by DGR News Service | May 2, 2021 | Gender, Male Supremacy, Repression at Home, Women & Radical Feminism
In this article which originally appeared on FeministCurrent, Megan Murphy is talking with two members of the Irish Women’s Lobby about their fight against the Gender Recognition Act and its consequences for Irish women.
By Megan Murphy
The Irish Women’s Lobby (IWD) launched on March 8, 2021. I interviewed three members of the group recently about their goals and the particular issues they are dealing with in Ireland.
Meghan Murphy: What is the purpose of the Irish Women’s Lobby? What are your main aims and fights?
IWL: Well I guess the first thing we’d say is that, as Irish women, we’re in a very peculiar and disturbing time in Irish history. We are living in an environment and time where not only are our rights being eroded in Irish legislation, but the erosion of our rights is being championed as progress by people who should know better — among them some who are well paid to know better. There’s nothing unique about our situation, we see this being rolled out all across the Western world, but it is significantly more advanced in Ireland than in many other nations, and we have the “self-ID” [this is shorthand for this kind of legislation, allowing essentially anyone to self-identify as the opposite sex, easily] aspect of the Irish 2015 Gender Recognition Act to thank for that.
We set up the Irish Women’s Lobby (IWL) in response to this and other situations women are currently facing here. Ireland has become an increasingly hostile environment for any woman raising her voice in defense of her own sex-based rights, and this has been increasing year after year since 2015, but at this point we have reached a ludicrous level. Our predicament might have some comedic value if it weren’t so likely to cost some women their lives. This is because the situation here has advanced to the point where male sex offenders are now being incarcerated in female prisons.
The problem here is that Ireland passed the Gender Recognition Act in a form which allows legal “gender” changes without any requirement for medical intervention or evaluation. This was introduced with virtually no discussion and certainly no real investigation into possible negative repercussions. The enactment of this legislation has created a scenario where trans-identifying males can gain access to any spaces or services designated for females, with zero safeguarding. Alongside the legislation there has been relentless campaigning from “social justice” activists, propagating an environment where feminists are unable to voice their concerns without fear of retaliation.
Reflecting the power of the lobby, the takeover of the policy-making arena and NGOs in Ireland is extensive, and of course it is women who are targeted. The Irish Health Service removed all mention of “woman” and “women” from an ad campaign to prevent Cervical Cancer, apparently in an effort to be “inclusive.” Following protest spearheaded by Radicailín, a radical feminist group made up of Irish and migrant women, the ad was updated, but it still uses “woman” only once, and “people” five times (“women” doesn’t appear at all). Meanwhile, in Ireland, unlike with cervical cancer, prostate cancer remains a men-only disease, and has not magically become “gender-neutral” in an effort to be “inclusive.”
The public, for the most part, are largely unaware that the Gender Recognition Act is in place, nor do they understand the level of threat it carries for women and girls. The IWL is attempting to raise these and other issues, and create room for discussion across the public narrative. We are, of course, bullied and abused for it in a multitude of ways, as feminists are and always have been.
Our first and most urgent aim is to provide media and political representation for women in Ireland. This is because the National Women’s Council of Ireland is actively working against women’s rights. They — along with Amnesty International, Trans Equality Network Ireland, and other well-funded NGOs — signed a petition calling for the removal of “legitimate representation” from women like ourselves and others who “defend biology.” In a situation where we have the National Women’s Council of Ireland and Amnesty International demanding that any Irish woman (or man for that matter) who speaks out against the damaging and harmful effects of the 2015 Gender Recognition Act be denied media and political representation, we had no choice but to insist on our democratic right to that representation. When that letter was signed by those groups, and the National Women’s Council of Ireland in particular, we knew that as Irish women we had no choice but speak out in defiance of those who signed on to a call to silence Irish women in the public sphere. We feel the facts here speak for themselves; it should be plainly apparent that the signatories to that letter acted in a manner that was aggressive, disturbing, and blatantly totalitarian.
MM: How does the Irish women’s movement differ from the women’s movement in other parts of Europe and North America?
IWL: The women’s movement here differs in all sorts of ways, one unfortunate manifestation being the number of women who declare themselves feminists while undermining or outright aggressing against women’s sex-based rights. You’d have to despair for a feminism that doesn’t recognize its own purpose. All of this is of course heavily underpinned by social class, as is everything in Ireland. You could say class is to Ireland what race is to the United States – of course they’re not the same thing, but there are some startling parallels. In Ireland, class is the great unmentionable — you’re not supposed to talk about that. The problem is deeply rooted in our history of British colonialism, and has persisted for centuries.
Every part of the West will have its own regional issues. For us, a shift towards the left was socially necessary in order to counterbalance a national narrative that had leaned too heavily towards religious and social conservatism for too long, but we are knee-deep in neoliberal nonsense now. Some parts of the Western World have issues with the political narrative going too far right. We have the opposite problem: we’ve gone too far left — but like so many other places, it’s a “left” that has abandoned a class analysis, and with it, the working classes, both female and male. Ireland’s woke brigade have got drunk on their own Kool-Aid, but we’ve all got to share the hangover.
MM: What is the situation with prostitution currently?
IWL: The vast majority of women in Irish prostitution — about 95 per cent — are migrant women, predominantly from the poorer countries of Eastern Europe but also from Nigeria, Brazil, and parts of Asia. The percentages will fluctuate, but foreign women in the Irish sex trade always figure somewhere at 90+ per cent. That’s been the situation for years; it’s very sad. It’s also very sickening to see the Soros funded pro-prostitution lobbyists relentlessly campaign to decriminalize pimps in Ireland. Migrant women are generally paid a pittance once their pimp takes their cut, and the push to decriminalize their pimps comes from women who charge 300 and 400 euros an hour in escort prostitution and are salaried to press for the full decriminalization of the Irish sex trade on top of that. They’re in no way representative of the women who would suffer most if they got their way in decriminalizing the pimps of the Irish sex trade.
It is now illegal to purchase the body of a woman (or anyone) for sexual use in Ireland, but male habits of sexual entitlement die hard, and we would say there are not nearly enough convictions, though there have been some. There are numerous problems in this area, including that some organizations and individuals who speak out against prostitution use apolitical language, like “sex work” and “the sex buyers’ law” etc. This kind of framing argues against itself: you cannot say that prostitution is inherently violent while simultaneously framing it as employment, and you cannot say that what men purchase in prostitution is sexual access to women’s bodies while at the same time referring to them as “sex buyers.” The international abolitionist movement and the survivor’s movement in particular has very strong ties to Ireland. That movement has a language all of its own, much of it framed by survivors. It’s a pity more Irish campaigners didn’t take the time to learn it.
MM: Can you explain the issue around language a little further? What is preferable?
IWL: Terms like “sex work”, “sex buyers’ law,” and “the Equality Model” are never used here — not by anyone political, strategical, or experienced. Irish abolitionist activists say “prostitution” to refer to prostitution, “punters” to refer to johns, and “the Abolitionist Model” or “the Nordic Model” to refer to abolitionist legal frameworks. Survivors who spent a decade fighting for the Nordic Model now have to listen to the corporate reframing of “the Equality Model,” which may work well elsewhere in the world, but that’s not what Irish women fought for. This language was imposed on Irish sex-trade survivors by corporate feminists who never took the time to ask. You’d be interested to know what they’re thinking, except they’re not thinking. Feminist organizations that ignore survivor groups in their anti sex-trade campaign planning are not thinking at all.
MM: Is anything else of note happening with gender identity legislation and ideology in Ireland?
IWL: In 2007, the Irish High Court found that Ireland was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights as it did not have a process to legally recognize the “acquired gender” of transsexual persons. In 2011, a Government Gender Recognition Advisory Group after broad consultation recommended medical gatekeeping, and living full-time for a two-year period in the “changed gender” prior to receiving a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). The subsequent Gender Recognition Bill published in December 2014 required medical evaluation and certification.
However, following lobbying and subterfuge, the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) that was passed in 2015 had no such requirements, or any gatekeeping whatsoever. In fact, the GRA allows any person to download and fill in an A4 form, have it notarized, making them, for all intents and purposes, legally the “opposite” sex.
The lack of any gatekeeping whatsoever means that any man — be he a rapist, a pedophile, a voyeur, or any type of sexual pervert — can obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) that allows him to access all areas dedicated for women. That includes: hospital wards, changing rooms, prisons, domestic violence refuges, clinics treating victims of sexual assault, changing facilities etc. There are literally no limits. What’s more, “sex” is not a specific “protected characteristic” under Irish Equality legislation — “gender” is, rendering any defence of women’s right to single-sex facilities even weaker.
Because of self-ID, any violent male sex offender can legally identify as a woman, and demand to be imprisoned with vulnerable women in Ireland. This has already happened. One man charged with ten counts of sex offences was taken directly from the courthouse to the women’s estate in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison. Another violent young man — whose court report states that the expert from the Tavistock gender clinic did not believe he had gender dysphoria — was allowed to obtain a GRC while in state care as a violent offender, and has been housed in Limerick Women’s Prison. His own mother had to move cross country to a secret location to escape him, such was the seriousness of his homicidal intentions, which are wholly transfixed on women. The Irish public, however, were fed a story in the mainstream press about “Ireland’s Homicidal Girl.” Needless to say, the safety, health, and welfare of the imprisoned women — most of whom, if not all, are victims of sexual and violent abuse — are completely disregarded. Ireland’s terrible history of abusing incarcerated women is being perpetuated, but this time in the name of the “new religion” rather than the old.
MM: The IWL has an upcoming online event, on April 29, called “Speak Up For Free Speech.” Can you tell me about that event and why you felt it was important to organize something specifically addressing free speech?
IWL: The issue of free speech has become very urgent, both here in Ireland and across the Global North as legislation is being drafted and enacted to expand “hate crimes” to include “hate speech.” Wherever this legislation is enacted, it curtails our right to free expression in harmful and dangerous ways. Women face the prospect of being accused of a hate crime for stating biological facts, or even “misgendering.” If this bill passes, the National Women’s Council of Ireland and Amnesty International won’t need to sign a petition demanding our right to political and media representation be removed, because those of us who “defend biology” will already be silenced by law.
Of the many pressing issues facing women and girls, the issue of free speech is absolutely crucial — if we are not allowed to say that women have the right to single-sex spaces, how the hell can we defend our right to those spaces?
We think the timing of this webinar is absolutely perfect — we are hosting Iseult White, who will be discussing free speech and cancel culture here in Ireland; Lisa Mackenzie, who will be talking about the Scottish experience, and of course we are really looking forward to hearing from you about what women across North America have been dealing with too.
by DGR News Service | Apr 1, 2021 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Movement Building & Support, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Repression at Home, The Problem: Civilization
Indigenous peoples worldwide are the victims of the largest genocide in human history, which is ongoing. Wherever indigenous cultures have not been completely destroyed or assimilated, they stand as relentless defenders of the landbases and natural communities which are there ancestral homes. They also provide living proof that humans as a species are not inherently destructive, but a societal structure based on large scale monoculture, endless energy consumption, accumulation of wealth and power for a few elites, human supremacy and patriarchy (i.e. civilization) is. DGR stands in strong solidarity with indigenous peoples.
This article was originally published by Survival International on March 22, 2021
Featured image: Jenu Kuruba protest against the Forest Department and say “stop violating our rights”.
© Survival
___________________________________________________________________________
Hundreds of Jenu Kuruba people have launched an indefinite protest in the Nagarhole National Park, India, to demand that the authorities stop trying to evict them, and recognize their rights to the forest.
The tribe, renowned for their honey-gathering skills, are camped outside the Nagarhole Forest Rangers’ office. Their lands have been turned into a tiger reserve for tourists, and many Jenu Kuruba have already been forcibly evicted by India’s Forest Department, with the backing of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
According to India’s Forest Rights Act (FRA), the tribe has rights to live in, “protect” and “conserve” their lands.
The Jenu Kuruba’s rights to their lands should have been recognized many years ago – they first submitted their claims in 2009. But like many tribes across the country, their claims have been ignored.
JK Thimma, a Jenu Kuruba leader from Nagarhole, said today: “We Adivasi [tribal] people know how to take care of the forest and animals and we can do this much better than them. This is what we should fight for. We want the Forest Department to leave and hand over the forest to us, we will take care of the forest.”
The evictions and harassment that the Jenu Kuruba have endured are part of a racist and colonial conservation model that takes indigenous peoples’ land and turns it into protected areas for tourism, accompanied by gross human rights abuses.
The protest comes at a time when dissent is being brutally crushed in Modi’s authoritarian India. The police response to farmers’ protests in Delhi sparked international outrage and many Adivasi activists, such as Hidme Markam, have been arrested and imprisoned for speaking out.
For many years, WCS India has led the call for the relocation of tribal peoples from tiger reserves, insisting these are “voluntary relocations” which benefit the tribes. Yet communities report worse living conditions and a desire to return to their forest, prompting the US government to halt funding for relocations in the name of conservation.
JK Thimma told Survival: “WCS go to the Forest Department and bring officials and come here to tell us to leave.” He added: “We don’t want any money. We want to live free in the forest. The tribes, the forest and the animals are all one thing. If the officials come and shoot us we are ready to die, but not to leave the forest.”
The Jenu Kuruba have lived in and protected the forests of Karnataka for millennia.
They worship the tiger, and their careful management of the forest has ensured a healthy tiger population.
Muthamma, a Jenu Kuruba woman explained: “We’ve lived together with tigers for centuries, we don’t kill them and the tigers don’t kill us. We revere the tiger as a deity; we have a tiger altar over in the forest. The conservationists from the city don’t understand the forest. As long as we’re alive the tigers will still be safe. If we disappear, the loggers and poachers will have free rein.”
Another forest-dwelling tribe, the Soliga, were the first tribe to get their community forest rights recognised in a tiger reserve – which then saw tiger numbers increase far more than the national average.
Survival’s Senior Researcher Sophie Grig said today: “The Jenu Kuruba face constant harassment and threats from forest guards, who stop them from growing their food, building their houses, practicing rituals in their sacred groves or accessing their family graves. All these are flagrant violations of their rights. The Jenu Kuruba are the true conservationists and protectors of Nagarhole’s forests – it’s high time that their rights to live in, protect and conserve their ancestral lands are recognised.”
by DGR News Service | Mar 20, 2021 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Direct Action, Movement Building & Support, Obstruction & Occupation, The Problem: Civilization, Toxification
Deep Green Resistance aims to amplify the voices of marginalised people, stand in solidarity with the natural world and support direct action that protects our ecosystems.
News Alert
Two actions are taking place on the front lines of the Line 3 resistance movement today. Both Camp Migizi and the Giniw Collective are shutting construction down!
From Camp Migizi: A lockdown at a construction site in St Louis county. Find more information on Instagram, Twitter, and from the live streams on their Facebook page.
From the Giniw Collective: 7 water protectors locked down at a Line 3 pump station. Boost this action on
Instagram,
Facebook, and
Twitter!
Water Protectors Blockade Line 3 Pump Station
(Swatara, MN) Thursday morning, 7 water protectors locked to each other, blocking work on an Enbridge Line 3 pump station.
Enbridge announced it will be ceasing work in sensitive wetland areas per Minnesota law, but will continue work on pump stations and sites in “non-sensitive areas”. A steady stream of water protectors committed to stand with Anishinaabe treaty territory and future generations grows.
The action follows a visit to the Line 3 resistance by Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda, who is helping to bring the Ojibwe-led struggle into the national spotlight and reach the Biden administration. It is also the week of Representative Deb Haaland’s confirmation as the first Native cabinet member in U.S. history.
As the spring thaw comes to northern Minnesota, the trees are running with maple sap and many Ojibwe have begun the boil for syrup.
Water is life, and it takes many forms. It is on us to protect our Mother.
Water protector Dakota McKnight said,
“Today I am participating in direct action to against the Line 3 pipeline. I am a student at Macalester College, which is shamefully invested in Enbridge. As person who is of settler descent, I stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people who been fighting colonialism since the Inception of America.”
A Water Protector named “Quintin” said,
“I am here to take action in solidarity with Natives who are fighting this pipeline that is desecrating the land. When institutions fail us, direct action is one of the last mechanisms that hold our power.”
![The History Of Thacker Pass [Dispatches from Thacker Pass]](https://dgrnewsservice.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2021/02/Thacker-Pass-Max-Wilbert.jpeg)
by DGR News Service | Mar 1, 2021 | ACTION, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation
Upon completion of forty days of launching a protest camp in the proposed site for lithium mining in Thacker Pass, Max delves into the history of the area.
Featured image: Max Wilbert
By Max Wilbert/Protect Thacker Pass
Forty days ago, my friend Will Falk and I launched a protest camp here at Thacker Pass.
Situated between the Montana Mountains and Double H Mountains in northern Nevada, Thacker Pass is part of the “sagebrush ocean.” Big sagebrush plants, the keystone species here, roll away to the south and east of the camp. Stars light up the night sky. Often, the only sound we can hear is the wind, the chirping of birds, the yips of coyotes.
The seasons are unfolding. When we arrived, the mountains were auburn in the evening sun. Now, they shimmer bright white after winter storms. Cliffs and sagebrush protrude through the snow and provide habitat for wildlife: bobcats, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits, burrowing owls, and countless others.
We are here in the bitter cold wind to oppose the destruction of this place. Lithium Americas Corporation, and their subsidiary Lithium Nevada Corporation, plan to blow up this pass, extract millions of tons of stone, and build an array of infrastructure to process this into lithium with harsh chemicals like sulfuric acid. Along the way, they will build vast mountains of toxic tailings, leaching heavy metals and uranium into what groundwater will still remain after they pump nearly 1.5 billion gallons per year into their industrial machinery.
For weeks now, I have been researching the true history of this place. I have struggled with how to tell these stories. There are many perspectives on Thacker Pass, and many ways the story can be told.
Where to begin? There are no true beginnings or endings here, where water cycles endlessly from sky to mountain to soil to river to sky, and back again; where human existence passes as fading footprint in the soil, as bones sinking into land, as a whisper on the `breeze. Only stories upon stories, legends and myths, layers of soil and stone. But there is a beginning.
Nineteen million years ago, a column of magma deep within the mantle of the planet arose under the continental plate. Heat and pressure built through miles of stone, liquifying it. Superheated water forced its way to the surface, and geysers appeared. Pressure kept building, and one day, the first volcanic eruption tore open the crust, spewing ash across half the continent.
This was the birth of the Yellowstone Hotspot, an upwelling of heat from deep inside the planet that even now, after migrating hundreds of miles northeast, powers the geysers of Yellowstone National Park.
After a time, the magma was spent. Vast chambers once filled with magma, miles underground, were now empty, and the weight of the stone overhead pressed down. Soon, the ground itself collapsed across an area of more than 600 square miles, and the McDermitt Caldera, of which Thacker Pass is a part, was formed.
The new caldera attracted water. Rain fell and flowed downhill. With wind and water and ice, rich volcanic stones became pebbles, then sand, then clay. Sediments gathered in lake basins, and one element in particular — lithium — was concentrated there.
In one version of the story of Thacker Pass — the version told by Lithium Americas — geologic conditions created a stockpile of valuable lithium that can be extracted for billions of dollars in profits. In this version of the story, Thacker Pass is a place that exists to fuel human convenience and industry — to store power for the wealthy, the consumers of gadgets and smartphones and electric cars, for the grid operators.
In this story, the lithium in the soil at Thacker Pass does not belong to the land, or to the sagebrush, or to the water trickling down past roots and stones to join ancient aquifers. It belongs to the mining company which has filed the proper mining claim under the 1872 mining law, which still governs today.
In another version of this story, this land called “Thacker Pass” is part of the Northern Paiute ancestral homeland. I do not know the Paviotso name for this place. Wilson Wewa, a Northern Paiute elder, says that “the world began at the base of Steens Mountain,” a hundred miles north-northwest of here. Wewa tells that the people emerged from Malheur Cave, a 3,000-foot-deep lava tube near the modern town of Burns.
Northern Paiute have lived on these lands since time immemorial. Scientists have dated nearby petroglyphs as perhaps 15,000 years old — the oldest in North America. Obsidian from Thacker Pass has been gathered, worked into tools sharper than the finest modern scalpel, and traded across the region for thousands of years. There are even burial sites in the caves nearby, directly adjacent to the mine site, according to a Bureau of Land Management Ranger who visited us at camp this week.
I am told that Sentinel Rock, which stands over the Quinn River Valley at the eastern end of Thacker Pass, was an important site for prayer historically. If the mine is built, Lithium Americas’ water pipeline will skirt Sentinel Rock, pumping out billions of gallons of water. I cannot help but think: how much more can the colonizers take?
I cannot tell the story of the history of this place from the perspective of the Northern Paiute, but it would be wrong to not at least summarize what I know. Too often, the invasion of these lands by European settler-colonialists is ignored. When we ignore or minimize genocide, we make future genocide easier. As the Czech writer Milan Kundera said, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
In the 1850’s, colonization of these lands began in earnest. The coming of the white colonizers and their cattle meant the overgrazing of the grasslands and the cutting of the Pinyon Pine trees; the damming of the creeks and rivers; the trapping of the beavers and the killing of the wolves.
In 1859, the discovery of the Comstock lode marked the beginning of the mining explosion. Thousands of people flocked to Nevada, and their axes and cattle and saws devastated the land. Smelting the ore from the mines required every bushel of firewood that could be found.
Ronald Lanner, in his book The Piñon Pine: A Natural and Cultural History, writes that “the furnaces of Eureka [Nevada], working at capacity, could in a single day devour over 530 cords of piñon, the produce of over 50 acres… After one year of major activity, the hills around Eureka were bare of trees for ten miles in every direction… by 1878 the woodland was nowhere closer than fifty miles from Eureka, every acre having been picked clean… The significance of the deforestation around Eureka can be appreciated by realizing that a fifty-mile radius from that town approaches to within a few miles of Ely to the east and of Austin to the west. Both of these towns were also important mining centers with large populations, and their demands for woodland products probably rivaled those of Eureka itself.”
Lanner continues: “The deforestation of their hills and the destruction of their nut groves often brought Indians into conflict with white settlers and miners. As early as 1860, Paiutes gathered at Pyramid Lake to decide how to cope with the white men who were encroaching on their lands, killing their game, and cutting down what the settlers derisively referred to as the Indians’ ‘orchards.’”
My friend Myron Dewey, who lives on the Walker River Paiute Reservation, told me the piñon pine are to his people as the buffalo are to the nations of the Great Plains: a sacred relative, source of life, an elder being.
Wilson Wewa also tells of how European colonization dispossessed the Northern Paiute. “Pretty soon our people were having to compete with miners and settlers for food. They were killing all the deer, and the antelope, and their cattle were chomping up and destroying all the root digging grounds we relied on for food.”
The scale of ecological devastation unleashed on Nevada by the mining industry is hard to comprehend. With forests gone, soils eroded, biodiversity collapsed, and streams dried up. The damming of creeks and mass trapping of beavers were another nail in the coffin of the hydrological cycle. From the north to south, east to west, colonization destroyed the waters of the region. And what are people to do when their source of life is destroyed? This devastation played a large role in the Paiute War in 1860, the Snake War of 1864-8, the 1865 Mud Lake massacre, the Modoc War of 1872-3, the Bannock War in 1878, the Spring Valley massacres of the 1860’s and 1897, and many other conflicts.
To this day, the results of this destruction are still playing out, from Winnemucca Lake — once a wildlife refuge, home to the previously mentioned oldest petroglyphs in North America, now dry — to Walker Lake, the level of which has fallen more than 181 feet over the last 139 years, causing the extirpation of the Lahontan cutthroat trout. The nearby Walker River Paiute tribe — the Agai-Dicutta Numu, trout eaters — can no longer fish for their namesake.
The piñon pine are still being destroyed, too — this time under the guise of “restoration.” Myron Dewey, who I mentioned earlier, and many others, have long been fighting to protect the “tubape” pine nut trees.
And the war footing remains as well. The largest ammunition depot in the word, the Hawthorne Army Depot, sprawls across 226 square miles just south of Walker Lake.
Back here at Thacker Pass, the same Lahontan cutthroat trout (a federally listed threatened species) hang on in nearby Pole Creek. Will they survive the mine? Or will their creek shrink smaller and smaller as the water table drops, eventually leaving them with nothing? I cannot help but feel there are similarities between the experience of the Paiutes — land stolen, waters destroyed, marched to reservations — and the trout. Perhaps Wewa would agree with a Dakota friend, who told me “I am part of the land; what happens to the land happens to me.”
###
The 1872 mining law is law under which Lithium Americas Corp. has “claimed” the land here Thacker Pass, under which they have been permitted to destroy this place. A one hundred- and fifty-year-old law, a legal justification for colonial extraction, a law created to make extraction orderly. That is the legal authority which Lithium Americas claims.
In September of 2019, the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada, which is made up of 27 tribal, band, and community councils from the Western Shoshone, Goshute, Washoe, and Northern and Southern Paiute nations passed a resolution, which called for reform of the 1872 mining law. The resolution states that “the Great Basin tribes believe the 1872 Mining Law poses a serious threat to the Great Basin tribes land, water, cultural resources, traditional properties, and lifeways.”
###
I circle back to that name: Thacker Pass. “Who was Thacker,” I wonder, watching the first Dark-eyed Junco of the spring migration flit from sagebrush to ground.
Basic research found nothing, so I called the Nevada Historical Society and the Humboldt County Museum, and started combing through archives looking for prominent people named ‘Thacker’ in the history of the state and of Humboldt County. Digging through old copies of the Reno Evening Gazette, I find a match: John N. Thacker, who was elected sheriff of Humboldt County on November 3rd, 1868, and held the post for many years before becoming the head of the detective service for the Southern Pacific Company and Wells Fargo express through the 1870’s and into the 1880’s.
Thacker was an enforcer and lawman in the Wild West of train robberies and outlaws hiding in canyons — and the laws he enforced were in large part designed to protect the mining industry. Throughout the late 1800’s, Nevada mines produced an incredible amount of wealth – the equivalent of billions of dollars annually. Gold and silver from the mines were transported by stagecoach and train by well-paid mining and banking employees, and this made a tempting target for thieves. Thacker had at least one shootout with bandits who had absconded into the hills.
In other words, Thacker acted as a protector of mining revenues and an economy based on colonial mining. He worked for the state, the bankers, and the railroad company – the trifecta of institutions creating the conditions for mining to thrive, financing mining projects, and moving ore and raw materials to bigger markets. And, of course, profiting handsomely.
Many people forget the importance of railroads in this era before paved roads. The first transcontinental railroad passed through Winnemucca, operated by Southern Pacific. As Richard White writes in his book Railroaded, the massive land grants given to railroad companies — a total of more than 175 million acres between 1850 to 1871, more than 10 percent of the land mass of the United States — and easy transportation of both people and goods kicked off a massive influx of settler-colonialism to the interior of the American west.
Railroad companies were notorious in this period for corruption, environmental devastation, and mistreatment of workers. Interestingly, Southern Pacific was the defendant in a landmark 1886 Supreme Court case that massively extended the power of corporations in the United States. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, Thacker’s employer successfully argued that the Fourteenth Amendment – originally established to protect formerly enslaved people in the aftermath of the Civil War – also applied to so-called “corporate persons,” striking down various regulations that would have reigned in their power in the West.
Since this unanimous decision, corporations have relied heavily on the Fourteenth Amendment for protection from the public. As my friend and attorney Will Falk writes, “between 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court ruled on only 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations, it is easy to conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment has done a better job protecting the rights of corporations than that of African Americans.”
Dana Toth at the Humboldt County Museum helps solve the rest of the mystery: an 1871 newspaper shows that John Thacker owned a 160-acre ranch in the King’s River Valley, just to the west of Thacker Pass. That is most likely the origin of the name Thacker Pass.
###
A cold north wind has been blowing all morning at Thacker Pass. It was 16 degrees this morning, without the wind chill. The frigid air bites my fingertips and my nose. Our banners flap in the breeze.
And at the headquarters of Lithium Americas Corporation at 300-900 West Hastings Street in Vancouver, Canada, men and women plan how to blow this place up, to shatter the mountainside, to crush the wild integrity of this place under churning bulldozer treads, and turn it into money.
I look out across a landscape named after a man named John Thacker, a man who worked to protect mining industry profits for decades, and I cannot help but feel that not much has changed. Like in the 1850’s and 1860’s, men with explosives, backed by the armed power of the state, are coming to destroy the mountains, the sagebrush steppe, the grasslands, and the waters of Thacker Pass.
What value is there in history, except in guiding our thoughts and actions in the present? As Barbara Ehrenreich writes, “To know our history is to begin to see how to take up the struggle again.”
For more on the issue:
by DGR News Service | Feb 24, 2021 | Agriculture, Movement Building & Support, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Repression at Home
This article was written by Sarang Narasimhaiah and Mukesh Kulriya and published on Roarmag.org in the 5th February 2021. Sarang and Mukesh offer the reader a detailed account of the protests, why people are against corporate rule and what the protests may lead to.
Featured image by Mukesh Kulriya.
Amidst the months-long, farmer-led protests on the outskirts of Delhi, the foundations of a more democratic and anti-corporate India are being built.
On January 26, 2021, India observed its 71st Republic Day under historically unprecedented circumstances. On an occasion meant to commemorate the adoption of the Indian Constitution, two fiercely antagonistic visions of the country locked horns with each other in the capital of Delhi.
On the Rajpath ceremonial boulevard in the heart of Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s homegrown Hindu nationalist proto-fascism was on full display. It was no coincidence, for example, that the winner of the Republic Day Parade’s tableaux competition was the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose float celebrated the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 and its impending replacement by a Hindu temple — a blood-soaked, decades-long travesty that has dovetailed with the rapid proliferation of the Hindu right.
In other parts of Delhi, however, a rather different spectacle was unfolding, as tens of thousands of farmers, primarily from the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana, took over the streets of the city with their tractors.
For the past two months, hundreds of thousands of farmers have camped out on the outskirts of Delhi to protest three recently passed, transparently pro-corporate agricultural laws that stand to devastate their livelihoods. Coordinated by the Samyuta Kisan Morcha (United Farmers’ Front or SKM), the participants in the January 26 rally attempted to proceed along three pre-planned routes, but came up against police barricade after barricade. In the most explosive moment of the day, a section of the tractor parade broke away and entered the Red Fort, an iconic historical landmark in the heart of Delhi. Amidst gunfire, teargas, and lathi (baton) charges by state authorities, as well as a widely condemned internet shutdown, the protesters raised their own flags over a location famous for the prime minister’s hoisting of the Indian tricolor on Independence Day.
Notwithstanding predictable condemnations from India’s “law and order” liberals and leftists, the storming of the Red Fort and the Indian state’s hyper-repressive response exemplify how the protesting farmers have rocked Modi and the BJP to their core. They pose the most fundamental threat to the BJP’s neoliberal Hindu chauvinist agenda since Modi first came to power in 2014.
INDIA’S DESCENT INTO NEOLIBERAL HINDU NATIONALIST AUTHORITARIANISM
While the scale of the current resistance is unprecedented, the government’s targeting of vulnerable populations is not. Farmers are but the latest to appear in the cross hairs of the Modi government. Immediately after receiving a renewed mandate in India’s 2019 general election, Modi and the BJP stripped the majority Muslim region of Kashmir of its statehood, while simultaneously intensifying its brutal occupation by Indian military and paramilitary forces. This move came on the heels of the BJP-controlled northeastern state of Assam’s publication of a National Register of Citizens, which deliberately targeted Bengali-speaking Muslims, who are automatically presumed to be “illegal immigrants,” for detention. Finally, in December of 2019, India’s Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which grants citizenship solely to non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and could set the stage for rendering up to 200 million Indian Muslims stateless.
These measures — and the brutal repression of the mass protests that followed in their wake — demonstrate the Modi regime’s determination to lay the foundations for the ultimate goal of a Hindu supremacist ethnostate upheld by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organization or RSS for short), the engine of the Hindu nationalist machine that was directly inspired by the Hitler Youth and Mussolini’s Black Brigades.
The social and cultural dimensions of the Hindu right’s authoritarianism underwrite its unabashedly neoliberal economic agenda. Modi rose to national prominence by implementing the “Gujarat Model” of politics in his home state, which essentially promotes economic growth by any and all means necessary, including extreme violence. Modi’s ruthlessness earned him the support of India’s foremost corporate dynasties, from the Tatas and the Ambanis to the Adanis. In exchange for bankrolling his political ascendancy, Modi has rewarded his corporate backers handsomely throughout his time in office: the annexation of Kashmir, for instance, has created a prime investment opportunity for Reliance Industries, the gargantuan conglomerate owned by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
In September of 2020, Modi and the BJP made perhaps their most profound corporate overture to date when they pushed through three agricultural bills that stand to “virtually kill the rights and entitlements of the agricultural population,” according to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. As Peoples Dispatch explains, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 would prevent farmers from getting guaranteed prices for their crops by forcing them into an unregulated market space known as a “trade area.” Furthermore, the Essential Commodities Bill, 2020 would remove various items such as cereals, pulses, edible oils, onions and potatoes from the list of essential commodities, allowing large corporations to hoard these necessities.
Finally, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 would allow for contract farming in India, which, given that 86 percent of India’s farmers own less than two hectares of land, would further shift the balance of agricultural power in favor of large corporations. Ambani’s Reliance Industries and the Adani Group of fellow billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani rank among the foremost prospective corporate beneficiaries of these bills.
LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE
Why have the aforementioned farm laws brought millions of protesters into the streets of Delhi and many other parts of India? How have farmers sustained their protest for over two months? How have the Indian and international media covered the farmers’ actions, and how have movement participants sought to combat misconceptions often propagated by this coverage? What are the deeper roots of the ongoing struggle? What do these protests mean for India and the wider world?
Seeking answers to these pressing questions, I spoke to Mukesh Kulriya, a third-year PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles’ School of Music who has been on the front-lines of the farmer-led mobilization at the borders of Delhi since it first began. Mukesh is a longtime member of the All India Students Association (AISA), the collegiate wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.
Sarang Narasimhaiah: Could you describe the basis for the ongoing political action staged by farmers from Punjab, Haryana and other surrounding areas of Delhi, as well as so many other parts of the country?
Mukesh Kulriya: The immediate cause for this protest is that the Modi government passed three agricultural bills in a very undemocratic manner: these bills became laws under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Indian Parliament was not even in session. The way the bills were passed was also unconstitutional: agriculture is a state matter in India, not a federal one, so how can the federal government rule on it? Moreover, even if you take a cursory look at these bills, you can see that they are totally pro-market. We need to remember that this government also carried out labor reforms that snatched away essential labor rights from organized sector workers, allowing them to be hired and fired as their employers please and placing their right to unionization under threat. The largest working population of the country — the workers and farmers who make up 80-90 percent of India’s workforce — have been hammered by both these sets of bills.
There was a lot of uproar when these laws were first proposed, and people quickly started to mobilize against them in Punjab. For a couple of months, they were organizing at the village level, but by the end of August and early September, protests started to erupt in cities across Punjab. What distinguished these protests was that they recognized the laws as a neoliberal attack on agriculture, and so they began to target the corporations responsible. The Adanis and Ambanis run the largest conglomerates in India: they are heavily invested in the privatization of agriculture and also very close to the current regime. As such, the slogans raised at the protests have opposed Prime Minister Modi but have also declared that he is nothing but a puppet in the hands of these corporations. This is not some academic writing a paper that criticizes neoliberalization: rather, corporations are being named and shamed by the common people. Farmers have shut down virtually all stores owned by the Adanis and Ambanis, hitting these corporations where it hurts. They have also taken out toll plazas across the state and refused to pay their toll taxes. In these ways, a mass popular movement has emerged addressing the questions of livelihood, land and labor: the classic issues of India’s feudal system [which continue to indelibly shape its capitalist present].
Corporations are being named and shamed by the common people.
On November 26, 2020, Indian laborers opposed to the above-mentioned labor reforms as well as the farm bills called for an all-India strike, and this was hugely successful. 250 million workers participated in that strike [making it the largest labor action in recorded human history]. On that same day, farmers from Punjab decided that they should march to Delhi. When they reached the borders of the city, they were stopped by the police and other government forces, who dug 15-meter wide holes in the road, put up ten layers of barricades and barbed wire, and used tear gas and lathi charges against the farmers.
When videos of these attacks showing the brutality of this government started to circulate, many people were moved to take action. The next day, more people from Punjab and Haryana started coming to the borders of Delhi, and the state couldn’t do anything to stop them. The farmers and their supporters wanted to occupy a central space in Delhi, but the government tried to force them into a remote corner of the city; the protesters refused to use this site and decided to block the city instead. Incredibly, by now, the capital of India has been blocked by protesters for almost two months. Some of these protests are almost 15 kilometers long; you can see one to two hundred thousand people at one protest site alone.
This protest is significant to no small extent because Punjab is one of India’s more well-off states, largely due to agriculture. Punjab has been suffering as a result of India’s agricultural crisis in a very different way from the rest of the country. Punjab was basically a laboratory for the Green Revolution in India, along with Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. This makes it the only agricultural belt in the country where small farmers have a little money. However, because of pesticides and other chemicals used in industrial farming, this area has also become a cancer belt. There is actually a train that goes from Punjab toward my hometown in Rajasthan which is known as the “Cancer Express.” People see the money that agriculture brought to Punjab, but not the cancer, the huge indebtedness and the institutionalized drug racket that has been very active in the state.
Punjab has a long revolutionary history; the powers that be know that this state could be dangerous to them, and so they have sought to undermine its people while pocketing the wealth it generates. For that reason, it’s incredible to see young people who have been demonized as drug addicts come to the protest to show that they can be much more. They aspire for a better life that does not involve going abroad but rather fighting for better conditions in their homeland. You’re seeing the revitalization of a radical political consciousness in Punjab, in terms of poetry, in terms of music, in terms of the whole culture of organizing.
It is important to recognize that this is a mass movement by people who are not the poorest of the poor in the sense that the state believes. The state is used to looking at the farmer as someone who is worn and torn, who is very poor, who is very hungry, who is spreading their arms towards the state for some sort of help. However, these farmers, who are suffering even though they are relatively well-off, are very much challenging that image.
What does the day-to-day business of organizing the protests look like? And why have these protests been so effective?
The protest sites are basically temporary cities: you can get everything you need here. The protesters are running langars [traditional Sikh food services], medical services and many other kinds of services by themselves: they take shifts, and they do the monetary and physical labor to provide these services. People have realized that, when you fight against one kind of oppression, you also come to see other kinds of oppression that you perpetuate, and this realization has shaped the sociocultural structure of the protests: men are now cooking food, and women are leading political actions. The protests have been led by elders who have experience with mass movements, and they are striving to share this experience with younger generations like mine, who are seeing something like this for the first time in our lives; we are shouldering the logistics of the movement, learning as we go. We are learning that you can only save democracy if you take to the streets; you cannot expect democracy to work if you are sitting in your living room.
Many of the protesters are from rural agrarian communities, and so their day starts very early — around 5:00 or 5:30 am. They start cooking food, have breakfast and then head to their protest site’s central stage at 9:00 or 9:30 am. Every day, around 10 to 20 people go on a 24-hour hunger strike across all protest sites. In the daytime, people come from different parts of the country — or the world — to give speeches and show their solidarity.
We are learning that you can only save democracy if you take to the streets; you cannot expect democracy to work if you are sitting in your living room.
Every day, there is a meeting of the All India Kisan [Farmer] Coordination Committee, which is comprised of 32 different organizations. This movement does not have a single leader but rather a collective leadership. That’s also why it is so strong: “ordinary” people are so invested in the movement that no one has been able to hijack it. The Coordination Committee itself has been very clear that this is a people’s movement: if its leaders make any wrong decisions or unjustifiable compromises, they know that they will be thrown out the very same day.
The protesters are also saying that they are not in a hurry. They want the government to scrap the three laws, and they won’t settle for anything less. The kind of patience that they have is not conducive to settlement: they know that this is a long, drawn-out fight, and they are prepared to stay here for at least six months. The protesters are thus energetic but they’re also at ease, in a way; they know that they can’t be agitated and sloganeering all the time.
How have you and your AISA comrades endeavored to support the protesters?
Libraries are a key part of the temporary towns established by the protests. AISA is running an initiative known as the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Library at four protest sites. We open our library in the morning and a lot of people, from young students to older people, stop by and engage us.
We also started a newsletter, The Trolley Times. This newsletter was spurred at the initiative of a handful of independent individuals, and it is not associated with any single political organization. We realized that all recent social movements have relied almost solely on social media. Younger protesters had actually stopped considering fields of engagement beyond social media. As I said earlier, the people who are the backbone of these protests came to Delhi from their villages two months ago. They have been keeping their grounds while living about 10 kilometers away from their nearest stage; they know their responsibilities to the protests, and they are not looking for the limelight. Concerned that no one would talk to these people — or even acknowledge their presence — we wanted to ensure that they have a very clear sense of what is happening in the movement. These are older people, and so they are more likely to read newspapers and newsletters.
From the very first day that we published The Trolley Times, we got an amazing response. The vast majority of the Indian media is pro-corporate and owned by the same companies that want to privatize agriculture; these media are also pro-state, and so they demonize protesters with their propaganda. People realized that, to take ownership of this movement, they need their own voice. That’s what The Trolley Times aims to be. Becoming hugely popular within a day or two, The Trolley Times got a lot of media coverage, and it actually set a trend: now, there are three to four newsletters made by and for the movement. The Trolley Times gives a platform to first-time protesters, young protesters, elderly protesters and single women protesters. To a barber who came here to give massages to tired protesters. These are the small but important stories that we are able to cover. We have published eight editions so far; most of us are working over the phone — partly because we have no proper internet access here — and we are typing and editing the content for the newsletter as it is reported to us.
The Trolley Times gives a platform to first-time protesters, young protesters, elderly protesters and single women protesters.
We started another initiative called “Trolley Talkies,” which involves showing films about the farmers’ crisis as well as revolutionary movies about the Indian Independence Movement and other movements across the world. We show movies to energize people by entertaining them and educating them about the farm bills: we make connections across time and space by showing how neoliberalism builds upon the foundation established by British colonialism. First-time protesters in particular need to understand the historical nature of these protests: how are they linked to policies that were introduced in India in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s? How were these policies forced upon the people, and what are their implications? We have undertaken these and other artistic initiatives with the understanding that resistance is creative; you can also see this in the many songs that the protesters have composed and all of the artists from Punjab who have come out to support the protests. We need to employ all kinds of art forms to reach the masses.
Throughout our work, we’re trying to make intersectional connections across different issues and policies. When you oppose the privatization of agriculture, you must also oppose the privatization of education, healthcare and everything else. You can’t be selective: neoliberalism is a policy framework and mindset that’s basically doing the same thing to students, to farmers, to workers, to everyone. It has to be fought tooth and nail as a singular entity.
I’m sure you have many options to pick from, but who are some of the most interesting persons you have met in your time out there?
The most interesting person I have met is this 17-year-old girl who came to the protest on her own. Her parents have a small patch of land, and she saw that, if these farm bills stand, her land will not be safe. She won’t be able to continue her education or make a career for herself, thus sacrificing her independence. And so she took a train to Delhi and stayed here for a long time, participating in the protest and looking after the library.
Her case shows how the protesters understand the gravity of this situation: they know that this is a do-or-die scenario. It also shows how this movement is not just about agencies like Khalsa Aid [an international humanitarian NGO based on Sikh principles] that are setting up big stalls to help people. This is also a movement in which people are coming out and helping at an individual level. You can find a lot of other similarly powerful stories here: whole families have come to the protest and haven’t left for the past two months. Young students are taking their exams here. Young professionals have left their jobs to be here. You see activists coming from all spheres of life: this is a mass movement, not a student movement, which tends to draw upon a very select population of the country. You can find an 18-year-old truck driver protesting alongside a PhD student like me. These kinds of social connections would have been impossible to imagine in normal times. This movement is basically a school of democracy: you learn that this is the people in all its variety, and you need to figure out how to work with them. A kind of professionalization is taking place among all the activists here, whether this involves media work, domestic labor, or any other tasks we undertake.
You have already talked about how the pro-state and pro-corporate media has been covering and, in key respects, not covering these protests. Would you like to address any specific misconceptions intentionally or unintentionally propagated by the Indian and international media, be it mainstream, independent, or even progressive or leftist?
How much should we expect of the Indian media? Two companies own 80 percent of the media. Reliance alone owns 36 news channels. They basically peddle lies day and night. They show a 10-year-old video as evidence that the protesters are Khalistani separatists [demanding a Sikh homeland]. That’s why, when a lot of media come here, their reporters don’t show their name tags and even cover up the tags on their mics; they know that they have no credibility here.
I think the biggest misconceptions about these protests is that these are rich people protesting, that they are motivated by electoral politics, and, of course, that foreign powers are behind these protests and that they are “anti-national” and anti-constitutional. One thing is clear: all protesters are bad protesters to this government. Students are anti-national, women are anti-national, Dalits are anti-national, Muslims are anti-national, workers are anti-national, farmers are anti-national. This is a majoritarian government for whom only a minority of people are actually citizens: the rest are all anti-nationals. This narrative is not only promoted by the government: it has been repeated by the pro-state media, and it has seeped into the international media’s coverage as well.
This movement is basically a school of democracy: you learn that this is the people in all their variety, and you need to figure out how to work with them.
Another misconception is that these protesters do not know about the law. The government and the pro-corporate, pro-state media are saying that the privatization of agriculture is good because it promotes competition. Competition among whom?
One more major misconception is that this protest only involves the Sikh farmers of Punjab. The government and mainstream media are trying to give the protests a religious angle, because that’s very easy, right? When minorities go against the majority and the majoritarian state, they are terrorists, right? We are trying to counter the idea that these are just some Punjabi Sikh men protesting against the Indian state through all our initiatives and activities. Protests are happening in virtually every part of India: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and even Kashmir. Just because all of these protesters are not at the Delhi border does not mean that they are not protesting.
We have also said again and again that we are here to peacefully protest and so, if anything goes wrong, the state is responsible. If anything unruly happens, we make sure we record it, so that we can provide those recordings to any media we contact and say, “Look at what we have witnessed.” We know that, when it comes to violence, no one can beat the state: it is the ultimate agent of violence, sometimes through the law and sometimes more directly through the police.
Why should people of conscience, especially progressives and leftists, across the world care about these protests and the issues that the farmers are addressing? How are these issues and the corresponding protests globally interconnected? And how have people of conscience from outside of India been showing meaningful solidarity with the farmers and how can they continue to do so?
Solidarity protests have been happening across the world; the mass support that these protests have received extends to the South Asian diaspora. The Trolley Times has further been translated into several languages and distributed not only in different parts of India but in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States as well.
At a foundational level, I’d desist from saying that this is a “farmers’ protest.” I’d only say that farmers are leading the protest. India is a poor country with a few rich people. Between 70 and 80 percent of Indians suffer from malnutrition. The Essential Commodities Act allows private businessmen to hoard essential items such as food grains and oil. The de-regularization of prices allows for black markets in such a way that you might end up with godowns [warehouses] full of food grains and a huge population at threat of starvation. In that sense, these laws are an attack not just on farmers but on everyone who eats. This should be a concern for everyone across the world who believes that every human being has a right to eat.
India also accounts for one-sixth of the world’s population. These laws stand to affect the food security, nutrition and overall health and safety of a huge number of people, which in itself should make them everyone’s concern.
Privatization is also a global phenomenon. Raise your voice against privatization in your home country. We don’t just want you to stand with us: we want you to stand up for yourself. These multinational companies have to be defeated not only in India, but also Africa, America, Australia, Europe — everywhere. Everyone is on their radar, and, to counter multinational companies, we need multinational protest.
In addition, these laws rob farmers on the one hand and consumers on the other. I am not here just to support farmers; I am also here as a consumer. I know that I will have to pay so much more to have a basic meal if these laws are implemented. Why should consumers pay so much for food when farmers aren’t even getting a fair price for their agricultural products?
What are the most significant challenges that this struggle will have to overcome if it is to prevail?
Since Day One, the movement has been trying to build broader solidarity. The protesters have been very careful to cause as little inconvenience as possible to local residents. We have also been trying to get them on our side through our media initiatives, with quite a lot of success. Government authorities have not been able to dismiss these protests as a one-off, despite their best efforts.
I think the biggest challenge is the arrogance of this government. State authorities have a tendency to do what they say. They know that these farm laws are dangerous, but, because they have already passed them, they will open up space to address much of their previous wrongdoing if they back down.
But this is to be expected of a government run by proto-fascist strongmen, right? Strongmen can never afford to seem weak, by their very definition.
The myth of the strong leader has to be busted. In a way, I think that this protest has already been successful, because it has democratized a large part of the population, even in just this one small part of India. The protesters have decided that the republic belongs to the people, not to the government.
Every day is very challenging. Any small incident of violence that could be attributed to us, even if we’re not responsible, could threaten the entire movement. Every passing moment is a relief, but the very next moment is a threat. There is a constant threat of state-sponsored violence on both the smaller and larger scale: people have been caught here with small guns. We are basically on night duty right now, looking out for any suspicious persons till 5:00 in the morning. We have been protesting for two months, and we don’t want something spectacular to happen one day that makes everything erupt. In that sense, it’s good that people have not been joining the movement in the thousands; rather, they have consistently been joining in the hundreds.
The protesters have decided that the republic belongs to the people, not to the government.
As I said before, this is not a fight against one government but rather an entire policy framework. Even if we are able to scrap these laws for now — and the government has admitted that it can put them on hold for 18 months — they will undoubtedly be brought back, with a more shrewd design and more brute force behind them. This is a fight that requires us to be on the tips of our toes for the rest of our lifetimes. The good thing is that, when people fight against the government, they gain a muscle memory and a consciousness that is the essence of democracy. A big chunk of the country is remembering what actually brought us independence from the British.
If this movement succeeds, you will see a flurry of mass movements around different issues. If these protests are not able to achieve their concrete goals, however, there will be a large vacuum in the imagination of the people, because they will think that, if protests of this scale cannot force the hand of this government, then nothing can.
Would you like to add anything before we sign off?
I’d just say to people who read this interview that we can’t theorize this movement yet. This is history in the making, but we still don’t know what kind of history it will be. Many of the people who are protesting right now never imagined that they would have to protest for something like this. We have to realize that the neoliberal system is going to consume each and every one of us — not just the most dispossessed, but even those who are slightly well-off. If you have a hundred people sitting in a room, and someone comes in and says, “One of you has to die,” everyone feels the threat that they could be the one. Don’t wait until you get attacked: notice when people around you are getting attacked, and raise your voice.
Protest gives us life: it gives us a fighting spirit and a sense of ownership. This country is ruled by a fascist government right now, but protest brings us back to our roots by saying, “This is our land. This is our people.” I think that kind of organic rather than national chauvinist engagement with your geographical part of the world, as well as your engagement with your own community, is absolutely vital.
Protest gives us life: it gives us a fighting spirit and a sense of ownership.
STANDING WITH INDIA’S FARMERS
Mukesh’s intimate, nuanced insights into India’s ongoing farmers’ rebellion stimulate as many questions as they answer. In spite of our lengthy conversation, we could not possibly cover the protests in all their complexity. Dalit — caste-oppressed — rights advocates both in India and the United States have inquired as to how the protesters intend to address the caste hierarchies that persist in agricultural communities across Punjab and the country as a whole, at the same time as a significant number of landless Dalits have declared their solidarity with the protesting farmers. Contradictions of this kind are almost bound to emerge within protests of the scale at hand, especially in a society that has yet to fully break out of the shackles of feudalism. The inevitability of these contradictions, should, of course not naturalize them and prevent their interrogation, not least of all because of their potential to weaken the movement in question overall.
However, perhaps the most pertinent question for politically engaged people of conscience outside of India is whether they will answer the farmers’ call to action, as Mukesh incisively and provocatively frames it. The neoliberal Hindu nationalist project is a profoundly transnational one, as I have argued elsewhere, and it necessitates transnational opposition, not just from South Asian diasporic communities but from all anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians and politically engaged people of conscience everywhere. The Modi regime’s corporate backers, political lackeys and cultural instruments must be identified, exposed and shut down wherever and whenever they attempt to implement their poisonous agenda.
