‘No talks if no-repeal is govt’s only stance’
GHAZIPUR: Farm leaders Rakesh Tikait and Balbir Singh Rajewal, at the forefront of the months-long farmers’ agitation at Delhi’s borders, said on Friday that talks with the central government will not resume until the Centre changes its stand on repealing the three contentious agriculture laws.
“We will not talk with conditions. What the government offered after 11 rounds of talks has fallen flat. Now if they offer a new proposal, we will consider starting fresh talks,” said Tikait, in an interview to HT.
The government has maintained that repealing the laws not an option.
When asked about the government’s proposal to suspend the laws, which were enacted in September last year, for 18 months, Tikait said: “If we take this [proposal] and enter into talks, that will mean our acceptance of their formula. If they [government] want to go beyond this, the doors to talks can open.”
Rajewal, on a question about the nationwide chakka jam on Saturday, asserted that the agitation will remain peaceful. “Our agitation was peaceful, is peaceful, and will remain so in future. It will be 100% peaceful tomorrow (Saturday). We have full control over our farmers.”
Into its third month, the dogged farmer protests, centered on the three contentious central farm laws, have dramatically gathered a new momentum in the last one week following a surge in support from the Jatlands of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. In the post-January 26 churn, Rakesh Tikait, 52, a cop-turned-farmer leader, and Balbir Singh Rajewal, 73, a veteran Bhartiya Kisan Union leader from Punjab, have emerged as the pre-eminent face of the agitation that has laid siege to Delhi’s key entry points, garnered international attention and put the Narendra Modi government to a severe test. While Tikait, the son of a tall farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, is the prime mobiliser, Rajewal stands out as a moderate voice of reason among ideologically disparate farm outfits from the border state. On Friday, a day before its nationwide ‘chakka jam (road blockade)’, Tikait and Rajewal dropped a conciliatory signal for resumption of talks with the Centre, while steadfastly swearing by their demand for the repeal of the three farm laws and a legally backed minimum support price. In an exclusive joint interview with HT Executive Editor Ramesh Vinayak at the Ghazipur border protest site, the two leaders announced the second phase of their stir up to October 2 and spoke about the protests, the negotiations, the January 26 tractor march, the chances of resuming talks with the government, and the way forward for the agitation. Edited excerpts:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined his intent to resolve the farmers’ agitation by committing at the January 30 all-party meeting that the proposal to suspend the three farm laws and set up a committee still stands. What’s your response?
Tikait: This is not acceptable to us.
We will not talk with conditions. What the government offered after 11 rounds of talks has fallen flat. Now if they offer a new proposal, we will consider starting fresh talks.
Which conditions are you referring to?
Tikait: The one on the 18-month moratorium. If we take this and enter into talks, that will mean our acceptance of their formula. If they want to go beyond this, the doors to talks can open.
What should the Centre do to bring the farmer unions back to the negotiating table?
Tikait: They should give up their insistence that there will be no repeal of the three laws and say that there will be talks. Then, we will also vouch for talks. That will create a platform for negotiations. Earlier too, the negotiations were deadlocked for 20 days, but it was broken. I’m sure the talks will happen again.
Farmers have taken a repeal-ornothing stand. How will such an extreme position help create the negotiating space?
Tikait: Obstinacy is on the part of the government. It is against the repeal of the laws and legal back-up for minimum support price (MSP). For us, these are the big issues.
Rajewal: The government should fulfil its duty and invite us (farm unions). The government is not expected to sit silent and do nothing. Unho ne ik baat ki zidd pakad li aur baat cheet ke table par aana nahin. Such
a stubborn attitude will not help resolve the issue.
Tikait: It’s possible that we may go to the first meeting to just put across our views and then come back to discuss it with our committee. But that would open the door for talks.
So, you want the Centre to send an invite?
Tikait: Let there be an invitation. Then, things will move forward. Talks are stalled since January 11. Our farmers are in jail, many are missing, and more than 400 tractors have been damaged. The government has put multi-layered barricades and spikes on roads leading to Delhi. People are inconvenienced. Sooner they (the Centre) respond the better. Otherwise, we will be holding meetings across the country. We will launch the second phase of the agitation from Saturday, and it will go on till October 2.
The government says the farmers’ movement is based on misinformation that land will be snatched, and corporates will take over agriculture and the MSP will be discontinued.
Rajewal: The government is creating
such misgivings. In the meetings so far, farms laws were discussed clause by clause. We proved that these are wrong.
How have the January 26 events changed the movement?
Tikait: Three lakh tractors and 20 lakh people came to Delhi. Such a massive crowd could have done anything. But our agitation was peaceful except the wrong acts of certain elements, who infiltrated our agitation and did all in complicity with the authorities to defame and discredit our movement.
The Prime Minister said the country was saddened by the insult to the national flag at Red Fort.
Tikait: Will the PM tell us why Red Fort, which is the country’s pride, has been leased to private players? The national flag atop the ramparts was not touched. We even took out sadbhavna marches with the national flag. No one knows and upholds the honour of the Tricolour better than a farmer whose son is a jawan serving on the country’s borders. Before coming to power, the BJP never unfurled the national flag at its offices. The RSS never hoisted the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur. How can they teach us the izzat of the national flag?
The government says the stir is getting support from forces that aim to weaken the country.
Rajewal: Who are these forces? Ek aadhi
kaa naam batao (Tell us their names). We will deal with such forces. Agar koi desh ko kamzor kar raha hain, uska ilaaz tau hum hi kar denge (If they try to weaken the country, we will sort them out). We have not seen the tent of any such forces at our protest sites. All you see here are farmers from villages who bring their own food material and run community kitchens.
As leaders of the movement, what lessons have you learnt from the January 26 episode?
Tikait: We have been doing agitations for 35 years. Whosoever is in the Opposition raises slogans and lays siege to Parliament. But, in reality, the protests happen at Jantar Mantar. Has any agitator ever entered Parliament in all these years? On Republic Day, people who declared on the eve of our tractor march that their intention was to reach Red Fort were put up front by the police and given a free run to inner Delhi. The police and the authorities were complicit in this.
But, is not it a fact that a section of protesters went out of your control?
Tikait: What happened on December 6, 1992, in Ayodhya? All top BJP leaders were there, and the party was in power. Was the Babri mosque structure demolished intentionally? Their affidavits said it was done by a crowd that turned unruly.
Many believe that the government’s proposal to stay the implementation of the laws for 18 months and set up a committee with the involvement of farm groups is a reasonable offer; it amounts, for all practical purposes, to the government retreating because this version of the law will be pulled back; it buys enough time to come up with a new framework. Why don’t you accept the offer?
Rajewal: These laws are basically wrong and were rammed through Parliament in a high-handed manner. These have been enacted for trading, not agriculture. A farmer doesn’t trade; he takes his crop for marketing. These laws are not meant for farmers. Secondly, in the Constitution’s 7th Schedule, agriculture is a state subject, but they have taken the concurrent list route in which Schedule 33 is on food stuff. Farmers produce foodgrains, not food stuff. So, these laws cheat farmers. Nor do they pass the constitutional test.
The farmers’ number has swelled at protest sites of late. There’s a law and order concern. How much control do you have on the crowds?
Tikait: We have full control. Anyone who
has joined the agitation and protests under some ideology other than the farmers’ cause can go back. We will shun such elements. Anyone involved in the breach of law and our protocol will be responsible for his own actions.
As the face of the agitation, what role do you see for yourself to resolve the situation?
Tikait: It’s a collective responsibility.
Rajewal ji is our key leader. Let the government initiate talks. We also want resolution.
The government says the farmers’ view on the laws and the MSP are based on fear and not on facts.
Tikait: Even today, farmers from Uttar
Pradesh and Rajasthan sell foodgrains in Punjab and Haryana, which are the only states with MSP. Once there is a law-backed MSP, traders in the entire country will not dare to buy crop at lower than the MSP.
Rajewal: Except Punjab and Haryana, the government has not put in place a marketing system in other states. We want a similar marketing system all over by opening 48,000 mandis so that all farmers benefit from the MSP.
But there is wide consensus that the country urgently needs agri reforms to improve the farmers’ incomes and modernise agriculture.
Rajewal: Of course, we need reforms. But
we don’t want corporate agriculture. Reforms should not solely benefit traders at the cost of farmers.
Tikait: In the reforms that this government is pushing, traders are trying to invade agriculture.
The government has said MSP will continue.
Rajewal: On MSP, the government says the existing system will continue. But that doesn’t apply to farmers except in Punjab and Haryana. We want a uniform legally guaranteed MSP for farmers of all states. They want to save the trader, not the farmer.
The government at the highest level has repeatedly said that the laws are for benefit of farmers. Why don’t you trust that?
Tikait: Farmers see through everything.
The problem is that even the existing farmer-related laws are not implemented. Look at the Sugarcane Act that binds sugar mills and the government to pay the farmers’ due within 15 days of procurement, but the farmers get paid after up to two years. And the government do nothing. But these are dangerous laws, and these (farm laws) will be implemented. How can farmers trust the government?
There is a trust deficit between Union leaders and the Centre?
Tikait: We have full trust in the central government, but it is hell bent on dhokhe baazi (deception). Look at how they have levelled allegations against our movement to break it up by all means. Farmers are being labelled Khalistanis. They say we are getting funds from abroad. Attempts are on to divide us and entangle us on the lines of big versus small farmers and Punjab versus Haryana. This agitation will not break up. The government will have come to the table and talk.
Would you talk to the Supreme Court-appointed expert panel?
Tikait: We have already rejected that. If
someone is studying Kannada, can he solve a question paper in Hindi?
The government believes that farm leaders want to find a compromise but buckle under pressure of the radical mood of protesters. You fear being seen as too soft or selling out to the government? Is there a problem of radical competitiveness within the movement?
Tikait: We have not backtracked from talks. But come what may, we can’t betray the trust farmers have reposed in us. We are standing for their rights.
Rajewal: The constituents of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha are free to give their opinion, but there are no pressures from any quarter. Ours is a collective decision. The government is floating the radical angle to discredit us. It is a ploy to avoid talks.
It is Parliament’s prerogative to pass laws. Why should the government repeal the farm laws meant for all states?
Tikait: Because the farmers for whom these laws have been made don’t want it.
But protests are confined to Punjab, Haryana and western UP?
Tikait: The protests are happening in
Gujarat, too. More than 100 farmers there have been detained and their families don’t know their whereabouts.
Rajewal: The protest sites around Delhi have farmers from Karnataka, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. In that sense, it is a pan-India agitation now.
How challenging is it for you to steer an agitation of 32 ideologically diverse organisations?
Tikait: If Atal Bihari Vajpayee could run
a coalition government of so many parties, why can’t we manage this?
Would you give an assurance that during the chakka jam on February 6, there will be no violence?
Rajewal: Our agitation was peaceful, is
peaceful and will remain so in future. It will be 100% peaceful tomorrow (on Saturday). We have full control over our farmers.
In Punjab, there are apprehensions that the agitation may disturb peace and communal harmony. Chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh says Pakistan may exploit the surcharged
atmosphere in the border state.
Tikait: We won’t let that happen at any cost.
Rajewal: Communal harmony will remain intact in Punjab. I can guarantee that.
There is brewing local disenchantment because of the disruption caused by the protests. Is there a possibility of clashes with local communities in urban areas because of your prolonged sit-in?
Tikait: We have not blocked the road.
The police have barricaded them.
Rajewal: Initially, the local people were apprehensive for a few days. But now they have opened their homes for farmers. They are supporting us fully.
If no talks happen in the near future, how long will you be able sustain the agitation?
Tikait: Second phase will last till October
2. We will decide the course after that.
The government believes that the union leaders have a different agenda.
Tikait: We are not tricksters. We have no hidden agenda. Our only agenda is that farmers’ ‘roti-roji’ (livelihood and income) should not go into traders’ ‘tijori’ (safes). The government says the opposition parties rallying behind farmers had supported the agri reforms when they were in power. Tikait: Political leaders have their own way when in power. But we are espousing farmers’ interests. We will fight anyone going against that.
What will be the political fallout of the agitation?
Tikait: We are not doing anything for
votes or politics. Anyone who wants to exploit it politically can do it on his own.
Rajewal: Voters will get educated and understand how to deal with politicians.
What’s your relationship with the BJP now?
Tikait: I have relations with all parties. We go by the government’s policies. If they are against farmers, we will oppose that to any extent no matter who is in power.
Are there any back channels with the government?
Tikait: Our manch (platform) and panch (representatives) will remain the same. Whatever talks happen will only be through them. Singhu will remain our platform.
There is a view that the global outpouring of solidarity for farmers’ protest has hurt India’s image.
Tikait: Then, let them repeal the laws.
What comes first: The country or traders?
What is your next course of action?
Tikait: The next target is to involve 40 lakh tractors. From Saturday, farmers will bring soil and water from their villages from all over the country. While the government is putting spikes around the protest sites, we will sow flowers here. That will connect our agitation with rural India.The tractor will be the symbol of our agitation and ‘goan ki mitti and paani’ will be its devta (presiding deity).
Three lakh tractors and 20 lakh people came to Delhi. Such a massive crowd could have done anything. But our agitation was peaceful except the wrong acts of certain elements, who infiltrated our agitation and did all in complicity with the authorities to defame and discredit our movement.
The government is creating such misgivings. In the meetings so far, farms laws were discussed clause by clause. We proved that these are wrong. Of course, we need reforms. But we don’t want corporate agriculture. Reforms should not solely benefit traders at the cost of farmers.