Will Prime Minister Modi accept the wisdom of protesting farmers
By Amit Bhaduri, former Economics professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University*
The legendary Scandinavian King Canute was revered as the ruler of everything he surveyed. One day he commanded the incoming tide to roll back, not to wet his royal feet and robe.
To the embarrassment of his courtiers, the sea did not obey despite the King’s claim of divine powers.
This story survives a thousand years later because it speaks truth to the arrogance of power, nurtured by flattery.
Modern democracies do not bestow divine power to its democratically elected leader. But it gives him (or her) a chance to become a despot, not a dictator. He rules democratically through laws passed in parliament.
Despotic tendencies in democracies are conveniently breeding again these days, under the cover of the pandemic, in several countries around the world. It may be a ghost parliament of sorts where the opposition is absent; it may be the parliament is suspended in the name of a health emergency; or it may simply be the habit formed by the heady after-effect of a brute majority enjoyed in parliament, until the time of reckoning comes again through an election, if it comes at all.
It is now history that the Indian parliament recently enacted three farm bills which has set off tides of protests around New Delhi, led mostly by farmers from neighboring Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, with more joining from other parts of India. They want the three farm laws to be repealed and replaced with a law which assures a reasonable minimum support price for all essential agricultural commodities - not an unwritten verbal assurance. The government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is unwilling to do so.
The incoming tidal wave of protests was about to reach the throne of the democratic leader and wet Modi’s feet and robes, but was stopped by force. The government ordered its police to dig trenches on national highways and use barricades and water cannons.
And yet, the waves of protest have not subsided. It rose and consolidated peacefully at selected points of entry at the border of the capital, New Delhi. The resistance is getting more and more massive and spreading to distant parts of India.
Modi, the leader, says he is misunderstood. The laws are meant to bring in prosperity and double the income of farmers in a couple of years – if only they follow his lead.
Modi’s courtiers and advisors too believe in the magic of the market place. Minimum support price for agricultural produce, they say, is a hindrance to their future prosperity. Only free market prices can deliver. The three laws, enacted by the leader, are designed to create a free market.
But this would be a free market in which the empires of two of India’s leading businessmen will bargain over prices with farmers, most of whom own less than a couple of acres of land: Mr. Mukesh Ambani’s team, keen on expanding its retail outlets of agricultural products, and Mr. Gautam Adani’s men, desperate to fill up their already constructed silos with grains.
Moreover, in cases of disagreements, the central government which passed the law, and not civil courts, will decide the verdict. The state governments, where a farm land is located, will have no say either. This is absolute concentration of power in the central government, rather than separation of powers in a federal democratic set up, as envisaged in the Indian constitution.
The farmers say they will have none of such laws. But Modi in a solemn voice says, over and over again, he is being misunderstood. The leader’s courtiers and paid pundits repeat passionately through the big media: indeed Modi is being misunderstood. The reason might be Pakistanis, Khalistanis (Sikhs demanding a separate nation), rural and urban Naxalites (Maoists) along with opposition political parties, perhaps all of them infiltrated by those various, dangerous separatist elements. They are all misleading the innocent farmers, the leader’s courtiers say.
This is not the first time the leader’s policies have been distorted by dangerous elements, say the courtiers. The Muslims misunderstood the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 - which can deprive them of their Indian citizenship. Also, in 2019, the Kashmiris did not see the beauty of repealing Article 370 – which ended the limited political autonomy of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Since 2017, business folk and traders have pretended not to understand the Goods and Services Tax Laws – which complicates the calculation and collection of taxes and has reportedly increased, not reduced, corrupt practices. In 2016, the poor, somehow eking an existence, did not understand demonetization - which rendered the value of their cash savings in high currency notes worthless. And in 2020, the migrant worker did not understand and appreciate the sudden lockdown which was more effective in destroying them than the COVID-19 virus.
Nevertheless, the leader leads resolutely to make the country great in every way.
The leader is understood only by the deshvakts, real patriots, and opposed by the deshadrohis, traitors to the country. He is criticized by the tukra-tukra gang, who want to shred to pieces our ancient, glorious Hindu Rashtra (Nation) in the making. They do not really belong in India because they are alien to its culture, and its grand, scientific tradition which transformed the face of Lord Ganesh to that of an elephant through plastic surgery, and where the Rishis, ancient wise men, had found out long ago how, by making noise with kitchen pots and pans and lighting candles, you could win the war against pandemics in a few days.
We cannot say for sure whether all his courtiers, his ministers, his pundits and the mainstream media agree. They certainly do not show any sign of disagreeing. Flattery not understanding, loyalty not questioning, subservience not dissent is the name of the only game that they play in politics.
The Viking King Canute ruled most of Scandinavia and used brutal force to conquer and rule England. Most historians claim he was actually a wise ruler, too wise perhaps to believe in the unlimited divine power of a king. He believed there is no force, far stronger than a royal order, which can guide the course of an incoming tide. And so, he had his throne placed next to the sea to demonstrate this wisdom. He mis-understood that motivated flattery of his courtiers tended to hide simple wisdom.
This sea side episode was a simple, yet powerful demonstration of the failure of the King’s man ki baat, frank personal opinion, witnessed by his courtiers and his subjects. To understand the simple truth that the tide is stronger than a royal order was the wisdom of his time. That is why the story, which is narrated to school kids around the world a thousand years later, has become a legend.
The wisdom of our time is that the mighty wave of a popular tide of farmers is more powerful than any act of parliament.
Is there wisdom in our time and country to accept it gracefully?