Indian farmers have proved Rousseau was right

Justice Markandey Katju-

Yesterday I was informed by a friend of mine who lives in a village in Meerut in western UP that thousands of farmers with their tractors have gone from his area to join Rakesh Tikait and the agitating farmers assembled at the Ghazipur border near Delhi.

After the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 Hindus of Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, and other western UP districts farmers in these areas had become polarised on religious lines, and the Hindus had become strong supporters of the pro-Hindu Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). Now these very same Hindu (and Muslim) farmers had become fervent opponents of the BJP and strong supporters of the farmers’ agitation. How did this happen?

To answer this, I want to explain the theory of the great French philosopher Rousseau (1712-1778), whose humble disciple I am.

Unlike the British political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who said that men were basically evil by nature, Rousseau was of the view that men were basically good by nature ( see Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization: Rousseau and Revolution ). However, Rousseau also said that temporarily good men can be turned into bad men, by false propaganda.

To give an example, Germans are very good people (every German I met was a fine person). But during the Nazi era ( 1933-1945 ) by Nazi propaganda many of them were made haters of Jews, on whom they committed horrible atrocities.

In India, due to the wicked divide and rule policy and false propaganda of our British rulers ( see ‘History in the service of Imperialism’ by BN Pande and my article ‘The Truth about Pakistan’ online ), many Hindus and Muslims started hating each other, and committed horrible deeds against each other.

However, as Rousseau pointed out, this hatred cannot last long, and the time will come when people will realize that they were befooled.

Now the Hindus and Muslims of western UP have realized that they had been fooled into thinking that they were each others’ enemies. The farmers there, whether Hindus or Muslims, have the same problem of not getting adequate remuneration for their agricultural produce, and it is only by joining hands in a united struggle that they can secure their demand.

Similarly, people in the Indian subcontinent, which was partitioned in 1947 on religious lines, are now gradually realizing that the two-nation theory was bogus. The people in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have the same problems of massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnourishment ( see Global Hunger Index ), lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, skyrocketing prices of food and fuel, etc. So to combat these it is inevitable that they will one day reunite ( see Indianreunificationassociation.weebly.com ).

Rousseau is being proved right.