After anti-CAA protests, the ongoing farmers' agitation is an alarming indicator of the rapidly rising anarchist tendencies in India

 

An attempt to bring the nation to its knees, an attempt to establish anarchy in the country - this is what best defines the ongoing farcical agitation, touted as a farmers' movement. So deep-rooted are the nefarious motives behind this anti-government theatre that it can be called anything but an honest protest started and sustained by the farmers against the three farm laws introduced by the Modi government.

The antagonistic manner in which the choreographers of this so-called movement have hijacked the borders of Delhi and around is a grim reminder of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests that rocked the national capital and several other Indian cities earlier this year, leading to a precarious law and order situation in the country. 

What is being projected as a collective display of dissent by the farmers against the reformist farm laws is in reality a murky yet macro reflection of the dubious Shaheen Bagh campaign, make no mistake, and what Shaheen Bagh was about is no secret at all. 

In the aftermath of the Shaheen Bagh showdown in February-March, the problem for all seasons that seems to have entangled India is the rapid rise of anarchist campaigns masquerading as movements of the Aam Aadmi backed by the self-proclaimed civil society, the wily leftist lobby and several extremist groups.  

image source : hindustantimes.com

Support from extremists 

The farmers' agitation received widespread support from pro-Khalistan outfits like Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) shortly after the Khalistan-sympathising Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed a diplomatic blunder by meddling in India’s internal matter through his statement that promised support to the protesting farmers. The ripples were soon visible in several major global cities such as London, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Toronto and Washington DC where Khalistani flags were openly waved and threats of closing the Indian consulates were issued if the demands of the Indian farmers were declined by the Government of India. 

Incidentally, 16 individuals from Canada, the US and the UK were recently chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for their alleged involvement in sparking a campaign for the creation of Khalistan. Three among those accused were listed as terrorists by the Home Ministry of India. 

The picture could not be clearer. When extremist organisations that nurture the goal of breaking India lend their support to what is being referred to as an “indigenous movement”, it infers that the movement is fundamentally flawed and morally questionable. These protests have rendered a sense of deja vu, refreshing the memories of the anti-CAA protests in which Islamic fundamentalist groups and Hindu-haters massively pumped both spirit and logistics.

The lobby’s shenanigans 

India is witnessing an era wherein anti-administration stirs carrying leftist overtones find abundant appeal within celebrity circles - sportspersons and artists alike. As far as people such as Diljit Dosanjh, Vijender Singh and the like are concerned- one wonders whether they indulged in any intellectual research about the farm laws before recklessly taking a critical stand, merely because of the sentimental value attached to the protest which is predominantly centred in Punjab and Haryana. The celebrity photo opportunity has been used only to add a little bit of flavour to this misguided movement. 

On the other hand, there are self-proclaimed leftist scholars and the so-called civil society members such as Yogendra Yadav who pop out of nowhere and make flagrant attempts at stealing the spotlight by projecting themselves as the voice of the farmers. For people like Yogendra Yadav, who received an absolute drubbing in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and even ended up losing his security deposit, the only way to maintain relevance and stay in the news is to oppose everything under the sun that the Modi government brings to the table. 

It is fair to argue that amid a relentless endeavour to present the commotion at the Delhi borders as purely a farmers movement, the intervention by ill-informed celebrities and self-serving propagandists -coupled with the flabbergasting arrangements at protest sites entailing open theatres, foot massage facilities, makeshift gymnasiums, pizza langar and what not - has stamped the fact that forces conniving to destabilise the government’s developmental and reformist agenda are firing from the farmers’ shoulders. 

This agitation, fuelled by extremists and the anti-Modi political class on one side and the fake civil society and ignorant celebrities on the other, has become a travesty of the idea of ‘expressing dissent in a democracy’. 

image source : deccanherald.com

The nature and motive of the farmers' agitation and the anti-CAA/Shaheen Bagh protest may be different but how they have been carried out and the nature of the forces behind these upheavals is the same. 

This unfortunate and unpleasant inference drawn from the reality of the matter in no way amounts to the disparagement of the farmers of India or their cause. The Government of India has always pledged unconditional support to the Indian farmers and so has the right-thinking citizenry - irrespective of their political or ideological leanings. 

The grace and sensitivity with which the Modi government has tackled the ongoing crisis are commendable. Not a single episode of insult or intimidation of the protesting farmers at the hands of the Government of India has been recorded despite the administration and PM Modi himself found at the receiving end of threats, abuse and curse multiple times during the course of the agitation. On the contrary, the government, while upholding the benefits of the three farm laws, has maintained extraordinary composure and consistently maintained a stand that favours farmers' rights. 

With strong backing from extremist outfits, the leftist lobby comprising of the Congress party, other key UPA members and former allies of the BJP like Akali Dal, as well as pseudo activists, are using farmers as pawns in the game of anti-Modi advocacy in order to fallaciously link draconian attributes to the new laws which were framed to bring about agricultural reforms in the country. 

The concern, therefore, is the frequency at which anarchist campaigns have started to affect India. Camping on city roads and blocking highways to alienate one state from another is fast becoming a norm. This simply cannot be allowed to metamorphose into a sustained phenomenon aimed at destabilising the nation in the name of fake dissent.

The farmers' agitation seems to be far from over although it will ideally die down with time before eventually getting over. But should one anarchist campaign following another become a trend and challenging reformist laws passed by the parliament by holding the government to ransom turn into a habit, it will be detrimental to the stability and development of India. Hopefully, the Modi government is up to the task of putting an end to this menacing trend. 

Roshni Scam and DDC polls have left the separatist forces in Kashmir at their weakest and the moment of reckoning for Kashmiri people is now

The skeletons are fast tumbling out of the closet for the protagonists of the Gupkar alliance amid the ongoing District Development Council Elections (DDC) in Jammu and Kashmir - the first polls since the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state in August 2019 - which have recorded a healthy voter turnout in the initial few phases held so far. 

As the outrageous details of the multi-crore Roshni land scam in J&K continue to unfold in the public domain, it is yet another vindication of the fact those who claim to be the messiahs of the Kashmiri people are not only involved in a dangerous anti-India agenda but also stand neck-deep in corruption. 

Under the Roshni scheme, encroached land in the former state of J&K was meant to be regularised and hydroelectric projects in the region were to be funded by the money collected through the scheme. But according to several reports, the scheme only 

It was the Farooq Abdullah government in 2001 that introduced the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to Occupants) Act with a supposed vision to regularise unauthorised land occupation. Those who were considered to be in illegal possession of government land in J&K for decades were granted legal ownership rights by the state administration. By virtue of the new law, the state was thus able to legalise encroached spaces in exchange for a certain fee and the money raised through this process was promised to be utilised for the improvement of power generation in J&K, which is how the act came to be known as the Roshni Act. 

image source : dnaindia.com

Around Rs 25,000 crore were originally projected to be accumulated through the Roshni scheme. But according to several reports less than Rs 80 crore was raised through regularisation of more than 75,000 acres of land in J&K. 

However, it was in 2014 and thereafter that auditory agencies such as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) claimed that the regularisation of encroached properties was done at throwaway rates, thereby leading to an abuse of the Roshni Act. After the BJP-PDP alliance broke in 2018, the then J&K Governor Satyapal Malik revoked the Roshni Act. On October 9 this year, the J&K High Court declared the Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable” and ordered a CBI investigation into the wrongdoings. And like that the news of the Roshni scam, labelled as the biggest scam in J&K, started making headlines. 

Since then the Abdullahs, under whose government in J&K the Roshni scheme was initiated, have been under fire as well as many other top leaders from the NC and also the PDP. Several mainstream media outlets have accessed documents indicating that the leaders of the two parties took illegitimate advantage of the Roshni scheme for their vested interests and aimed to alter the demography of the Jammu region through the scheme. 

In accordance with the J&K High Court directive to make the names of the beneficiaries of the controversial scheme public, the UT administration in July released lists of individuals accused of being the dubious owners of land acquired under the scrapped J&K Roshni Act. The lists included the names of former J&K Chief Minister and NC patron Farooq Abdullah, Abdullah’s son and former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, his brother and NC leader Mustafa Kamal, former J&K Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu and several other prominent names - all of whom are alleged to have illegally benefitted from the Roshni scheme. 

From a nationalistic perspective, the recent developments in J&K augur well for the Modi government and the Indian nationalists who have been on a relentless mission for a long time to expose the vile secessionist forces and bring Kashmir into India’s mainstream. 

Firstly, healthy participation from local Kashmiris in the DDC elections in the post Article 370 abrogation era has reaffirmed the fact that Kashmir wants to progress on the path of stability and development through democratic practices. No matter which way the poll results go, the Indian democracy has already won in Kashmir thanks to the sizeable voter turn out in the DDC polls that are currently taking place. 

Secondly and very significantly, the revelation of the Roshni scam has hit the separatist political parties of Kashmir and the Gupkar gang at just the right time to uncover their nefarious designs further. It is amusing, to say the least, that the NC and the PDP politicians who are under investigation for their alleged involvement in the land scam want the people of Kashmir to believe that they are fighting for the Kashmiri cause and the restoration of J&K’s special status. 

Brick by brick, the castle of sinister anti-India propaganda run by the secessionists is crumbling away. From Farooq Abdullah’s shocking appeal to China to meddle in India’s domestic affairs by helping the separatists in reinstating J&K’s special status to his and scores of other Kashmiri politicians’ names emerging in the Roshini scam, the picture is s clear as it gets. The onus is now on the people of Kashmir to wake up to the stark reality that those they consider to be their role models are not only against the idea of a unified India but also the well being and prosperity of ordinary Kashmiris. 

Modi government’s ‘no-vendetta’ politics 

One strong fact that has emanated from the current situation in Kashmir’s politics is that contrary to the demonic picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the international media and the pseudo-liberal news outlets in India have painted since 2014, the Modi government has never employed any strong-arm tactics against forces such as the Gupkar Gang, or the Kashmiri separatists at large, for their overt and brazen attack on India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Unlike many previous Congress-led union governments and some state governments in present times or the past which have misused the state machinery for political vendetta, the Modi government has never indulged in cheap vindictive stunts against its adversaries. Neither in Kashmir since the scrapping of Article 370 or before that, nor during the sham anti-CAA protests choreographed by the pseudo-secular lobby earlier this year at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi and elsewhere in the country or during the ongoing misguided farmer protests backed by the Congress, other opposition parties and the anti-Modi camp. 

image source : swarajyamag.com

In spite of a tirade unleashed time and again against the Government of India by the main members of the Gupkar Gang post their release from detention, there has never been a single instance of the illegitimate use of force or intimidation by the Modi government. Instead, the top brass of the NC and the PDP find themselves in the middle of an independent CBI investigation for abusing the Roshni scheme which was meant for the upliftment of the same public these politicians claim to be the representatives of. 

As the CBI investigation into the Roshini scam digs deeper, more details are expected to surface. But the moment of reckoning for the people of Kashmir is now. If they continue to invest their faith in farcical and unscrupulous groups such as the Gupkar Gang, they will be pushed many years back. Therefore, the choice is simple.