DNA Special: Is fasting in name of protest mere publicity stunt?

As the farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s farm laws entered the 19th day on Monday, as many as 40 farmer leaders of the United Farmers Front began their day-long hunger strike at various border points on the outskirts of Delhi.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and several other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders and workers observed the day-long fast along with the agitating farmers.

Meanwhile, as many as 10 farmers organisations from Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Bihar, and Haryana associated with the All India Kisan Coordination Committee met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to extend their support to three farm laws enacted by the government recently.

The committee submitted a memorandum to Tomar which said that some elements in the farmers' agitation in some parts of the country, especially in Delhi, were trying to create misunderstanding among farmers about the farm laws.

Mahatma Gandhi had made fasting a major weapon in the agitation against the British. Even after Independence, in different movements, fasting was used to convey as well as convince their demands.

Bhagat Singh and his accomplice Batukeshwar Dutt, who raised their demand by throwing bombs at the Parliament House in the British era, had been on hunger strike for 116 days.

While, the people who go on a fast today, first ensure the provision of news channels cameras around them and then go on a hunger strike.

Perhaps, very few of you would know that Mahatma Gandhi once went on a hunger strike against Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar. On August 17, 1932, the British Government launched the Communal Award with the aim of giving Dalits an independent right to elect their representatives. It also provided every Dalit the right to cast two votes. This was done so that Dalits could get a proper representation in the government.

But Gandhiji didn’t favour this and he was lodged in Pune’s Yerawada Jail. He started his hunger strike there. was not in favour of it. Gandhiji was jailed in Yervada jail in Pune at that time and started a hunger strike against it there. The Poona Pact was an agreement between Mahatma Gandhi and  Ambedkar on behalf of depressed classes and upper-caste Hindu leaders on the reservation of electoral seats for the depressed classes in the legislature of British India government in 1930. It was made on 24 September 1932 at Yerwada Central Jail in Poona, India. It was signed by Ambedkar on behalf of the depressed classes and by Madan Mohan Malviya on behalf of the upper caste Hindus and Gandhi [1] as a means to end the fast that Gandhi was undertaking in jail as a protest against the decision made by British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald to give separate electorates to depressed classes for the election of members of provincial legislative assemblies in British India. They finally agreed upon 148 electoral seats.

But the question is, in which direction these movements will now go from here. There may be three options, firstly, that farmers should accept the modification of the new agricultural laws. Secondly, the government should withdraw these laws altogether and thirdly, these movements continued for a long time.

But the problem is that the government has repeatedly indicated that these agricultural laws will not be withdrawn and the farmers are not accepting it. There is only a middle way left where both the government and the farmers should reach a consensus and put an end to the protests.

Many opportunists are trying to take a political lead in the farmers’ movement.

In the meantime, December 5 marks the first anniversary of the anti-CAA protests at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. Seeing the farmers’ protests gain momentum, there a high chance that the Shaheen Bagh protestors may once again come down to the streets and start agitations to make the government hear their demands.