Of Middlemen & Middle Path

Lakhimpur Kheri notwithstanding, how GoI-farmers conflict can cool down

- Jaithirth Rao

In 1959, my maternal uncle was involved in a “student strike” in the then small town of Mysore. Being a naïve seven-year-old, I asked my uncle as to what the demands of the students were. I was informed that the principal demand was the dismissal of the high-handed police commissioner who had brutally lathi-charged the striking students. My uncle added that the original demands of the students had been forgotten. He felt that while at least symbolic action against the hated police commissioner could not be avoided, it should perhaps be accompanied by some kind of government attempt at addressing the original student issues and at overall peace-making.

This has become a pattern in our country. The original issues often get forgotten or at least suspended, as a new “provocation and atrocity” narrative emerges. This has pretty much happened in Lakhimpur Kheri. What are we to do? The short- and medium-term prognosis is looking difficult. But one can argue that the situation is by no means irretrievably lost.

Assuming that temperatures in Lakhimpur will eventually cool down, perhaps TOI readers may want to get back to the original issue: the agitation of the so-called farmers against three central laws. The government has become the victim of a communications failure. The fact is that these ideas were endorsed by the leading opposition party in its manifesto. But this fact has received minimal and at best tangential publicity.