Farmers listen to speakers at the site of a protest rally in Mumbai Azad Maidan. (Photo: TOI)

KOLKATA: This is not the first time that farmers have protested in Maharashtra . But, this is certainly the first occasion when the digital space is taking note of their protests. A large majority of posts on anyone’s timeline has some comment or the other on the kishan long march . Photographs and posters – quite striking ones at that – are bound to draw attention. Even those who are carefully apolitical and also not communists are lending a voice to the protests.

Photos of thousands of farmers with blistered feet and broken chappals arriving in Mumbai to demand an absolute loan waiver, remunerative prices for agricultural produce and the implementation of Swaminathan Commission recommendations have struck a chord with urban Kolkata. On being asked why this sudden surge of protest, social activist Saira Shah Halim refers to the “despondency” all around because of “BJP’s anti-people policies”. “That resentment has galvanised into something monumental. Besides, everyone would support the farmers cause. Considering that they feed us in difficult situations, fighting for their rights is a just cause. Initially, the mainstream media was not covering the march. It’s started covering because of tremendous pressure on the social media. The Left has also come together despite factions within,” says Halim, adding that she has even seen a lot of non-political people garnering support on social media.

This is the first time music composer Indraadip Dasgupta shared a post on farmers’ protest. According to Dasgupta, he was moved by the issue of farmers’ distress. But India has had a history of farmers’ protests. What is it that prompted him to take note of this protest on his timeline which would otherwise often be devoted to issues regarding his profession? “I am not an activist but a composer. Earlier even if the farmers’ protested, it didn’t catch my attention. This time, it did and I reacted to it emotionally. One the one hand, we see their suffering. On the other hand, there are the instances of people like Nirav Modi. I had to express my solidarity with the farmers,” Dasgupta says.

On Sunday night, Putul Mahmood, who is originally from Mumbai and now teaches at the Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, shared a post on the march and appended it with the lines: “Lal salaam. I am a citizen of a country where farmers are dying and we do nothing to save them. I hang my head in shame”. This is the first time Mahmood has openly shared such a post. “The anguish over farmer suicides has been building up for some time now. The farmers’ march has been a tipping point,” Mahmood says.

According to her, the protests comes after two significant events in recent times. “One being Nirav Modi, Choksi and others scooting off with thousands of crores of public money. Nothing shows us the vulgarity and injustice of this better than the fact of dying farmers being denied loan waivers and also a decent minimum price for their produce. The other event is the premature and symbolic pronouncement of the death of Leftist thought in this country with the dismantling of the Lenin statue,” she points out.

According to her, the Leftist ideology has had a huge impact in India and especially, in Bengal. “Its impact has been across party lines and will continue to be significant till such time that we have a predominant toiling working class and peasantry. The sight of thousands of peasants, old and young marching under a scorching sun, for six days to protest in Mumbai just set people’s hearts on fire,” she says.

Actor Joy Sengupta, who has worn his anti-saffron views on his sleeve, has also noticed this overwhelming support by the urban Kolkata for Maharashtra’s farmers. According to Sengupta, a “shift” is happening in the urban Kolkata’s view of Modi-BJP-RSS. “Post Tripura- vandalism-violence, they have started to feel a bit unnerved by the culture of mass hooliganism’ of the ruling party. Instead of focussing on essential issues facing the common man, this culture is putting in huge resources to win elections and marching on to further their communal-fascist-casteist-anti-people-pro corporate policies,” Sengupta says.

Analysing why the middle class Kolkata is so vocal about this issue under such circumstances, he says this has got to do lending support to a group that has the guts to do something that most others don’t. “When they see 50,000 frail and broken souls marching 180 km for seven days with resolve and determination but no violence, I guess the middle class then starts thinking: ‘There is something to this, which needs our empathy, we don't have the courage, but they do’,” Sengupta says.

However, this also can’t discount the fact that there are some who are joining this bandwagon on online protesters simply because it is trending now. But that percentage, Mahmood, says is negligible. “Even if some are doing it because it’s fashionable, the figure is too small,” she says.

