Delhi Farmers Protests: Deepening Disconnect Amid Irrelevance
Farmers protest in Noida. Image credit CPI (M)
Farmers Face Growing Distance of Parliament & People in Smog-filled Air
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, December 2: Green peas have arrived in vegetable markets. Vendors keep two sets of green peas – one selling at ₹150 a kg and another ₹200 a kg.
Punjab origin green peas are selling at discount against vegetable soured from Himachal Pradesh. Vegetable vendors are busier set of people to explain discrimination against Punjab in pricing.
Farmers are back on the street. For Punjab-based farmers, a section of them will claim to have never left the street. The Shambhu Border of Haryana with Punjab is more famous for farmers’ protests.
The district administration in Gautam Buddha Nagar directed the schools in Noida and Greater Noida to stay closed. Farmers will take tractors and other vehicles to protest, they cited in explanation in directive to the schools.
Schools have already been shut for days. They open a few days to close again following a newt directive of the district administration. The Babus certainly don’t wish the school-going children to be stranded in smog-filled air with buses stuck amid sea of tractors.
Punjab-based farmers are angry because the Centre is not sanguine to go to parliament to enact a law to guarantee minimum support price (MSP) for crops. Noida farmers want 67 per cent higher compensation for land acquired by authorities.
Both set of farmers have chosen to intensify protest at a time when the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), which roughly is home to over 50 million people, is shrouded in smog. Even ambassadors nestled in green zone of Chankayapuri in New Delhi, which is laden with thick vegetation, are thanking stars that they have not been sick enough to be in hospitals.
But the people of all age groups are falling sick. Some even are facing mental stress. The kids are turning internet addict, for the schools force them to hold mobile phones for education where prompts take them to embedded games.
Experts in Pakistan and Nepal blamed farmers of Punjab for alarming smog in their cities. Lahore and Multan in Pakistan went into lockdown with air quality index over 1000 for days. Kathmandu in Nepal also battles smog.
Indeed, waste burning and explosion in vehicular population are also culprits. But farm fires are visible culprits. Farmers in Sangrur, the home turf of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, had been more furious in setting their farm land on fire.
The people in Delhi NCR may struggle to empathise with protesting farmers. They are worried for sick kids at home and rising medical bills. The MSP for crops will sound too abstract.
Also, farmers in Haryana could not stop the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from forming a government for a record third occasion. Farmers in a Maharashtra despite hitting national headlines over price crash of soybean and cotton also failed to stop the BJP from sending the Opposition into oblivion.
Punjab and Noida farmers will serve their purposes better by staying in their villages. They need to introspect. Delhi is far away from them. Delhi Police have a strong manpower base. With parliament not in sight, farmers can also explore options to hold protests in their villages.
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