The Delhi chills!

To push the unresolved Agri farm laws related protests into the Supreme court’s laps was the best option of the Government. The farmers spurned earlier Offers of formation of a committee by the Government for further discussion. They insisted on only one point agenda, ‘the repeal of laws.’ I guess no sovereign government would like to pass the laws and recall them soon after a while because a section of the farmers was inconvenienced.

The blunder that the farmers’ unions made was not engaging in the negotiations but insisting on a repeal. The Supreme court uncharacteristically lambasted the Government yesterday, perhaps missing out the complexity of the problem. One of the parties to the dispute, the farmers, were rigid, unyielding, and arm-twisting the Government. The bare-bodied protests, rallies with children, women and the elderly were merely to evoke emotions and not matured expressions to engage with the Government in any manner.

I guess the Supreme Court might have overstepped its jurisdiction in arrogating itself to discuss the parliament’s act. The SC is empowered to strike down laws, only if they are ultra-vires to the constitution, which they could do Suo motu. In the present case, the SC has declined to repeal the laws but merely stay them until ‘talks are held.’ It is bizarre for the court to presume that Agri-economists or experts were not consulted in drafting the farm laws.

The Government did not resort to Sec 144 at the protest sites, nor do any strong-arm tactics to dislodge the farmers’ movement. Instead, they sat patiently after each round of failed talks, hoping for a solution.

The protests’ pressure notwithstanding, I have rarely seen the Supreme Court express emotive statements like ‘we don’t want blood in our hands.’ With the committee’s appointment, the farmers cannot escape the negotiation table and resolve their problems soon.

The false bravado of not leaving the sites of protests until the bills are repealed must reveal the sheer impossibility of dealing with a section of the farmers, who are not for any reasoning or middle path. The farmers have stuck to their tractor rally plan on the Republic Day, the 26th January in Delhi. 

Without appreciating the hardships the Government has been facing in the last fifty days during its engagement with the farmers, the court’s needless castigation is woeful and leaves a bad taste. While upholding the rights of citizens to protest, the Supreme Court must also restrain and regulate the protests to not cause any hardship to others.

Some will never learn the lessons!

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix