Farmers' agitation against three new laws acquires an anti-BJP edge

The govt's bid to 'criminalise' farmers' dissent seems to have ended up infusing new energy into the agitation: Those who had gone back exhausted to villages have returned emotionally charged

Curtains came down on the first phase of the farmers’ agitation amid a growing perception that the events of January 26 in Delhi were a ‘conspiracy’ to malign and delegitimise the movement. It has now entered a second phase where it will be potentially less tractable. 

Following its ham-handed playbook, the Narendra Modi government tried to criminalise farmers’ dissent but it has ended up infusing new energy into their agitation. Those who had gone back exhausted to the villages have returned to the protest sites emotionally charged. The Jat community in Western UP was enraged by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) social media warriors mocking farmer leader Rakesh Tikait for breaking down before TV crews. Overnight, the number of farm protestors at Ghazipur swelled. This also happened at other protest sites on Delhi’s borders after protestors were attacked by so-called ‘locals’. Farmer leaders here have openly charged the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with encouraging vigilante attacks against them. 

Most importantly, the ‘Hindu identity’ professed by the BJP and RSS and promoted for electoral gains threatens to come apart as caste and community identities resurge. In Western UP, fanning communal riots in 2013, in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli (where Tikait’s village Sisauli is located), had consolidated the Jat community, pitting it against Muslims to the advantage of the BJP. Jats jettisoned their traditional support to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and opted en masse for the BJP in the 2014 general elections. They have more or less remained with the party since then. This might now change with Tikait, who says he voted for the BJP, accusing the party of trying to use strong-arm tactics to disband the protesting farmers. Sensing a political opportunity, other parties — from the Shiromani Akali Dal, to RLD and Samajwadi Party and the Congress — have sent their emissaries to the protest sites and expressed their support for the farmers.

In Haryana, the resignation of the Indian National Lok Dal’s Abhay Chautala from the legislature puts other Jat leaders on notice to declare their allegiances. The BJP-led government in the state is dependent on Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), a predominantly Jat party. Village panchayats have taken decisions to block the entry of BJP politicians and given a call for their social boycott (“hukka-paani bandh”). The Jats of Rajasthan are also unlikely to be unaffected by the farmers’ agitation.

Despite these disturbing messages from the ground, the Modi government seems to be digging in its heels on not repealing the controversial farm laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s uncompromising political style has been shaped by his massive parliamentary majority, the lack of a credible challenge from the Opposition and ineffective legislative checks. It does not easily allow for course correction as any retreat is seen as political defeat.

Despite its political ascendancy, the BJP has shown a shocking insensitivity towards the farmers’ agitation. So has the RSS despite its claims to represent the interests of the majority Hindu community and boast of its direct connect with the masses. Despite drawing upon caste and community allegiances to fight elections, neither the BJP nor the RSS seems to have a deep understanding of them. The British colonial empire would train its civil servants to study these sociological phenomena thinking it would make for better, or at least a more politically stable, administration.

The leadership of the BJP government is mostly from the urban elite. Those with an ear to the ground do not have the ear of this leadership or are scared of being rebuffed by a leadership whose style is not consultative. The RSS, which is ideologically committed to a Hindu national identity, sees caste and community loyalties as socially divisive. They are not a part of its political imagination. This is starkly reflected in the Brahminical impatience with which its leaders speak out against reservation in jobs and education for socially backward classes and their indifference to the structural discrimination they continue to suffer. They cannot be expected to sympathise with notions of social honour or loss of face that govern the politics of caste, community, clan and kinship. 

Their mobilisation of pan-Hindu religious and nationalist sentiments has paid the RSS and the BJP rich dividends in terms of acquiring political power through a consolidation of Hindu votes. However, this project is threatened today in the Jat belt of North India.

Bharatiya Kisan Union Spokesperson Rakesh Tikait speaks to media representatives as RLD leader Jayant Choudhary (L) looks on during farmers' ongoing protest against the new farm laws, at Ghazipur Border in New Delhi.

This approach can also alienate the Sikh community, which the RSS insists is part of the Hindu fold. The Sikh farmers of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand who have been the vanguard of the agricultural revolution are being accused of harbouring separatist sentiments and dubbed Khalistanis. The orchestrated outrage over a Sikh religious flag being hoisted outside the Red Fort hyper-criminalises an act of youthful belligerence. It shows a lack of strategic thinking in the government to over-play the incident as a deliberate ‘dishonour’ to the national Tricolour. Such a discourse can easily transform into targeting the nationalism of the entire Sikh community as suspect. This is unforgivable for a community that holds army service in high esteem and habitually receives the bodies of their children wrapped in the Tricolour. Already, videos and pictures of police action against Sikh protestors are being circulated as “proof” of deliberate targeting of the community.

Most crucially, the government seems to have underestimated the resolve of the farmers. It has no way of saving face. The prime minister has once again repeated the offer of suspending the farm laws for one-and-a-half years. This offer may have been acceptable when the protests had just begun. But it has since acted in bad faith with the farmers – negotiating with them on the one hand while threatening them with police action and ignoring violence by party supporters. The offer of suspending the farm laws is being seen not as setting the stage for serious negotiation but a ploy to dissipate the protests and send the protesting farmers home. 

The more the government hardens its position on repealing the unpopular farm laws, the more difficult would it become for it to retrace its steps. Twitter: @bharatitis