United Front: Farmers at Ludhiana ‘Corporate Bhajao-Desh Bachao-Punjab Bachao’ rally – Photo: Trolley Times
By Indra Shekhar Singh | First Post | India |
With parties naming their chief minister candidates, the battle has been well and truly joined for the land of five rivers. Apart from the major political parties, the breakaway Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) unions led by Balbir Singh Rajewal and Gurnam Singh Chaduni have also declared joint candidates for the state. But will farmer unions’ political foray work?
A quick recap. For over a year, the SKM doughtily held firm at Delhi’s borders demanding the three farm laws be repealed. About 750 farmers lost their lives as the movement spread to different parts of the country. It also brought farm leaders like Rakesh Tikait and Joginder Singh Ugrahan into the national limelight. Opposition parties were quick to shower their blessings on what became an anti-NDA stir.
The farmers’ leaders, claiming to be apolitical, campaigned across India not only for the repeal of the three laws, but also to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) a legal right for farmers; a demand many think is fair given the generally dismal state of agriculturists.
SKM DEFANGED
The farm laws are gone now, and so is the protest. And things have changed: It hardly matters now if the Modi government repealed the laws for political mileage or for farmers’ welfare or was forced to. The fact is that the repeal of the laws destroyed the SKM camp’s “common cause”. A schism had to open, and it did.
The alliance and seat-sharing between Gurnam Chaduni’s Sanyukt Sangharsh Party and Balbir Singh Rajewal’s Sanyukta Samaj Morcha has already been declared. Rajewal, some believe, tried to work out an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) but failed. Rajewal harboured ambitions for the top post, which the AAP couldn’t surrender and soon after launched a bitter campaign questioning the “funding” of farmers’ parties.
The political foray has caused a big rift within the SKM too. The coalition, if not dead, has drastically weakened. Important leaders like Rakesh Tikait and Joginder Singh Ugrahan have vehemently opposed this step, and maybe rightly so, because farmers will find it hard to beat the BJP’s well-oiled political machinery. They may be walking into a political trap.
Read the full story, ‘As breakaway SKM unions plough a political furrow, farmers’ movement left lonely and vulnerable’ (First Post, 23 Jan 2022), here. The writer is the Director of Policy and Outreach at the National Seed Association of India.
RELATED STORY:
The human cost of India’s yearlong farmers’ protest (Asia Samachar, 13 Dec 2021)
ASIA SAMACHAR is an online newspaper for Sikhs / Punjabis in Southeast Asia and beyond.Facebook | WhatsApp +6017-335-1399 | Email: editor@asiasamachar.com | Twitter | Instagram | Obituary announcements, click here
