Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 19: Irked by the prime minister Narendra Modi and the BJP leaders repeatedly politicizing their agitation around the borders of Delhi demanding repeal of the three contentious farm laws, the farmers’ unions have decided to further intensify the stir by cementing the existing differences, whatever these are, between various farm organisations.
Even as the minimum temperature at the national capital dipped to the season’s lowest so far at 3.9 degrees Celsius, the agitating farmers decided that none of them would move away from the dharna points and instead more farmers from different parts of the country would march towards Delhi to join the agitation that entered the fourth week on Saturday.
The farmers’ agitation seems to have started creating rifts even within the BJP with several of them from the northern Indian states have spoken out in favour of the farmers’ demand. Former Union minister and senior BJP leader Birender Singh whose son Brijendra is a sitting BJP MP, said it was his moral responsibility to stand with the farmers who he said are “worried” as they fear the new legislations will have an “impact” on their economic condition.
“Whatever I have achieved in politics, would not have been possible had I not been the grandson of Sir Chhotu Ram,” Singh said. “Therefore, it is my moral responsibility to stand with the farmers in their fight today and, therefore, I have decided to support this (farmers’) fight,” said Singh, a prominent Jat leader in Haryana.
The NDA’s ally in Rajasthan, the RLP chief Hanuman Beniwal, who had been for some time requesting the prime minister to concede the demands of the farmers, resigned from three Lok Sabha committees, in solidarity with the protesting farmers. “The Nagaur MP says he will march towards Delhi ‘with 2 lakh’ people on 26 December,” media report quoting Beniwal said.
A day after the Maharashtra-based All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee extended support to the farmers protesting at Delhi’s borders, reports said the farmers from the state would travel to Delhi to join the protests. They will first gather at Nasik on Sunday from where they will begin marching on 21 December led by Dr Ajit Nawale, secretary of the Maharashtra unit of All India Kisan Sabha. The farmers will be joined by AIKS national president Ashok Dhawale at the borders of the capital, where the protesting farmers have been camping,” the report said.
“The farmers’ march from Nasik to Mumbai had brought down the arrogance of then BJP government in Maharashtra. Now, it is time for the Modi government. No other government in the history of India has fired tear gases on farmers and drenched them in the middle of winter. But these tricks have failed and farmers are still on the outskirts of Delhi,” the report quoted Dhawale as saying.
While Modi continued to insist that the farmers had started reaping benefits from the three farm acts, the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait junked his claims of his government implementing recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission on the MSP for crops, saying farmers are committing suicide as they are not getting the remunerative price of their produce.
“Till today, cultivators of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh are not getting the minimum support price (MSP) of pulses and are committing suicide,” he said. “The claim of the implementation of the commission report is totally false,” he said
His response came after Modi while speaking at the Assocham convention said reforms brought by his government six months ago have started benefiting farmers. Highlighting reforms spanning from the manufacturing sector to labour, he said India had during the last six years emerged as the world’s preferred destination for investment.
“Agriculture reforms initiated six months back have started benefitting farmers,” he said without elaborating.
The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) on Friday said the issue of the ongoing farmers’ protests against three new farm laws needed to be resolved by the government and not the Supreme Court. The statement came even as a delegation of peasant leaders consulted senior lawyers to decide the future course of action.
As Modi kept blaming the Congress and other opposition parties for “misguiding and misleading” the farmers into agitation against the three acts despite the farmers’ leaders maintain that the stir was apolitical, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and several other political outfits issued statements in favour of the farmers’ and urging the centre to concede their demand.
The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party hit out at the BJP on Saturday over the farmers’ protest against the agri-marketing laws.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav called the contentious laws a clamp for the farmers.
“The BJP didn’t allow the farmers to have the slightest idea of the farm laws before making them. Now, they are pretending to make them understand the benefits of the legislations by holding farmers convention,” Yadav said.
“The truth is the farmers will really benefit only after the implementation of the Swaminathan report,” Yadav said. “Only then, the farmers” income will double.”
In a tweet on Saturday, BSP president Mayawati said: “The central government should adopt a sympathetic approach, and not be stubborn, while dealing with the protesting farmers and accept their demands.
“The BSP demands that the three new farm laws should be withdrawn,” she added.
In a bid to lift high the fighting spirit of the farmers braving unfavourable conditions, a Punjabi version of ‘Bella Ciao’ capturing the pulse of the campaign is going viral on the borders of Delhi. “Thwaade inn kaale, kaatil kaanoonan, Da ikoyi jawab: wapas jao,” says the lyrics of the desi version of the song, echoing the demands of the farmers.
‘Bella Ciao’ is an Italian protest folk song that originated in the hardships of the mondina women, the paddy field workers in the late 19th century who sang it to protest against harsh working conditions in the paddy fields of North Italy.
Performed and written by Poojan Sahil, famous for making socio-political songs, the video shows a montage of farmers protesting at Singhu border, which was shot by people’s campaign group ‘Karwan e Mohabbat’. Even though the tune is the same, Sahil clarified it is not a Punjabi translation of the original song.
