Centre-state rift visible in stir against farm laws

Senior Journalist

In the last month of the most devastating year in recent human history, the protesting farmers have taken on the most powerful in the land: the strongest Central regime in three decades and the biggest corporates of the country. But will the ongoing farmers’ agitation actually impact electoral fortunes in 2021, first in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu that have elections by April-May and then by early 2022 in Punjab that is the epicentre of the protests?

How the Centre proceeds in the ongoing talks will also be determined by its own risk assessment and the calculation of profit and loss in the political and financial spheres. The new farm laws are currently not just a lightning rod for protests against the dismantling of existing structures in agricultural markets or against the “selling of the farm sector to big corporate interests” as the agitators say. It’s also about the fundamental structure of federalism itself. Agriculture has essentially been understood to be a state subject according to the Constitution, although there are provisions in the Union and Concurrent lists that can be used as a pretext for the Centre to intrude into that space.

That’s precisely what is happening with the far-reaching farm laws. They are in keeping with the stated philosophy of the current BJP that promotes ‘One Nation One Poll’ and ‘One Nation One Market’. As it is, notions of fair play in the sharing of resources with the states have been given short shrift during the lockdown and the pandemic. Non-BJP-ruled states have been complaining about the Centre taking various steps that threaten their fiscal autonomy.

Unlike the BJP-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004), a coalition with a stated commitment to federalism, the current BJP is openly committed to centralising political power in one party, one supreme leader and the cadres loyal to that project. A close scrutiny of the fine print of the farm laws also shows that the balance of power between the judiciary and the executive is disturbed as the laws virtually take away the possibility of prosecution of civil servants and big corporates at the top of the chain, if the legislation comes into effect.

The opposition to the new farm laws, therefore, will not vanish but could take different shapes in different parts of the country. For instance, in Tamil Nadu, the DMK will certainly raise the red flag of the Centre and BJP threatening state autonomy and dismantling federal structures. It is one of the country’s most industrialised states; the AIADMK regime there has stated that the farm laws do not harm farmers and those who did not wish to be part of contract farming could continue with regulated markets. The BJP, meanwhile, has made concerted efforts to mark its presence in a state that has mostly eluded it. A tie-up with the ruling AIADMK, divided since the death of another supreme leader, J Jayalalithaa, in December 2016, had been announced, but it is also likely that superstar Rajinikanth, who recently announced the launch of a political party, may be the preferred front for the BJP’s ambitions. The electoral impact of the farmers’ agitation would also depend on how the Centre deals with it. Crushing protest brutally will go down badly in regions such as Tamil Nadu that value their autonomy.

In West Bengal, meanwhile, the ruling TMC already faces an aggressive BJP in the run-up to the state election. But it’s important to remember that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rose to power after the strong campaign against the brutal methods used by the Left Front regime to acquire agricultural land for a special economic zone. (Subsequently, after coming to power in 2011, Mamata had to make statements about not being anti-industry). The TMC has consistently opposed policies that touch on land acquisition or encroach on state domains and agricultural incomes have indeed gone up in the state since 2011 (state government data shows a tripling of the income). The TMC says it opposes the farm laws on four grounds — federalism, MSP (minimum support price), PDS (public distribution system) and procurement.

But after a decade in power, there is anti-incumbency and a vacuum in the opposition space that the BJP has filled after the disintegration of the Left. Still, the farm agitation does not really give the BJP any rhetorical advantage in Bengal. The party, therefore, continues to focus on law and order and strong-arm tactics of TMC cadres even as it energetically tries to procure leaders from other political parties, besides the usual Hindu vs Muslim issues.

But it is Punjab where it is hardest to predict what will land ashore after the tsunami. Elections in this border state are a year away, but there are a few strands that are visible at the 15-km-long protest caravan at the Singhu border. It’s an organic protest where there is an interesting intermingling of trade union and long-standing kisan union activists from Punjab along with a very visible presence of leaders of gurdwara committees. Although the media narrative has focused on Punjab being a Congress-ruled state, and on the Left unions, one can also see the support base of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the protest. This suggests the possibility of the Akalis regaining credibility with their voter base after their decision to leave the NDA over the farm laws. Also, dropping by at the protest site is the leadership of Delhi’s ruling party, AAP, which has stakes in Punjab but is not really rooted in the state unless it finds a charismatic leader.

In the 2017 Assembly elections and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Akalis and the BJP fought as an alliance, but now the national party would be on its own. The rhetoric being raised by the BJP support base (particularly their loyal media) about the protests being triggered by those who support the idea of Khalistan is worrying as it treads on a sensitive fault-line.

The national BJP could, for starters, instruct its social media bots to stop presenting every protest as an anti-national activity. Democracy, after all, is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people. The people, protesting or sitting at home, should never be profiled as the enemy. And contrary to the commentators that say the farm laws are good for the people (but the people just don’t know it as yet), those bracing themselves for a long-drawn protest are firm that the laws are not in their interest.