Old timers would recall that the title of this article hails from a 1966 Hindi movie named ‘Shankar Khan’. The lead song ‘Jai Jawaan! Jai Kisaan!’ of this film did not take time to turn into a patriotic song of sorts that came to be sung or broadcast with gusto on and around Independence Day and Republic Day as a timely reminder of the fact that the two, viz the country’s soldiers and its farmers were equally important to independent India and her citizens, the former protecting the country from foreign enemies and the latter ensuring that food was never wanting through the year! That equality has now been thrown to the winds, even trampled underfoot in recent times as is evident from the unduly long-drawn protest of our farmers against three draconian laws brought forth by the government in relation to farms, farmers and farm produce.

From the kind up steady build-up one observes—barricades, trenches, barbed wire fences, ground spikes and what not!—within the country’s borders, i.e. barely a few kilometers from the country’s capital, it becomes apparent that the country seems to be preparing for a 21st century version of the 20th century Jallianwallah Bagh British massacre of the country’s citizens, this time at the hands of the country’s own police and probably para-military personnel. Apparently, the government has virtually stopped short of calling in the jawaans to gun down the kisaans in a do-or-die episode which certainly does not augur well for both the present and the future of the country, besmirching forever as it does a page of democratic India’s history with blood that is not likely to be wiped off for eons.

The ball of negotiations is obviously in the government’s court. And it is the bounden duty of the government to gracefully face reality and strive to break the stalemate, eyeing a peaceful and amicable solution. That is what DEMOCRACY per se is all about: a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Unless the Modi-Shah government believes it to be otherwise, i.e. ‘of the BJP, by the BJP and for the BJP’!