Outwardly, the fight may not look like a classic Marxist class war, but the fact is that the rightist forces representing the class interests of the capitalists have already unleashed vitriolic assault on the farmers. What happened during last three days on the Shambhu border, Singhu protest site, is small-scale warfare. The class hatred got nakedly manifest as BJP’s Haryana government dropped tear gas shells through drone strikes and resorted to pellet firing in the dead of the night when the farmers were asleep.

The movement is farmers’ struggle against their pauperization and the wholesale corporatization of agriculture. It already cost more than seven hundred lives in 2020 because of massive state repression, including arrests, physical violence, and frequent internet shutdowns. Though after eleven rounds of unsuccessful negotiations with the government, the movement forced Modi to retreat in 2021, during these past two years, Modi did not make a positive move to find out a solution to the issue.

On the contrary, the RSS ecosystem fully assisted by Modi government is out to malign and disparage the farmers, the annadatas. It is really shocking to see RSS and BJP stooping low and violating all the norms of public decency to humiliate and disgrace the farmers. It is indeed a matter of shame for RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and his protégé Modi to target Sikh farmers and muster their resources to demean them and present them as criminals before the people of the country.

Noted economist Madhura Swaminathan, daughter of the agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan, the architect of India’s Green Revolution who was awarded the Bharat Ratna just a fortnight back by Narendra Modi, cautioned the Modi government not to treat farmers as criminals, and not to use coercive actions against the farmers marching to Delhi.

She said: “The farmers of Punjab are marching to Delhi. I believe, according to the newspaper reports, there are jails being prepared for them in Haryana, there are barricades. All kinds of things are being done to prevent them (entering Delhi). These are farmers; they are not criminals,” she said at an event held at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute on Tuesday to celebrate the Bharat Ratna for her father.

It is certain that this appeal from Madhura Swaminathan would not have any impact on either Bhagwat or Modi, as they have the class interest of their corporate friends in their hearts. If they had a little concern and reverence for the farmers, they would not have allowed their saffron ruffians to indulge in the nasty game of depreciating them.

In the last two days, two videos are making rounds on social media; one is of a few Sikhs with swords striking at an image. The RSS ruffians allege that the Khalistanis were attacking their Hindu god, a blatant lie. In fact, it is a two-year-old image when some Khalistani activists were protesting somewhere in Punjab. The second is a photo from December 2019 wherein some youths in Haryana were asking Modi to act against some anti-socials. None of the two photos relate to the current movement but the RSS ecosystem has been using them as the latest pictures of the movement.

During the first phase of the farmers’ movement in 2020, the saffron ecosystem had used abusive language against the farmers and tried to denigrate them. This time it has intensified its vitriol. Realising the political implications and the imperative of the current movement, RSS and Modi government have specifically targeted the Sikhs. Through its pet media, better known as Godi media, a systematic and uninhibited campaign has been launched to portray Sikh farmers as anti-nationals. The Godi media has been systematically feeding the news that the Sikhs farmers are believers in Khalistani philosophy and separatist politics.

Intellectuals and social activists are sceptical of the adverse fallout of this move of RSS and Modi. According to them, it is a ploy to isolate the Sikh farmers from the larger agricultural community of the country. They believe that any such move would have disastrous consequence. The RSS and BJP “have set Manipur on fire” by “pitting one community against another”. The northeastern state has been rocked by ethnic strife since May last year. Now the RSS is trying to repeat its divisive strategy in Punjab too.

The most bizarre has been some top BJP leaders describing the farmers as criminals. This is the part of their well designed plan to isolate the Sikh farmers from the farming communities from Haryana or Uttar Pradesh. Precisely this is the reason that the BJP government of Haryana has not been allowing the farmers to pass through the state on their way to Delhi. The Haryana police has been going around the rural areas and terrorising the local farmers and telling them to desist from participating in the agitation.

Haryana government’s tactics had not gone unnoticed. A senior farmer leader Gurnam Singh expressed his concern at this development. He described the move of Haryana BJP government as unleashing a reign of terror on the farmers of the state. Nevertheless, reports from the Haryana suggest that a large number of farmers from the state have already reached the Haryana-Delhi border. Meanwhile, the Haryana farmers have also decided to take out tractor rallies at district levels to protest this step of BJP government.

Thousands of farmers on tractors and trucks are marching towards New Delhi. But Haryana police in its attempt to stop them resorted to firing tear gas from drones. The entire bordering area has been converted into a fortress, reviving memories of the 16-month-long agitation by the farmers two years ago. Multiple entry points to the capital have been sealed by erecting barriers of barbed wire, spikes and cement blocks. State authorities at the instruction of the Union home ministry have suspended internet services in several Punjab and Haryana districts.

The seed of farmers’ movement which was planted in 2020 has again started blossoming. The 16-month long movement was an unprecedented struggle in the political history of independent India. The farmers lost their 700 comrades during the struggle. But they did not bow to the diktats of Modi. India’s biggest socio-economic movement spearheaded by these farmers.

After two years, once again they are on back the roads pressing their demand of MSP. In 2020, the movement was spearheaded by Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 60 farmers’ organisations. But this time the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha is the vanguard. This is a significant step forward to rope in the support of Mazdoors (agricultural labourers). It is also noteworthy for the reason that the communist parties have yet not succeeded in evolving a united front of the two divergent forces, notwithstanding their serious efforts. In the 2020 movement, though workers had participated, but it was not so pronounced. The KMM has also incorporated some of the issues facing the labourers in its ten point charter of demands.

By making a public confession of committing mistakes, Modi in 2021 had promised to implement MSP. But now at his prompt, once again a narrative is making the rounds that giving MSP would endanger economy. Strange is the logic. Atul Sood, a professor with JNU’s Centre for the Study of Regional Development, said that 86 per cent of India’s farmers were unable to sell their crops at the MSPs fixed by the government, because these are not part of a legal framework.

Modi government allowed tax concessions of Rs 1 lakh crore every year to Indian domestic corporate houses, but they were not willing to grant legal status to MSP. Corporate sector is involved in tax abuse to the tune of Rs 75,000 crore a year. Yet the government was worried about the cost involved in guaranteeing MSPs. Modi waived loans of the “super rich worth Rs 14 lakh crore, while the expenditure on MGNREGA is only Rs 70,000 crore.” What it is deliberately hiding is the fact that hardly 10 per cent of the commodities need MSP support. It is worth reminding during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had promised that all crops would be purchased at MSP, which would cover all costs and 50 per cent margin as per the Swaminathan Committee formula. The MSP of wheat should be Rs 2,478 per quintal which is only Rs 2,275 per quintal currently. Similarly, the MSP of paddy is only Rs 2,183 per quintal instead of Rs 2,866 per quintal.

There is no denying that farmers’ protests had damaged the electoral prospect of the BJP and Modi’s personal image. Strange enough, even then he and RSS are determined to protect the class interests of the corporate fat cats. Farmers of Punjab notwithstanding facing so much of accusations and insult have been resolutely carrying on the movement against the capitalist economy. The left-wing farmer organizations in Punjab have small and marginal farmers along with substantial sections of the Dalit landless as their members. Punjab is the state with the highest proportion of Dalits (most of whom are Sikhs) in the country. (IPA Service)