Protests are good but wasting vegetables and milk is not

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” 

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Any form of a protest is not only a tool to raise voice against gagging of justice but also an assurance of the fact that democracy prevails in the land. Protests are democratic, and suppressing stirs against unlawful acts are illegal and unethical. However, like every other practice, protests too need have ethical barriers.

While raising a voice against alleged anti-farmer laws are just, wasting vegetables and milk by throwing them on the streets is not.

In the protest that took shape in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Chhattisgarh, farmers hit the streets demanding loan waivers and better pay for their produce.

While many farmer outfits are claiming that they have ‘strictly’ asked the protestors to abstain from wasting vegetables and milk, photographs speak differently. Black-coloured asphalt stretches of highways have gone white after protestors spilled tank-fulls of milk.

The motive, as farmer association heads from across the country say, is to put pressure on the government by cutting supplies to the cities to create a vacuum. While this is justified, the practice of wasting eatables might just turn the barrel of the gun at the farmers.

Farmers should understand that lakhs across the country go hungry due to shortage of food. Instead of wasting it, the farmers could have simply done some charity and sent the vegetables and litres milk being stopped to make way to the city markets to destitute homes or fed people who are in need of it.

Sending the vegetables as a relief to the poor of the country would have saved the vegetables and milk from being wasted and also earned the farmers a good name.