India: monster of pathological nationalism against small farmers

Amit Bhaduri

Amonster of not an entirely known shape has recently been injured, but how badly is not fully known. That only the future will tell. The monster, they say is a creation of Indian majoritarian democracy gone rogue. That monster, some say was born out of repeated attempts at perverting the Constitution by means fair and foul, constitutional and unconstitutional. The monster also kept changing its shape. It appears in empty legal forms hollowed out of truth, and were presented as laws needed for defending the land against unlawful activities by internal and external terrorists. The monster propagated a version of pathological nationalism meant to silence all opposition, all dissent, and smooth out all differences of opinion by force where necessary. In the meantime its presence was felt in every corner of the country as it kept destroying poor peoples’ livelihoods in the name of economic growth and development, in the name of abolishing black money and corruption. That monster operates in a land of multi-party democracy where electronic images have replaced the real, where advertisement is news and real news is subversive.

The serious blow that was dealt to this multi-headed monster was not sudden. Strength to deliver this blow was gathered with extraordinary stoic courage and tenacity by a very large number of Indian farmers who had originally gathered and settled in temporary tents, tractors and trollies on the border of the capital city of Delhi through winter summer and rain. They had not been allowed to enter the city. And yet, they acted peacefully with remarkable patience and just waited to be heard. They had found unacceptable the three farm laws the government had recently passed in the parliament, and had dubiously hurried through in the upper house with voice votes, because they might not have had a majority needed there. The government first tried to disperse them, treating them as rioting mobs with water cannons, tear gas, and so on. And when this did not work they barricaded the farmers on the roads leading to main entrances in Delhi. The government tried to make a show of talks with the farmers. With altogether 11 rounds of meetings spread over several months, it avoided altogether any discussion of why the farmers wanted the three laws repealed. The deadlock continued, but the farmers had worked out a new strategy by then. The government had encircled them with barricades and police; now it was the farmers turn to encircle the whole area at different points with more and more farmers peacefully joining the movement from surrounding villages . The government kept on accusing the the farmers of being Sikh separatists, anti- nationals and left – wing extremists, Naxalites, and Maoists. A friend joked: Mao had told, ‘encircle cities with villages’. The farmers are doing precisely that without ever having heard of Mao. This is metaphysical justice for our Prime Minister Modi and his home minister Amit Shah who had absurdly accused them of being Maoists. Farmers organised all this, but without a trace of violence.

Typically, the entire family of mostly self-employed peasants participated in the movement from nearby villages. They did work on the farm by rotation. Women came every evening after the day’s work, and their number swelled along with their determination, often beyond everybody’s imagination. They had far greater staying power than daily wage earners in farms and factories. Their stoic, tenacity of daily routine now directed at furthering the movement became formidable, unimaginable for the government which was ready only for a violent showdown. It was gradually losing nerve.

In many of these areas, especially in Haryana adjacent to Punjab, patriarchy is very strong in the villages; the upper castes dominate the village councils, ‘Khap Panchyats’ and dreadful caste domination prevails. Agricultural labourers mostly Dalits supported the movement because they realised that these laws were soon going to replace with private trade and profiteering the public system of distribution of grains

which was their sustenance. Media persons visiting these areas reported in amazement that traditional divisions are breaking down not only on the Delhi border but elsewhere; class, caste, gender and religion are all getting fused into a grand movement with a single objective: repeal the farm laws and ensure minimum support price for trade in several agricultural produce. The isolation of the government and BJP was almost complete by now as farmers simply began to boycott BJP workers in villages, surrounded public places when BJP politicians were scheduled to speak. The ruling party members were immobilised, and needed police protection to move around.

An unintended consequence of Modi-Shah regime just some months before the farmers movement had been the spontaneous mobilisation of Muslim women in thousands against the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) which was openly aimed against the Muslim minorities. Such unintended consequences that drew women into the movement turned out to be a most potent medicine working against Modi-style surprise announcements by surprising him instead, although it usually caught the political opposition unprepared. Such surprise announcement had earlier been very successful when Modi had declared Demonetisation and sudden severe lockdown without preparation and warning. Even just before the farm laws, Modi government rushed through the parliament anti-labour laws and faced relatively little resistance, as mostly party based large trade unions proved incapable of putting up effective, sustained resistance. In this background the emboldened government passed the three farm laws basically preparing to hand over the official procurement and the food distribution system of the country to two of its closest corporate allies from Gujrat, the two biggest private industrial houses in India.

The farmers had started putting up almost temporary townships on some entry points to the capital of Delhi, quietly prepared for a long struggle. Now they were spreading out to several areas with new local leadership and initiatives emerging. Their leadership was their very own without accepting advice or guidance from any political party. Instead opposition political parties felt compelled to support this massive movement. It was a collection of thirty six farmers’ unions that came together with different perspectives and membership, continuously engaged in debates and discussions among themselves, and united as a rock once a decision was taken. Quite unknowingly they showed to the world what democratic centralism can actually mean and achieve in practice. The movement remained open and transparent, peaceful against all provocations, and invincible because it had total support from all who were in the movement. It transformed the notion of party discipline imposed from the top into voluntary participation with self-imposed, coordinated discipline for a cause.

This historic movement started about a year ago on 26th November, 2020 and had its first strategic victory on 19 November, 2021 when the Prime Minister of India suddenly appeared on the T.V to announce his retreat, his intention to withdraw the three farm laws. His sudden announcement earlier on Demonetization in 2016 was officially meant to eradicate black money. This was a few months before the U.P state elections. It gave his party the BJP a tremendous comparative edge in terms of monetary resources because it had inside information, whereas, opposition parties were caught unaware and became immobilized. The PM was then at the peak of his popularity, and able to sell himself as the White Knight, fierce fighter against black money, even if his earlier promise before the election of depositing rupees fifteen lack (lakh =one hundred thousand) in every citizen’s account by bringing back black money abroad had vanished in thin air. And yet, the poor people suffered gladly the hardship because they still believed in their prime minister, and BJP won the U.P election with a massive majority. That was 2017.

The brightness has faded. The next election in UP, the most populous state in the country with maximum representation is around the corner. The BJP has lost badly state elections in west Bengal in the east and, in Tamil Nadu in the south of India.

Central and north Idia is now the battlefield, and the farmers movement has crystalized in many areas there. BJP intends building a huge temple in the name of the Hindu god Rama, and hopes its religious strategy of building a Hindu Rashtra would work in this traditional Hindu heartland. Against this divisive religious ideology of the BJP can the farmers offer anything, because many of them are also traditionalist Hindus? Many confessed they had voted for BJP in the last election for that very reason, and there had been Hindu-Muslim riots. Daylight simply began to go out for BJP when the farmers too came forward with their political understanding why these laws were so important for the government. Soon after the movement began, the farmers clearly identified big specific corporate interests that were driving the farm laws. They simply put the cat out of the bag among corporate fed pigeons – the politicians with Modi leading them, the media, the market liberalizers and even the IMF- World bank type economists who adorn all governments. They named the two biggest industrialists from Gujrat, close friends and associates of the prime minister as the intended main beneficiaries of these laws. Some evidence was on the ground, the silos as potential grain warehouses of Adani, making inroads into the retail food market and preparation for on-line bulk trading by Ambani. The farmers’ minimalist ideology was potent and alive, derived from their life experience. They were not afraid to state it simply and openly. It was not a party line dictated from the top.

Many tend to confuse the farmer’s peaceful movement of ideological originality with Gandhian or Anna Hazare type anti-corruption movement. This is wrong. That the movement is peaceful does not make it Gandhian. Unlike Gandhi and his view of Trusteeship of the wealth of the country with industrialistsits in charge, the farmers took an an open anti-big business stance in agriculture. That there is corruption in a prime minster selling out Indian agriculture for the profit of two corporations does not make it a part of any silly anti-corruption movement which looks only at individual money making through illegal transactions as corruption. Mr. Modi was actually intending to change the laws to make everything legal!

This movement is unique in its tenacity, and staying power, in its ability to forge unity across class, caste, gender and religion with a straightforward ideology which goes to the heart of the matter. This is why it could not be crushed. And it is now history, the government failed to crush it.

However it opens up probably a most important question of our era. Can movements born out of shared life experience of a vast number of people replace political parties and create potent, alive transformative, pro people politics with ideologies relevant to the particular movement? Political parties have repeatedly shown they are not capable. They are in the game of competitive electoral politics where money is crucial; catering to public prejudice is essential; a spade cannot be called a spade because in representational politics image is more important than reality, the ability to create illusion and hypnotise the public, and make them oblivious of ugly reality is the aim of the game. Speaking well is more important than acting. Media and advertisement are crucial aids for replacing reality with image, and for that the support of big money from big industrialists is indispensable. Cohesion of the party requires organizational discipline imposed from the top; the central leadership sets the line, and the followers follow. Vote banks created by manipulation of religion and caste to create a majority are at the core of democratic elections as we know it now. The farmers’ movement showed that these distortions can be corrected to a large extent , they can be overcome in course of a movement.

The farmers did not tell people to vote for this opposition party or that. They opposed BJP’s anti-farm policies, were disgusted by Modi’s imperial arrogance, repelled by his politics of creating religious division, and his lack of decency in dealing with them. He did not once regret the death of 670 farmers at the protest; he maintained silence over the suspected involvement of his minister’s son in the killing of four farmers by crushing them under a car, even when the minister himself had threated them openly earlier in a public meeting.

People have been invited to vote on the basis of their shared experience. They

have been invited to judge policies that support only corporate interest. They have been made aware of the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional intentions of the government. Movements have also earlier put or removed political parties to power. The Aam Admi (AAP) party in Delhi rode to power entirely on the shoulder of an Anna Hazare led anti-corruption movement which prided in not having an ideology! Since then it has become a creature of retaining power by any means as its only ideology . The once mighty CPM (Communist Party Marxist) which prided on its Marxist ideology in west Bengal was arrogant enough to ignore the life and death question of the peasants. Then the civil society stood up with the peasants, and the Trinamul Congress captured that popular mood to ride to power. It has nearly obliterated CPM from west Bengal politics , along with shattering the BJP recently in the last election. The Congress party had earned rich dividends, won popular support and removed BJP from power in the general election of 2009 when it passed the Right to Information and nationwide rural employment guarantee act, but since then it has increasingly proved it believes in a secular liberal democracy only so long as the family dynasty is not disturbed. BJP is arrogant in its belief that clever exploitation of Hindu-Muslim religious divide will deliver it victory in elections, and tries to be clever by half by hiding all the ugly, divisive issues of the Hindu caste society, its oppression of Dalits, scheduled caste and suppression of tribal rights.

The farmer’s movement has so far acted as an antidote to many of these pathologies from which political parties in democratic India suffer.

Unemployment is an overwhelming issue but is made relevant only during elections. No political party has even tried to figure out seriously a plan to tackle it. Poverty, child malnourishment, destruction of livelihood and nature in the name of economic growth and development become transient issues highlighted only at election times. All parties contribute to these ugly tendencies when in power, and they all oppose when in opposition.

The farmers movement spelt out the name of the game clearly. It is meant to hand over the economic control of the country to a few large corporations and keep the poor undemanding and submissive by throwing occasional charity at them. There are some differences, mostly of degree. Mr. Modi has surpassed all in practising this ideology most ruthlessly with single minded devotion. The farmers movement forced open to the public this scheme of things. Not all contradictions have been solved by this movement, but a beginning has been made thanks to the understanding by India’s farmers. What is more, they have made people, ordinary poor people gain confidence that things can be altered once they too understand, unite and persist. In a way it is frightening for the entire political class, because it will not be business as usual. The farmers movement has established this as our newly gained reality beyond the political rhetoric of a dysfunctional democracy.

Amit Bhaduri received a Ph.D. (1967) in the Cambridge University and has taught in various universities as visiting professor, including Presidency College and Institute of Management, Calcutta; Delhi School of Economics and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum; El Colegio de Mexico; Stanford University; Vienna and Linz University, Austria; Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Bremen University, Germany; and Bologna and Pavia University, Italy. Bhaduri has published more than 60 papers in standard international journals and is currently on the editorial boards of five of them. He has written six books, dentre eles Development with Dignity (India: National Book Trust, 2006).