Journalist-activist P. Sainath on Thursday accused the Narendra Modi government of using “a good crisis” like the Covid-19 to thrust farm laws and labour codes on farmers and workers, expecting that the pandemic-hit peasantry and working class would give in to them during these tough times.

However, the government had underestimated the farmers, as is evident by their ongoing mass movement, added Sainath, who was in Santiniketan to address a mass convention by Left student organisations against fascism.

He said: “What were they (Rightwing intellectuals and economists) saying? They were saying that peasants and workers are on their knees because of the pandemic. They (farmers or workers) wouldn’t dare to come out of their home (to resist) as they are pulverised by the pandemic....They will not be able to resist and this is the time to pass these laws.”

The labour codes allow industries flexibility in hiring and retrenchment and make industrial strikes more difficult by clamping new conditions.

Sainath, speaking in front of a gathering of 500 people at the convention on fascism in the country and on the Visva-Bharati campus, asked people to understand why the Modi government chose this particular period of the pandemic to introduce the farm laws and tweak labour codes when it could have done so earlier or after the crisis.

“After all, the NDA government had a majority between 2014 and 2019. In 2019, the BJP got a very sizeable majority on its own. But they did not pass these laws or introduce these laws for 10 months between May 2019 and March 2020… If the pandemic is controlled in the next 10 or 12 months, they will still have a huge majority for two years,” said the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award winner.

He pointed out that the laws were passed without talks at a time the government needed to tackle pressing issues such as improving health infrastructure or helping people access food grains that they desperately needed because of joblessness amid the lockdown.

Charging the government of being hand in glove with big business, he said the only persons who knew about the farm laws when they were being drafted were corporate bosses.

“The only people they ever consulted were their corporate bosses. How do we know those people (corporate bosses) were consulted as they drafted the laws? They knew what was coming because they started building silo storages knowing that the essential commodities act is about to be gutted. They already built hundreds of silos in Himachal Pradesh, for example, for storing produce before the laws were even passed in Parliament,” said Sainath.

Sainath, however, said that the Modi government now found itself in a fix because it had miscalculated the power of resistance of the farmers.

Farmers from states including Punjab Haryana, Rajasthan and even in Maharashtra have proved the government wrong by mobilising huge mass movements against the laws for months.

“On January 25, around 40,000 of Maharashtra’s poorest farmers gathered at the historic Azad Maidan from 36 districts of the state...One more interesting thing, the pandals et cetera could not be done in the normal way (as these people had no funds) ...(Yet) Huge pandals and shamianas were erected. Do you know who built those? Migrant labourers from UP, who are farmers in their own villages but work as migrant labourers in Mumbai, they made the pandals,” he said.

SFI leader Aishe Ghosh in her meet criticised Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty for allegedly suspending and gagging voices of those who dared to criticise the policies of the varsity administration.

“The attitude of the varsity authorities is no different from the fascist tendencies that we are witnessing in those ruling the nation,” said Aishe and added that it was time to resist fascism. Visva-Bharati students also took an oath that they would together protest against the fascist tendencies of the VC.

Addressing the convention virtually, economist Prabhat Patnaik warned the gathering against the dangers of fascism emerging in a new form in the country. SFI leader Aishe Ghosh criticised Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty for allegedly suspending and gagging voices of those who dared to criticise the policies of the varsity administration.