Its retrieval of the old secular political language openly counters the divisive and communal politics of the BJP.
In Uttar Pradesh on September 5, 2021, Millions of farmers deposited For the Kisan Mahapanchayat organized by the United Kisan Morcha (SKM) at the Government Inter-College Ground in Muzaffarnagar. At the mahapanchayat, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait reiterated farmers’ demands for repeal of three agricultural laws and “legal guarantee of MSP”. [Minimum Support Price]Mr. Tikait and other farmer leaders present announced their determination to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming 2022 State Legislative Assembly elections. The farmer leaders unanimously voted for three to four lakh farmers. Together they appealed for communal harmony, raising the slogans of ‘Allah Hu Akbar’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’.
secular vs divisive
This recovery of the old secular political language openly counters the divisive and communal politics of the BJP that has captured the local and national scene after the 2014 general election. Religious and caste women and young farmers from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand and other states participated in the Muzaffarnagar Mahapanchayat. It is surprising that the ongoing farmer movement has openly engaged with gender and environmental issues and given them their due.
The Muzaffarnagar Kisan Mahapanchayat has not only reclaimed the language of secularism and communal harmony by enabling the convergence of various farmer organizations and the voice of marginalized groups, but the vigilant ability to challenge the politics and hegemony of the BJP in the assembly elections. is also shown. Next year in five states (Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur).
message of harmony
Muzaffarnagar witnessed communal riots in 2013, which polarized the western Uttar Pradesh region on religious lines. The BJP’s local leadership turned a caste dispute into brutal communal riots that benefited the BJP across Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, as it was the local script used at the state and national levels. Communal polarization not only created a rift in the social fabric, but also hampered the identity and unity of the farmers, which had traditionally been the support base of the BKU under the late Mahendra Singh Tikait in the 1980s.
Realizing this social and political loss, his son Rakesh Tikait and his supporters, over the years, started reviving BKU’s old legacy of secularism. However, these efforts have gained momentum only after January 2021 when the BJP government forcibly attempted to remove protesting farmers, including Mr. Tikait, from Delhi’s Ghazipur border. An emotional appeal from an overwhelmed Mr. Tikait mobilized both Hindu and Muslim Jat farmers, shifting the focus of peasant protests from Punjab to rural western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
SKM has brilliantly reintroduced the secular language especially in the post-2014 socio-political environment. Its act of courage in the Muzaffarnagar Kisan Mahapanchayat reminds the ‘cowardly’ political opposition and other political parties to uphold their constitutional duty to uphold India’s political legacy. In their appeal for communal harmony, Mr. Tikait and other farmer leaders have categorically denied the communal violence in the area. Mr. Tikait and other farmer leaders acknowledged being affected by the communal divide and vowed to combat hatred and violence. “They talk of dividing, we talk of uniting. The identity of the BJP is the politics of hate”, declared Mr. Tikait loud and clear.
More importantly, Mr. Tikait and BKU workers have been going from village to village holding mass meetings with Hindu and Muslim farmers. In several street gatherings, BKU activists seek to create a common platform for farmers across religious and caste divisions by reclaiming and re-establishing religious and caste unity among farmers, to heal and repair the damages caused by the Muzaffarnagar riots. are trying.
Mission 2022 and Asha
The Muzaffarnagar Kisan Mahapanchayat has turned the ongoing farmers’ protest into a national movement. Due to the movement’s lack of acceptance and response, the farmer leaders under the SKM have decided to directly link the farmers’ plight with electoral politics.no gap dams, To vote No (no vote, if there is no legal guarantee of MSP’) and declaring their method as ‘vote’ the little (hit by vote’). The SKM and its leadership will campaign against the BJP in next year’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Apart from spreading the message of peace and communal harmony, farmer leaders including Mr. Tikait have announced that they will go to every household in the villages to educate the farmers about the three agricultural laws and the ways in which farmers and farming will be destroyed. . . use of phrases Farming, farming And Brotherhood:, BKU and its leadership will also inform them about BJP’s betrayal of farmers through its pro-corporate policies.
Besides agricultural laws, several other proximate factors have set the stage for widespread electoral mobilization that could convert angry farmers and workers into politically aware voters when they face continued agrarian distress, doubling of electricity tariffs and diesel and diesel. Face the rising cost of fertilizers. More importantly, the payment of dues to the farmers of sugarcane mills has badly affected the farmers and laborers across generation, caste and religious lines.
Moreover, in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government’s stringent cattle slaughter measures have left farmers already broke as stray cattle are looting fields and ruining crops. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only hit the rural economy yet again, but has also exposed the fragility of urban jobs. The participation of a large number of young farmers at once explains the ongoing agrarian crisis and jobless growth that has created a great deal of rural-urban uncertainty.
While the emerging broad coalitions and solidarity generate hope and a new grammar of politics, competitive party politics and the current socio-economic divide present many challenges to Mission 2022. The ongoing peasant movement shows no sign of converting itself into a political one. Team. In this case the farmer voters are dependent on the existing political parties which have already failed and failed in the face of BJP’s propaganda, organizational skills and politics. In fact, some of them have started copying the BJP’s style by adopting a softer version of Hindutva.
UP politics today
Particularly in Uttar Pradesh, opposition political parties like Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal are competing for the same pie. Therefore, it is too early to know how these competing parties will compromise their interests and form a united opposition. Furthermore, Jats are no longer a politically united group as they were in the 1970s and 1980s. The emerging political competition within the Jats, led by the ambitious middle class, has given rise to new leaders like Sanjeev Baliyan, who have opened a chasm for exploitation of the BJP’s style of politics. Moreover, farmers from the most ‘backward’ castes such as Moryas, Nishads and Gaderias may have been allies of the BKU and part of the ‘peasant’ identity popularized by Charan Singh.
By projecting these farmers as victims of prominent landlord farmers, the BJP has weaponized them as the new warriors of Hindutva. Despite these limitations, the Muzaffarnagar Kisan Mahapanchayat has shown the way to reclaim the legacy of the Indian Constitution and secularism by linking socio-economic injustice to environmental and gender issues.
Satendra Kumar teaches Sociology at GB Pant Institute of Social Sciences, University of Allahabad
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