The most interesting part of the peasant’s protest was that it was inspired, planned and executed by “Bharatiya Kisan Sangh” — an affiliate of the RSS. It was a show of strength and a sort of warning by one brother (BKS) to another brother (BJP) of the Sangh Parivar.

The peasants came to Bhopal to convey their anger and resentment over the failure of the Chief Minister to fulfill the promises, which he had given to the leadership to the BKS.

The Chief Minister has been holding “Panchayats” of various sections of the society at his residence for more than a year now. During the Panchayats, he listens to the grievances and problems of the people and gives them assurances and promises. The “Kisan Panchayat” was the first in the series. In fact, the assurances given in other “Panchayats” too remain unfulfilled. Some Ministers and top officers feel that the follow-up is poor in the Chief Minister’s secretariat, despite it being manned by a number of Principal Secretaries and other senior officers.

The BKU leaders submitted several memoranda and held many rounds of talks with the Chief Minister. During these talks, several promises were made but none were kept. This caused anger and frustration in the ranks of the BKS and that perhaps made them plan their siege of Bhopal.

According to a spokesperson of the BKS, preparations for the Bhopal rally started six months back. A date was fixed for reaching Bhopal. But it appears that neither the Police nor not the BJP leadership was aware of the development. Everybody admits that it was a Himalayan Intelligence failure. But it was a media failure too. Barring a sole exception — a Hindi daily — no other newspaper was aware that thousands of farmers were reaching Bhopal, with the intention of paralysing the city. They started arriving in Bhopal on Sunday night. They came in tractors with trolleys. They first took position near the Chief Minister’s official residence. Incidentally, the area around the CM’s residence is a prohibited area where no agitations, protests, processions etc are allowed. Section 144 of the Cr PC is permanently enforced in the area.

But the farmers openly violated the prohibitory orders and stationed their tractor trolleys on the road, blocking traffic. They made Chief Minister’s movement difficult. After occupying the roads leading to the CM’s residence, the farmers blocked movement of vehicles into and from the city. By Monday afternoon, they had occupied almost half of the important roads of the city. School buses could not ply and thousands of children were stuck in their schools. The parents had a harrowing time, fetching their children back from schools. Some small children had to wait for as long as five hours after the closure of their schools to reach their homes.

The next day (Dec 21), most of the schools and other educational institutions remained closed. In the meantime, negotiations began between the Government and the BKS leaders. A team led by the Parliamentary affairs minister Narottam Mishra agreed to accept fifty major demands. But the BKS leaders insisted that they would call-off their protest only after the acceptance of each and every demand was conveyed to them in writing.

It is learnt that at this stage, instructions came from the RSS headquarters at Nagpur to the kisan leaders to accept the Government’s assurances and call off their agitation. Apparently, the RSS leadership was of the view that the purpose of the agitation had been served. They had succeeded in warning the government that it should not take the people for granted. They wanted the Chief Minister to realise that only doling out promises would serve no purpose. Their implementation was of paramount importance. The agitation was called off late on Tuesday night after the Minister himself came to the protest venue and announced the acceptance of the demands.

According to Shiv Kumar Sharma, the state President of the BKS, the Sangh’s main demands included uninterrupted power supply, availability of soft loans, crop insurance and ensuring adequate supply of fertilisers. The total demands were more that 182 in number. Of these, the government accepted 50 important ones. The farmers had come to Bhopal with adequate provisions, fuel wood and cow dung cakes to last for 15 days. They spent two nights under the sky, braving the coldest nights of the season. They cooked their food on the roads. Old-timers say that they had never witnessed such a massive protest in Bhopal, since the city became the Capital of MP in 1956.

The awesome mobilisation by the RSS affiliate was ample proof of the deep penetration of the Sangh Parivar in the rural areas of the state. This is contrary to the commonly-held perception that the RSS is basically an urban organisation. The peasant protest proved that the RSS’ hold in the villages is equally strong.

Observers say that the rural masses were angry with the government and the main opposition Congress should have tapped the discontent. What the BKS had done, should, in fact, have been done by the Congress and other opposition parties. At present, the Congress is rudderless — right from the State Congress to the district units. The posts of Pradesh Congress Committee President and district Congress chiefs are lying vacant for the last six months. The state Congress has authorised the party chief Sonia Gandhi to fill-up the vacant posts through nomination. But she is yet to find time to do the job.

Given the absence of leadership at all levels, the Congress is in a state of coma. And the ruling party affiliates are playing the role of the opposition. If the BJP government fulfills the demands of the peasants, the credit will naturally go to the Sangh Parivar and it will reap the benefits of it in the next assembly elections, due in 2013. But looking at the massive financial implications that the acceptance of the demands would entail, the government will find it difficult to fulfill the demands. (IPA Service)