Kisan struggle and Akali Dal heading towards avoidable confrontation

 

Farmers struggle for survival and Shiromani Akali Dal heads towards confrontation

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

With three back-to-back press conferences within 48 hours against each other, the farmers struggle for survival commanded by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha and the Shiromani Akali Dal intensifying its battle for political power are now heading towards confrontation. The SKM has nothing to lose in this confrontation.

The provocation is the harassment and humiliation by some angry agitators of several Akali volunteers and activist going to Delhi to participate in the protest organised by the Shiromani Akali Dal and returning from there.

Of course, this should not have happened as it is democratic right of every party and individual to hold own political views and participate in such mobilisations. Such humiliation is highly condemnable.

The Akali Dal released several videos of these cases of harassment yesterday. This happened ay Singhu and Tikri borders where farmers have been sitting on dharna for months.

Farm struggle senor leader Balbir Singh Rajewal today morning joined issues articulating  what he described as the anger among the people in Punjab who had refused to digest the Akali Dal narrative, going back to even Bargari sacrilege case that is still to be taken to logical conclusion. Akali Dal was part of the Narendra Modi government when these laws were formulated and adopted by the cabinet.

The Bargari sacrilege narrative is dated 2015 when the Akali Dal was in power. Capt Amarinder Singh too paid the cost of not taking these cases to the logical conclusion and this was one of the reasons for his replacement by Charanjit Singh Channi who has asserted that he would not disappoint people on this issue.

The Akali Dal hit back within hours and charged Rajewal of playing politics.

Let this narrative of farm acts associated with the role of Akali Dal be listed in proper sequence without comment.

Akali Dal has been marketing resignation of Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Modi cabinet as ‘unprecedented sacrifice’ and this line was repeated today too by its senior leader Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal at the news conference.

Cabinet decision is a collective responsibility and she was member of the Modi cabinet that approved the three laws that were promulgated as ordinance on June 5. The ordinance route is resorted to only as emergency measure and these laws could have waited for adopted in Parliament.

She was part of the decision both to adopt these laws and promulgation of ordinance.

Rajewal today called upon the Akali Dal to provide minutes of the cabinet meeting in case Harsimrat Kaur Badal had registered her dissent.

The Akali Dal was part of the decision making at the cabinet level. One of the three bills was modelled on the one adopted by the Akali Dal government in 2013.

The farmers organisations launched protest within no time of the implementation of these laws on June 5.

The first Akali leader to aggressively defend these laws was again Harsimrat Kaur Badal followed by her husband and Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal within 24 hours at emergency media briefing on a single point agenda.

She ‘sacrificed’ her ministerial position on September 17, 2020 in protest against adoption of these bills in Parliament followed by end to alliance between the Akali dal and the BJP a few days later.

Five time chief minister Parkash Singh Badal too had stepped in to promote these laws before she quit the cabinet.

This is the record of the Akali Dal that is now being questioned by the farmers  to which they are not getting any convincing reply. There is not.

It is important to recall that the Akali Dal had recalled its two ministers- Surjit Singh Barnala and Dhanna Singh Gulshan- from the union cabinet in 1979. This was never claimed to be sacrifice.

The Akali Dal MPs, two on Lok Sabha and two in Rajya Sabha, resigned their seats on February 21, 1983. This again was never marketed as sacrifice.

The resignation by Harsimrat Kaur Badal is not ‘unprecedented sacrifice’.

It is pertinent to mention that while the Akali Dal defended these bills, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, the farmers wing of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the mother organisation of the BJP, had expressed its reservations on July 23, 2020 in Punjab maintaining these ordinances in the present form were “unacceptable and have the potential to exploit farmers”.

The flash point was the clash between the angry farmers and the Akalis at  election campaign mobilisation of Akali Dal at Moga a few days back.

Although there was no such call, village after village has been banning entry of political leaders who are going about as part of election campaign. It is having chain reaction. Sukhbir Singh Badal launched his 100-day intensive poll campaign amidst this backdrop. This was not acceptable to the people in villages who have been fighting for survival.

The priority of the political parties is to compete for power in view of Assembly elections due in February 2022.

The farmers are fighting not just for their own survival but to protect interests of the people at large. The consumer too would be hit hard in case of monopolisation of farm sector by the corporates that is the objective of these laws. The objective of these laws is push a big chunk of the small farmers out of farm sector as stated by the economists advocating these ‘reforms’.

The political parties in Punjab should opt for low key mobilisations rather than coming into confrontation with the farm struggle as has happened in case of Akali Dal.

This struggle is unprecedented  and is being keenly watched by the global players.

Going by the experience since 1997, it does not matter much to the common person as to which party is in power.

Power politics is business for political players.

There is little difference between the Congress and the Akali Dal as the Aam Aadmi Party rule is still to be tasted by the Punjabis.