Even by the elevated standards for over-the-top melodrama set by agit-prop artists from Tamil Nadu, the group of farmers from the State who were protesting in New Delhi to press for their demands have raised the bar. The fact that their made-for-TV protests drew extensive media coverage perhaps marks their theatrics as a certifiable success in the popular perception. That the protests were led by someone who only qualifies as a ‘habitual agitator’ with a record for staging high-on-histrionics spectacles appears not to have inhibited the embrace of his cause by political parties of assorted hues, some of which observed a bandh in the State on Tuesday. There is, of course, no such thing as bad publicity.

Yet, it is hard to make the case that the resort to camera-conscious demonstrations has served to elevate the discourse surrounding the agrarian crisis, which goes to the heart of the farmers’ problems and their demands. Which is arguably why farmers’ association in TN have dissociated themselves from the “stunts” and “gimmicks” perpetrated in New Delhi in their name. For all the pathos that the protestors sought to channel, the actual plight of farmers away from the media glare is the real story. And while the infusion of heightened melodrama may have helped secure television eyeballs momentarily, the appeal to emotion has effectively drowned out the voices of reason.

As seasoned agricultural economists have noted, the protestors’ demands, such as a waiver of farm loans, are focussed excessively on short-term expediency and not on the ‘root causes’ of the farming crisis. The solution to that crisis calls for the application of serious minds and an approach that rises above partisan political posturing. Circus artistry of the sort that the protestors showcased in Delhi does grave injustice to the farmers’ genuine demands.

Venky Vembu, Associate Editor

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