In an environment where dissent is seen as an act of rebellion, even sedition, where people are imprisoned for defending their rights, and where even a cartoon or a joke can irritate politicians, some indigenous people have made it known that they will not flinch. Especially when it comes to issues of dignity and livelihoods.
This year, attention has turned to the dreaded coronavirus, which has spread across the world, bringing down millions of people and leaving behind a brutal trail of death. This resulted in a global lockdown; In India, we were given just four hours’ notice to organize food, medicines and other essentials before the lockdown began. It caused chaos and hardship, but this anxiety-provoking rapidity has become the norm for this government and for Narendra Modi.
The price was paid by millions of migrants who set out to walk hundreds of miles to reach their distant homes because they wanted to be with their families. Many died en route, and states often went to great lengths not to allow their own people to cross borders. Meanwhile, Narendra Modi called on the people of India to hit his thalis, apparently to boost morale as the coronavirus receded.
Meanwhile, small businesses have disappeared: young people working on their own or in the service industry are unemployed. They see an uncertain future ahead. Street vendors and freelancers (plumbers, carpenters, waiters) returned to the city and discovered that there was no work available.
A migrant worker carries her daughter while walking along a road with others in search of transportation to return to their villages, after India ordered a 21-day national lockdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19 ), in Ghaziabad. outside New Delhi, March 26, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Adnan Abidi
In this dismal year, with the economy at its lowest level in recent years, the government did two things: go after dissidents and pass laws without consultation. Umar Khalid was arrested and remains in jail to this day. Bhima Koregaon’s defendants are still incarcerated, and the state has shown no humanity towards even older inmates like Varavara Rao and Father Stan Swamy.
However, the spirit of dissent, of asking questions, of fighting for rights and dignity continues.
The new year began with Shaheen Bagh’s protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which began in December 2019 but reached their pace in 2020, when women settled down and attacks against them intensified. The upheaval lasted 101 days and finally ended due to the shutdown of COVID-19. The CAA has not been withdrawn, but its implementation has been delayed; in West Bengal, the BJP does not talk about CAA and NRC in their campaign. That should count as a setback, or even some kind of victory.
And now the year ends with farmers protesting against the three new farm laws, which were hastily passed by the government during the shutdown. From the looks of it, this protest will also run until 2021.
The women of Shaheen Bagh were against the CAA because they saw it as anti-minority, specifically against the Muslims of India. There was a real danger that many of them would be declared non-citizens for not having one document or another. In effect, they would become stateless and could be locked up.
A protest against CAA in Mumbai. Photo: PTI
It is also a question of survival for farmers. Farm bills will disempower them, forcing them to sell at prices that will eventually be dictated by the big corporations that will buy products. They will have to switch to crops that are in demand by big buyers. And they will have little to no legal recourse in the event of a dispute – a local bureaucrat will decide the merits of the case. The current sales system through the APMC is flawed, but the so-called reforms are worse.
The BJP and its spokespersons, online and on television, have spared no effort to waste the farmers: they found something to criticize even in the fact that the pizza was served on the fast. The farmers have been painted as anti-national Khalistanis. Then, realizing that it wasn’t working, trolls, and even ministers like Ravishankar Prasad, attacked ‘the tukde tukde gang ‘for orchestrating the protests.
This is Standard Operating Practice for the BJP: When someone disagrees with the government, they throw an abusive epithet at them, oddly enough. One suspects they are doing it on autopilot, not knowing whether it makes sense or not. The effectiveness of this tactic has run out and it certainly hasn’t worked for farmers.
In the case of the anti-CAA protesters, they were relatively easier to ignore and attack: many Indians are already inclined to think the worst of Muslims and are predisposed to community biases. The vision of so many women, including some who were wearing burqas, fed directly into the notion that Muslims are a community that has not fully joined the mainstream and even produces terrorists.
The shooting of a random shooter, the incendiary speeches of Anurag Thakur and Kapil Mishra, and the non-stop propaganda on television had the necessary impact even on those who were not necessarily devotees of this government and its leader.
A student (C) from Jamia Millia Islamia University, injured after a shooter opened fire during a protest against the CAA, is taken to a hospital in New Delhi, Thursday, January 30, 2020. Photo: PTI / MD Meharban
With farmers, the story is different. The farmer is a noble figure in the mind of the Indians, who toils in the sun to produce food that will feed the community and the nation. And in return, the farmer receives a pittance while the middlemen make huge profits. Agriculture is often still the best performing sector in the economy, and it is the one that receives stepmother treatment by governments, whatever that may be.
The Sikh farmer has an even more positive image, especially since Sikhs are perceived as resilient and cheerful people who not only produce, but also fight for the nation. Painting them as anti-nationals is ridiculous. Punjab is a state where Hindutva has not fully taken root and where there is a strong sense of community and belonging. The Golden Temple looks like a serene and peaceful place. The concept of it goes, as often manifested in the langars that feed one and all for free, marks Sikhs as a fully integrated and secular community. One can only wonder: what were the IT experts at the BJP thinking when they launched their smear campaign against farmers?
It has been a surreal year in many ways and in the end, we are still not sure how to tackle it. New locks are being applied in different parts of the world. A new mutant strain of the virus has been found. Vaccination has not yet started and will take months. Things will not return to “normal” very soon.
Under the circumstances, protests may seem out of place, because there are more important issues to focus on.
But the protests, and not just in India, remind us that the citizen cannot be expected to simply give up and accept everything the government says and asks us to do. Thali-banging is fine, but more serious answers are needed to know how the economy will revive, if jobs will return and, most importantly, if citizens’ rights will be protected.
In the United States, people marched together under the Black Lives Matter banner after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Solidarity marches were held around the world. The Trump administration reacted violently, but many states decided to examine their laws and oversight and see how they could be improved.
Protests in India, whether in Shaheen Bagh or on the roads outside Delhi, where farmers continue to sit despite the bitter cold and while many have died, they tell us that indigenous people will always oppose discrimination.
It is telling that protesting farmers are also expressing solidarity with imprisoned dissidents and demanding their release. Their fight is not just for themselves, but against injustice. As we enter another uncertain year, possibly as bleak as the one that is coming to an end, such gestures offer hope that the Indians will continue their ways of arguing forever.
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