The Canadian Complex

THIS WAS CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when farmers in India were protesting: “The situation is concerning. We are all very worried about family and friends. We know that’s a reality for many of you. Let me remind you, Canada will always be there to defend the rights of peaceful protestors. We believe in the process of dialogue.” It is not a statement that has aged well. This is Trudeau this month tweeting of an agitation in his own country: “Canadians have the right to protest, to disagree with their government, and to make their voices heard. We’ll always protect that right. But let’s be clear: They don’t have the right to blockade our economy, or our democracy, or our fellow citizens’ daily lives. It has to stop.”

A blockade, as any Indian will tell you, is the most natural extension to an agitation. The number of times all kinds of protestors, from caste groups to farmers, have laid siege on highways and railway tracks, are too many to count here. We even have invented a term for it—rail roko. But Canada, considered as an example of what a sweet liberal society is, now thinks that blocking roads is so dangerous that the government has imposed a national emergency. It now has draconian powers to contain an agitation that has seen very little violence. The Canadian deputy prime minister announced that they could now freeze bank accounts of those taking part in protests and that too without a court order. A citizen’s hard earned money could be denied to him just like that. You expect this from tinpot dictators. But this is a country whose prime minister’s main mission has been to project himself as the nicest politician in the world. Imagine the response if India were to impose an emergency because the road between Delhi and Mumbai was blocked. We don’t do it. We negotiate with cunning or just send the police to clear the road brutally.

It is in the nature of politicians to use crisis as an opportunity for more power. Trudeau isn’t different. The phenomenon underpinning it is the metamorphosis of the definition of liberalism—that corner that he and Canada think they occupy—to stand for exactly the opposite of what it once was. It was about the pre-eminence of the individual and his rights over the tyranny of government. Now, it is about the imposition of an ideology, whether by state policy or social coercion. The truckers’ protest is for their right to conduct livelihood that vaccine mandates were preventing. Agitations don’t gather momentum or find widespread participation without a tipping point having been breached. They blocked roads where much of the trade between the US and Canada flowed. When the government felt its pocket pinch, the instinctive response was an emergency. Earlier, they had been very okay when the losses were being suffered by the truckers. If you want to know why revolutions
happen, this is why.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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