As the farmers’ stir completes six months today, it’s high time that it was simply called off

Wednesday, May 26, marks the completion of six months of the ongoing agitation by the farmers, who have been out in strength against the Union Government. They have steadfastly been speaking out against the Centre “unilaterally” passing the three farm laws. Their main demands have been that the three contentious laws be repealed and that the Centre assure them in writing that the concept of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) would be left untouched. They have been adamant on these demands, studiously and laboriously rejecting any overtures by the Government to call off their stir. In the meantime, a handful of State Governments, mainly belonging to the camp of the Opposition parties, have been overtly or covertly egging the cultivators on. The six-month history of the farmers’ agitation has seen its share of hardships, violence, blood and gore. Since the days they first pitched their ramshackle tents on the Capital’s periphery as the mornings started getting chilly to mounting the ramparts of the Red Fort in the forenoon of January 26 this year, the agitating farmers and their leaders have come a long way.

At one point in time, when it seemed that the farmers were getting frustrated with the ongoing impasse and had started turning back from Delhi’s borders, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait’s copious tears succeeded in halting their homeward progress. Be that as it may, the partial lockdown and the ravaging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic drew away from them whatever little attention or sympathy they had been garnering. Now, seizing the chance that the half-year milestone provides them, the farmer leaders are out of their self-imposed hibernation. They are ostensibly making grand plans to mark the occasion and, to this end, various protests have been planned across the country to observe May26 as “black day”. Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has been flying a black flag on his house; SAD chief Sukhbir Badal says that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be talking to the farmers; Kisan Morcha leaders have renewed their call to observe Wednesday as “black day” and at least 12 Opposition parties have come out in support of the farmers’ protest call. But in this critical period of the raging pandemic, is this what the nation really wants, deserves? Shouldn’t we utilise our energies, our resources to do something better for our nation and its citizens? Think about it.