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INDIA : ''' '' FARMERS -
EXISTENTIAL BATTLE
- FRAMES '' '''
TO THE NAGGING WORRY OF THE ENTIRE REGION AND THE WORLD - India is becoming less and less secure, less and less united, more and more polarised, and of course, more and more repressive.
Could this farmers' movement, just as the protests against the anti-Citizenship amendment Act before it, - ''create a new language of democratic protest''?
With all the distractions of January 26, nothing should wipe out the central reality : here are people waging an existential battle, not just for their present but their future - and incidentally our present and future too because the country's food security is at stake.
The reality that so many of their compatriots have died by suicide over the years because of their material conditions drives their implacable resolve, forcing them into a now-or-never moment.
The voices from the ground captured in the recent reportage express this very deep, often quiet, determination. In an article in The Wire, for instance, we come across quotes like :
''We have not come to fight. One fights with enemies, not with one's own government First and foremost, we want to display that farmers have dignity and they have rights. And we have come to claim these rights''.
While covering the ceaseless swirls and eddies in the epic farmers' agitation on Delhi's borders, a professional journalist would need to arrive at a vantage point from which to view, report and analyse the developments, in order to tell this history-making story with some degree of credibility and seriousness.
Many media persons have not had to search hard to find their respective vantage points. Some are happy to be guided by television rating points [TRPs], circulation figures or the hits they can garner in their search for the perfect perch.
A great many are content to occupy a a roost crafted for them by an authoritarian, micro-managing political apparatus through the agency of supine and mendacious managements.
All they, on their part have to do is to suspend critical thinking, give up any pretense of independent thought, stifle the voice of conscience and find the stomach to endlessly expand on pre-formulated scenarios, pre-fabricated information, pre-cooked conclusion.
Much of the recent reportage on the farm protests emerged from precisely such a perspective, one which just cannot fathom why farmers should so stubbornly resist a policy that is designed by the Modi government for their own well-being.
It does not perceive the anti-democratic manner in which the farm laws were brought in without consulting the primary stake-holders and spirited through parliament almost by sleight of hand, but it is full of outrage in farming a tractor rally organised on the same day as the Republic Day parade as a bot on Indian democracy.
It cites the Red Fort events and the clashes with the police at ITO to bolster the case that the protests are being driven by criminal, pro-Khalistan, anarchic, anti-national forces, but has no interest in that fact that the great majority of the protesters did follow the prescribed routes, attracting the adulation and garlands of supportive crowds.
It insists that the protesters constitute only a section of farmers from Punjab and Haryana, turning a blind eye to nation-wide support across the country from Himachal to Tamil Nadu.
When the police raided Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikat's camp at Ghazipur and cut off electricity and water supply, it is framed as necessary steps to maintain law and order; but when masked hoodlums are bussed in to throw stones at the protest site in the Singhu border while shouting -
Shouting a murder-threatening slogan popularized by parliamentarian Anurag Thanur - who will soon be presiding over the forthcoming budget presentation as junior minister - it is framed as ''clashes'' caused by local anti-farmer sentiment.
The vantage point of such a perspective is embedded in power and the exercise of power. In a piece for The Wire, a former CEO of Prasar Bharati Jawhar Sircar discerns with a practised eye that ''most footage and reportage appeared to be from behind the safe security of the well-armed police.''
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Protests and The State-of-the-World, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Pamela Philipose.
With respectful dedication to the People of India, Students, Professors and Teachers and then the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :
''' Stories - Stymes '''
Good Night and God Bless
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