Victory of farm struggle can dictate resistance to the divisive agenda of the BJP and Sangh Parivar

 

 

Success of farm struggle is defining moment in confronting corporates aided divisive agenda of BJP

 

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

Rectifying blunders is not the sign of weakness but strength of a strong leader.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi perceived to be Iron Man of contemporary Indian politics has demonstrated his capacity to undo the wrong.

He has announced repeal of the three controversial laws that aimed at handing over the farm sector and the food trade to the corporates. The promulgation of these laws through ordinance in June 2020 had sparked the farm struggle with Punjab as the epicentre.

The farmers struggling for their very survival were attacked by the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates aided by the tames media as Khalistanis and Naxalites. The farmers in Punjab are mainly the Sikhs.

This the longest and the most peaceful agitation attracted global attention as it had questioned  free market model of development that is anti-people. The issue was no more the three black laws but the very path that the corporates are dictating in majority of the countries through institutions like the World Bank controlled by rich countries. The only object under this model is profit and lacks every ethical aspect of development. Development has to be pro-people but the free market model is cruel. In India, it is the wealth with the corporates that is multiplying while disparities are increasing at alarming rate.

The three black laws threatened the very survival of those dependent upon farming and the worst affected were going to be the states including Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The corporates have been eyeing the farm sector in the wake of the behaviour of capital during the last some years as it is the farm sector that can assure adequate returns and this has been proved as recently as the Covid when every other sector of economy collapsed.

The divided society suits the corporates the most.

The farm struggle emerged as the first platform against juggernaut of divisive Hindutva agenda that was set rolling with the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

India entered a new phase with the rise of the phenomenon that is Narendra Modi when he took over as the Prime Minister in 2014 riding the waves of the divisive politics  while he gave the slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas’. Social tension has been on the rise in the country since then as the Sangh Parivar now dictates even the food habits of the people.

The Kisan Struggle when it reached the gates of Delhi finally started emerging as the first massive secular platform. It is this dimension that has sent tremors in the BJP strongholds including in Uttar Pradesh that is one of the two most fertile states for this divisive agenda, the other being Gujrat.

The secular dimension of the Farmers struggle now threaten the skilfully crafted electoral dynamics in UP rooted in divisive dynamics, especially in its Western region. The issue in UP in 2022 Assembly elections would not be just that of BJP retaining the state but safeguarding the divisive cobweb from the emerging secular onslaught nurtured by the kisan struggle.

All these months, the pro-Modi media has been raising the bogey of this struggle being used by the anti-India forces in the immediate neighbourhood and some other countries.

Even then chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh used to raise the spectre of Sikh youth being exploited by such forces using Kisan Struggle as the cover.

However, the struggle managed to counter all such efforts to weaken it. What happened in Delhi on January 2021 was part of such designs, this one not by outside forces but from within. It was a move to sabotage this struggle.

The Kisan Struggle has made historic beginning in this context. It is for secular polity to take up this fight from here to maintain secular fabric of this diverse country.

Entire credit for the success of this historic struggle goes to the farmers themselves who were commanded by a 32-member conglomerate having different ideological concerns who joined under the banner of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

The political parties are already trying to take credit in Punjab but it was and is not their domain.

This is the fight in which the leaders kept the power hungry and degenerated political class away in Punjab.

At that level, it is not just the most peaceful and the longest struggle but also the one that insulated itself from direct interference by the political leaders.

Wait for its impact on electoral dynamics of Punjab going to the polls in February 2022 along with UP.

The immediate gains at the broader level are the challenge to the divisive agenda and the exploitative model of development dictated by anti-people market forces. It is in this aspect that the impact of this struggle is going to be global in the long run.