When the farmers came marching into Mumbai

“Farmers Long March is baffling. Narendra Modi has launched an App for them, placed ads in newspaper with his Photograph saying he cares for farmers, talked about them in Mann ki Baat. What more they want? Cant they sit at home and check Full Page ad’s in Economic Times (sic)?”

That sarcastic tweet by corporate executive Joy Das (@joydas) on March 11 set the tone for the reception Mumbaikars accorded to the farmers who had come walking more than 180 km from Nashik. The mood shifted from fear, of the likely disruption such huge numbers camping in the city can cause, to a recognition of the injustice suffered by the protesters.

However, while the march was still progressing and Twitter was abuzz with posts, videos and photographs posted by the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxists), VK Jain, a small-time entrepreneur from south Mumbai, became furious.

Barely two months ago, Dalit parties had shut down Maharashtra after there were incidents of violence against the community at Bhima-Koregaon near Pune. Jain had missed an important meeting that day as roads were barricaded and the shutdown was near-complete. Now he had little sympathy for what he described as “another bunch of leftists” approaching Mumbai in even larger numbers, and was sure life — and business — would be disrupted again as the farmers threatened to gherao the Vidhan Bhavan situated in his part of town.

All of Saturday, March 10, as reports of the marchers closing in on Mumbai filtered through various sources, Jain was cribbing to friends, relatives and on his WhatsApp groups about the ‘red terror’ about to be unleashed on the city. He could not understand why Mumbaikars had opened out their hearts to the farmers who were, after all, here to disrupt their lives and, perhaps, steal from them and smash their cars.

The mood swiftly shifted among his friends as the farmers announced they would march in the night on Sunday, so as to not disturb Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students who were beginning their exams on Monday (March 12) — the day the farmers planned to descend on the assembly. By then there were reports on social media about the farmers’ blistered and bleeding feet, images of their torn and blood-stained slippers began circulating on Jain’s WhatsApp groups too. Whatever his friends may have thought of him or the farmers initially, it was clear they were ashamed by his illiberal and self-centred cribs. “Take a break,” advised a friend in his WhatsApp group who had supported him during the Bhima-Koregaon Mumbai bandh. “Relax, extend your weekend. Stay safe. They are harmless.”

That effectively shut Jain up even as Mumbaikars discovered the farmers had not hurled a stone at anyone, not broken the windshield of a single car and were, on the other hand, weak from hunger and from the strain of walking six days. That morning, their leaders took a delegation to meet chief minister Devendra Fadnavis at Vidhan Bhavan.

Vox populi: It was the reactions of ordinary folks and the buzzing social media that unnerved the Fadnavis government Image: PTI/ Mitesh Bhuvad

The manner in which the ruling BJP and its affiliates reacted to the marching farmers also had much to do with the changed mood of the citizens. The government had at first tried to downplay the march by dismissing the farmers as mere “tribals” who were “technically not farmers”; as though the tribal people were somehow subhuman, and were not farmers even if they were cultivating only small patches in jungles, and could not die of hunger. But when BJP MP Poonam Mahajan dismissed them as being influenced by “urban Maoists”, implying that they were somehow rural Naxals, most of Mumbai, barring her party ideologues, hung their heads in shame and embarrassment.

“They put food on our tables. Look at their bleeding soles. How can we dismiss them as violent Naxalites?” asks Geeta Patel (name changed), a resident of Navi Mumbai. “They came through Thane, not here. Else I would have been among the first to be out there with food and water.”

An apolitical woman hitherto content with family, friends and her large TV screen, she was too moved for words. Patel couldn’t stop thinking about the images of blistered feet and tired faces, even as she served food to her family in the air-conditioned comfort of their home. In fact, reactions like hers and that of Joy Das and other vocal Twitterati unnerved the Fadnavis government. Initially Fadnavis tried to pass off the protest as a small disjointed group of around 12,000 people, even while the numbers were close to 50,000 in reality.

They were indeed just 15,000 marchers when they started out from the collector’s office in Nashik on Rang Panchami — Nashik’s version of Holi where the city shuts down for a bath in the community ponds. But so heart-rending was the sight of old men and women, eager to set off on a march that had taken two years to put together and pull off, that three doctors who were on their way to one of the ponds changed course and began walking all the way to Mumbai with the marchers.

A local newspaper quoted one of the volunteering doctors, Samir Ahire, as saying he was humbled by the farmers’ spirit. Although they had to treat around 5,000 patients every day, it was an exhilarating experience for two reasons — the farmers did not believe in modern medicines, so it was a challenge to administer them tablets. But when they did succeed, they were stunned to discover that all it took for them to recover was a tiny paracetamol tablet.

The unnerved Fadnavis government had later claimed that the farmers were accompanied through the journey by a team of government doctors and ambulances. When the volunteering doctors gave a lie to those claims, the government was left with no alternative but to swiftly accept the farmers’ demands and promise to implement them within six months.

Political parties, too, were not far behind and jumped into the fray as the farmers squatted at the Azad Maidan, threatening to not leave until their demands were met.

Both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party attempted to seize ownership of the morcha, but there was little conflict of interest with the organisers as, barely a year ago, all opposition parties in Maharashtra had led a state-wide kisan yatra that culminated in loan waivers in June 2017. Now, however, the government has a harder task in providing farmers ownership rights to the patches they cultivate in the jungles, as it becomes a direct violation of the Forest Act.

The Fadnavis government’s alacrity in accepting the demands has been taken with fistfuls of salt by both the Congress and the NCP. The government’s betrayal of the Marathas, who had carried out hunger rallies across the state between 2016 and 2017, is still fresh in memory, as the promises made have not been fulfilled so far.

However, with such a huge contingent of angry, hungry farmers camping in south Mumbai, the Fadnavis government had no choice but to set up a committee to study how the decisions could be implemented.

The government found itself on a stickier wicket when it discovered how the farmers had managed to bridge the urban-rural divide and brought Mumbaikars on the same page as themselves. As Vijoo Krishnan, general secretary of the ABKS says, “The sheer number of the farmers and the city-dwellers who came out of their comfortable homes to help them was so huge that the government had no choice but to give in. People will have to be vigilant and hold the government to its promises, else the next time the numbers will double,” he warns.

Sole strength: The three doctors who marched with the farmers treated about 5,000 patients every day Image: PTI

However, as the farmers returned on trains and buses provided by the government, there were two overwhelming sentiments among Mumbaikars. As Ajit Manohar, an insurance agent who interacted with the farmers at Azad Maidan, says, “They were so quiet and unobtrusive. I hope other agitating communities will draw lessons from them and the Maratha silent morchas of last year.”

But Meena Rane (name changed) best encapsulated the feeling the farmers left Mumbaikars with. “It felt so good to welcome them. It is so sad that they had to leave so soon. I wish they could have stayed with us just a bit longer,” she says wistfully.

But that is precisely what the government did not want, hence it made sure to see them off swiftly.

Sujata Anandan is the author of ‘Maharashtra Maximus’ and an independent journalist in Mumbai