A prescription on how the government should have pushed the farm bill narrative

The total repeal of the farm bills proves beyond any doubt that the government failed to create a favourable narrative. Their lack of communication resulted in confusion which allowed vested interests an opportunity to exploit the situation.

So how should they have handled it?

The BJP is a party with over 110 million members, it also has numerous government elected officials at various levels in every Indian state.

The government should have begun by training their local cadre and elected officials about the merits of these farm laws.

After the lockdown rules were relaxed and the minds had calmed down, these trained personal should have begun consultation with various officials at different levels across states, including those having non-BJP governments.

Following that, these trained individuals should have begun by talks with the farmers on the ground, through informal meetings and presentations in a manner and language that was comprehensible to them.

The government should have set up free helplines where farmers could call in to express their misgivings and concerns because quite often people are not comfortable in groups. Each and every message should have been recorded and included in subsequent presentations and discussions with the farmers.

In addition, every village should have been appointed with a point of contact persons who could resolve questions in person at any time. 

Perhaps the interactions would have educated the farmers to the extent that the external influencers would have found it impossible to cause any confusion.

This probably would take more than a year, but this time invested would have worked wonders in clearing all the misperceptions. It could also work in pre-emptively making amendments to the bill.

For instance, they could have ensured the MSP prevailed but allowed private players to join in.  Perhaps MSP could have been ensured for poor farmers only. Perhaps they could begin by providing an option in addition to the mandis and not instead of the mandis.

Quite often, major changes are done by making small incremental changes over a long period of time. As confidence is built, there could be more changes and in time the mission is accomplished.

The law could have been pilot tested in select constituencies across the nation to demonstrate their success. The farmers could have been presented with the options in addition to their standard way of doing business.

Had there been a success, their benefits could have been highlighted in promotional campaigns all across the nation. This would doubtlessly have been a wise investment.

The Prime Minister who is, by all means, an effective communicator and is hugely popular should have addressed the nation and explained the laws in a terse presentation. He could have repeated this during his monthly radio broadcast.

Beyond the meetings, the government should have created videos that could be easily circulated on social media, on TV channels and the radio about the merits of the bill. 

They should have had farm bill experts appear on all news channels, including the hostile outlets and have one-to-one interviews.

It wouldn’t harm to get Amitabh Bachchan to do 2 to 3-minute videos much like he did for various other government campaigns to talk about the merits of the bill.

To sum it up the government should have flooded all possible channels with information about the advantages of the bill such that the narrative by toolkit career activists and contrarians would drown in.

It is essential that all these communications were also in all regional languages.

When the bills were tabled in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, the government should have allowed each and every parliamentarian to voice his opinions about the bills. In the end, it is an open discussion that enables confusion to be cleared.

Perhaps constructive criticism and suggestions would have made the bill stronger. But if prior detailed consultations were held there would have been no surprises in Parliament.

Those who were just being unprincipled obstructionists would have been identified too and would be seen in the public for whom they are.

These prolonged discussions with all stakeholders would have enabled the government to gauge the mood on the ground and eventually decide if it was worth going after on such a large scale.

Following the protests, there was a loss of 3500 crores per day, deaths, violence, inconvenience to the citizenry, anarchy, chaos, and desecration of the Red Fort.

It all seems in vain now that the farm bills were totally repealed.

But once again, this situation would never have arisen had the government consulted all stakeholders at very early stages. Perhaps a reluctance for change would have been discovered and the government would have opted against it being implemented on such a large scale.

There would be no loss to the citizenry, no loss of the economy, no loss of political face, no emboldening of the mob, and no rage from supporters who were invested in these changes and see this as a weakness.

The only hope is that lessons will be learned while attempting future reforms.