IT IS time the protesting farmers saw sense in the offer of Union Agriculture Minister Mr. Narendra Singh Tomar to re-open talks. Mr. Tomar has made it clear that the Government is ready to put the three new farm laws on hold for 18 months and form a joint committee to discuss an agreeable way out of the deadlock that has lasted for months. If the farmers reject this offer as well, they will be the biggest losers of whatever public support they may be enjoying for now. The nation -- and even the world -- has realised by now that the protesting farmers are standing on a losing ground by seeking a direct repeal of the three farm laws.

 

The average Indian people realise that farmers’ leader Mr. Rakesh Tikait is being obstinate, to say the least, and stretching things rather too far -- beyond the outer limit of national patience. The average Indians have realised also that the the farmers have hugely misrepresented the provisions in the new farm laws as regards agricultural mandis and Minimum Support Price (MSP). Time and again, the government has made it clear that the protesters are deliberately misrepresenting the facts and that the new laws do not contain anything contentious as the protesters want the people to believe. The Government’s statement came not only at public events and political rallies but also in both the Houses of Parliament. This effort has led the people in general to suspect that the farmers’ leaders may be having some clandestine agenda of political nature.

 

This suspicion has only grown over time and was firmed up following the violence the protesters unleashed on the national capital on Republic Day. The common people are shocked to hear what Mr. Tikait has been saying all along. On one occasion, he asked his so-called followers to burn their standing crops as a protest. On another occasion, he threatened the Government to march to the capital with 40 lakh tractors. On yet another occasion, he said, in effect, that the farmers would never return to their farms until the new laws were repealed. Mr. Tikait, thus, appears to be in the habit of making extreme, wayward, nonsensical statements that shock the common people beyond their wits. Despite this, the Government has been offering all sorts of accommodation to the protesters, bending backward and making space to listen to the views of the protesters. But the protesters have only one refrain -- repeal the new laws. It is obvious, the farmers’ leaders have not studied history and therefore do not know how even Mahatma Gandhi made amends in his strategies to fight against the alien rulers.

 

If Gandhiji suspected that untoward elements were making inroads into his agitations and movements, he withdrew the campaigns. Mr. Tikait, however, is not worried that Khalistani intruders have taken over the protests and leading the farmers on a disastrous course. He has also allowed extraneous elements to sneak into the current agitation and dominate and distort the discourse beyond recognition. Frankly, the Government knows that the current protests are no longer led by genuine elements but are being misguided by elements inimical to national interest. Despite this, the Government is willing to accommodate all sorts of whims and fancies of people who do not deserve all the attention. It hopes that genuine farmers would sit down to negotiate with Government representatives -- monitored by the honourable Supreme Court -- and help in sorting out the details.

 

It is very rare that a Government agrees to put on hold for 18 months the laws it enacted in larger interest. But most unfortunately, the protesters are unwilling to see sense in the Government’s accommodation on such a vast scale. The latest offer by the Government indicates a fully democratic approach to resolving the issue. It shows the government’s open-mindedness and respect for the other point of view. If the farmers squander this offer, they will be doing so to their own peril. They will also be doing to so to the peril of the whole nation in times weighed down by human history’s worst pandemic ever.