BJP-RSS GOVERNMENT WAGES WAR AGAINST ITS OWN FARMERS WHO PUT UP AN INCREDIBLE FEAT OF RESISTANCE

Ashok Dhawale

Nothing like this was ever seen in India during the last few decades. A government waging war against its own people. Its own farmers. The annadatas of our country.

UNPRECEDENTED REPRESSION, INCREDIBLE RESISTANCE

But that is precisely what the BJP-RSS governments and their police – both at the Centre and in Haryana - did. They directed the force of water cannons on the farmers of Punjab and Haryana. They slapped a murder charge on a youth farmer who climbed up the tanker and switched off the water cannons. They attacked farmers with innumerable tear gas shells. They resorted to brutal lathi charges. They arrested hundreds of farmer activists. They put up huge barricades and barbed wire fencings. They even dug up wide and deep trenches on the national highways to stop the advance of the farmers to the national capital of Delhi. The notorious BJP government of Uttar Pradesh also cracked down on the farmers coming to Delhi from there.

Ironically, all this was happening on November 26, which is known as Constitution Day. It was 71 years ago this day in 1949 that the Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution of our country, which characterized our nation as being “sovereign, democratic, secular and socialist.” The basic democratic tenet of dissent was being trampled upon with fascistic fervor. 

The repression of the government was unprecedented. But the resistance of the peasantry was incredible.

Tens of thousands of valiant farmers literally broke through this seemingly impregnable wall of repression erected by the government at both the Punjab-Haryana and Haryana-Delhi borders. They comprised young and old, women and men, of all religions and castes, in massive numbers. Their numbers, and their determination, were their real strength. They came in thousands of tractors and trollies. And they came with provisions enough to last for months. The defining moment of this massive peasant struggle came when these farmers came forward to feed the same police personnel who had rained repression on them.

Confronted with this remarkable resistance, the central government was forced to surrender. It announced that the farmers could finally enter Delhi. All its actions so far were meant to prevent just that. It designated a large ground in Burari where farmers could come and camp.

And then came the master stroke. Tens of thousands of farmers just refused to enter Delhi. They decided to remain on the two major national highways on the Haryana-Delhi border, at Singhu and Tikri.  At the time of filing this piece, for the last six days, several kilometers of the national highways at both points have been occupied by farmers, their tractors and trollies. Asked why they were doing this when the government had given them permission to come into Delhi, a young farmer unerringly replied, “We will not go to the ground in Burari because once we go there, we’ll just sit there for days and nothing will happen. Here, the border is locked and it’s making an impact.”

When I visited the Singhu border and saw this spectacle, I was immediately reminded of our ‘mahapadav’ struggle in Maharashtra four and a half years ago. On March 29-30, 2016, over one lakh farmers under the AIKS banner gathered at the huge Golf Club Maidan in Nashik. After the massive public meeting which was addressed by Sitaram Yechury, Hannan Mollah and P Sainath among others, we led the huge mass out to the main square in Nashik and blocked it for two days and two nights. All top government and police authorities were persuading us to go back to the Maidan and continue our agitation. We refused for the same reason that the young farmer from Punjab gave. The entire city of Nashik was locked. Within 12 hours, the then BJP chief minister was forced to invite the AIKS delegation for talks in Mumbai.

The central government had originally given December 3 as the date for talks, under the illusion that the struggle would fizzle out by then. When it became evident that no such thing would happen, Union Home Minister Amit Shah set the condition that the government would hold talks as soon as the agitating farmers went to the Burari ground. The farmers spurned his offer with the contempt that it deserved. Eventually, the government was forced to bend and hold the first round of talks on December 1.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already queered the pitch for the talks by his recent Mann ki Baat, where he strongly defended the three farm laws and declared yet again that they were beneficial for farmers, at the precise time when lakhs of farmers had laid siege to the nation’s capital for the scrapping of these very laws. As expected, the talks were inconclusive. The government’s ‘offer’ to set up a five member committee to look into the contentious laws was rejected out of hand. The next round of talks with the government has been scheduled for December 3. It is clear at the moment that this struggle is going to be a long haul. 

The Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) is unitedly leading this struggle. It comprises representatives of the Punjab and Haryana farmers’ organizations, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) that has over 250 farmers’ organizations including the AIKS, and the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh (RKMS) which has several other organizations. More than 500 different farmers’ organizations in the country have come together in this issue-based struggle for the first time in the history of India. The AIKSCC was represented in the talks with the government by AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah.          

MAIN DEMAND - REPEAL OF ANTI-FARMER LAWS AND POWER BILL    

The fundamental demand of the SKM is the repeal of the three anti-farmer and pro-corporate laws rammed through undemocratically by the BJP central government in Parliament in September 2020. Along with it is the withdrawal of the Electricity Bill 2020, which will greatly hike power tariffs not only for farmers but for all rural and urban consumers in the country. Immediately after passing the three Farm Acts, the BJP central government forced through the four anti-worker and pro-corporate Labour Codes through Parliament. It hurriedly did this during the Covid pandemic, under the illusion that workers and peasants would not be able to come out on the streets to oppose them due to the pandemic. The Modi regime was obviously acting at the behest of both Indian and foreign corporates, and also US imperialism.

The magnificent November 26 All India Strike led by the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) which was responded to by millions of workers (both organized and unorganized) and employees, and the November 26-27 All India struggle led by the SKM which mobilized millions of peasants and agricultural workers throughout the country, were a tight slap in the face of the BJP regime. On top of that came this historic farmers struggle on the border of the nation’s capital itself. The cardinal importance of this November struggle was that it was a glorious manifestation of worker-peasant unity in action. Both the working class and the peasantry of India supported each other’s demands against their common enemy, the BJP-RSS central government. The November struggle of the working class and the peasantry also proved yet again that it is only united class struggle that can effectively combat communal, casteist and divisive conspiracies.   

The three Farm Bills were first introduced as ordinances on June 5, 2020. They were immediately denounced by most of the farmers’ organizations in the country. The very first nationwide protests against them were led by the AIKS on June 10. On Quit India Day, August 9, 2020, millions of workers and peasants came out on the streets of India to oppose them. The three bills were ‘passed’ through subterfuge in the Rajya Sabha, in the teeth of opposition by CPI(M) MPs K K Ragesh (Joint Secretary, AIKS) and Elamaram Kareem (Vice President, CITU) and other opposition MPs.

Immediately thereafter, the CTUs gave a call for massive protest actions on September 23. The AIKSCC gave a call for massive road blockades all over the country on September 25. Millions of workers and peasants came out on the streets. It was right after this that the AIKSCC gave a call for ‘Chalo Delhi’ along with a nationwide struggle on November 26-27. The CTUs also gave a call for an All India Strike on November 26. On October 26-27, an important AIKSCC physical working group meeting was held in Delhi, which invited many other organizations from Punjab, Haryana and other states. They all eventually formed the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which is jointly leading the current struggle.   

CALL TO BROADEN AND INTENSIFY THE COUNTRYWIDE STRUGGLE

The central leadership of our class and mass organizations has been visiting the venues of the farmers struggle at the Singhu and Tikri borders regularly to pledge active support. They include AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah, president Ashok Dhawale, finance secretary P Krishna Prasad, joint secretaries K K Ragesh, MP, and Badal Saroj; CITU general secretary Tapan Sen, president K Hemalata, secretary A R Sindhu; AIAWU general secretary B Venkat and joint secretary Vikram Singh; SFI general secretary Mayukh Biswas; and many others. Our class and mass organizations in both Punjab and Haryana, and also in Delhi, are making valuable contributions in all ways to this crucial struggle.          

At the current juncture, it is vitally necessary to broaden and intensify the struggle all over the country. Five Left parties, along with secular parties like the NCP, RJD and DMK, have issued a joint statement supporting the farmers’ struggle, and more are likely to follow suit. The AIKSCC has called for widespread mass actions all over the country from December 1.

The AIKS has given a call to states around Delhi for increasing their participation in the struggle, for nationwide road blockades on December 3 and a week-long struggle in different forms from December 3 to 10. The CITU, AIAWU, AIDWA, DYFI and SFI have actively supported this call. The Nation for Farmers, led by P Sainath, Dinesh Abrol and many others, which was formed in several cities to support the massive AIKSCC Kisan Mukti March in November 2018, has swung into action and is mobilizing intellectuals, literary figures, cultural artistes and many others in support of this historic farmers struggle against the neo-liberal policies of the powers that be.