’.
The women and men who dug in and continued to protest in very difficult circumstances were much like this elderly man – both a soldier (jawan) and a farmer (kissan).
While opposition parties have welcomed the move, there is an attempt to use this for political point-scoring. This announcement by the Chief Minister of Punjab is being seen as pointless virtue signalling.
There are many who see the farm law repeal as a political move with an eye on upcoming state elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. There is a strong feeling that these were good laws, repealed for the wrong reasons.
According to commentators such P Sainath, this was “largest peaceful democratic protest the world has seen in years”. In this view, it wasn’t the content of the laws so much as the impervious and non-conciliatory attitude of the government that irked the protestors.
Not only people in government but even friendly news channels had tried hard to paint the protestors as ‘middlemen’, ‘opportunists’, ‘separatists’ and even ‘terrorists’, as Manjul's cartoon portrays.
There was an attempt by mainstream media to discredit the protests and now there is the attempt to spin the repeal as a brilliant move as well.
This meme from Jai Bhim seems to indicate who blinked first after the year-long standoff.
Perhaps there should be an apology forthcoming, suggests Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, UK Labour MP.
There were many who made memes such as these
Leaving aside the good and the bad in the laws, or perceptions of who won and who lost, the rollback of the farm at least partly restores our faith in democracy. Where our farmers and law enforcement agencies were at odds with each other this will hopefully put an end to the animosity. Satish Acharya’s beautiful cartoon encapsulates the hope that the stalemate will end in a welcome peace.
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