FARMERS’ PROTEST AND JAT POLITICS

AUTHORS: DWAIPAYAN SINHA AND PRATYUSHA RAYCHAUDHURI, (M.A.students of Jadavpur University, Department of International Relations)

The recently concluded farmers’ agitation on the borders of Delhi and elsewhere against the three controversial farm-laws; the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Farmer’s (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities Amendment Act,2020- continued for more than a year and weathered many challenges. On 19th November 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that his government would repeal the three laws in the winter session in December. On 29th November 2021, both Houses of the Indian Parliament passed the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, which resulted in the conclusion of the protest.

Nature of Farmers’ Protest Before and After Republic Day

One of the most notable characteristics of the farmers’ protest was that the movement was initially led by several farmers’ unions with no single dominant leader calling the shots. However, that nature slowly changed after the violent events of Republic Day with Rakesh Tikait, formerly only a spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), coming into the limelight. 

In the early stages of the movement, more than 40 farmers’ unions decided to put aside their differences and form a coalition to launch a protest movement against the three farm laws. Thus, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha(SKM) came into existence in November 2020. The farmers had been organizing sporadic protests across the northern states of Punjab and Haryana since September 2020. However, the national media and the central government only took notice of the protests when the farmers decided to organize under the banner of SKM and attempted to enter Delhi to start their indefinite sit-in protest. On 26th January 2021, the protesters and the police clashed in several violent incidents which led to injuries on both sides. This gave the state an excuse to move in riot control forces to vacate the protest sites. Various media reports stated that the crowd of protestors was dwindling. Just when it seemed that the government had gained the upper hand on the protestors, the images of a tearful Rakesh Tikait, claiming a government conspiracy against the farmers, were splashed across television channels. 

This incident seemed to instill a new life to the movement as thousands of Jats gathered in support and decided to march to Ghazipur to show solidarity with Rakesh Tikait. 

Rakesh Tikait, who was considered to be a black sheep by many among the protesting farmers due to his past flirtations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and had failed in his experiments in electoral politics, emerged as the face of the previously faceless movement. In the early phases of the movement, leaders belonging to several political outfits were not allowed to occupy the stage as the farmers’ unions wanted to keep the movement devoid of any political color. The increasingly growing support to Tikait from the Jat community of western Uttar Pradesh drew various prominent politicians like Sanjay Raut, Jayant Chaudhary, and Sukhbir Singh Badal, as the epicenter of the protests shifted to the Ghazipur border. 

The Jats are primarily an agricultural caste group that is present in most of the northern states of India. Their main occupation is farming and the community has produced many tall agricultural leaders like former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, Devi Lal, Bansi Lal, and Mahinder Singh Tikait.

Jat Politics and Uttar Pradesh

The farmer’s agitation soon shifted to the hinterlands from Delhi. Political analysts believe that the farmers’ movement will have a significant impact in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) Assembly election in 2022. The Jat votes are crucial in deciding the fate of candidates in numerous Assembly seats and 17 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP’s phenomenal performance in the western part of the state in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019 and the Assembly election of 2017 can be attributed to the support of the Jats, where this community wields a lot of influence. Previously, the Rashtriya Lok Dal(RLD) led by the now-deceased Ajit Singh, son of the legendary farm leader Chaudhary Charan Singh, and Jayant Chaudhary were considered to be the party of the Jats. The party’s core vote bank, formed by the Jats and the Muslims, catapulted several local leaders to national status. 

The Muzzaffarnagar riots of 2013 between the Jats and the Muslims changed the landscape of western U.P. politics as the Jat community felt betrayed by RLD leaders. The BJP swooped in and successfully appropriated the Jat identity under the larger Hindutva umbrella. Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary saw a fall in electoral fortunes for two consecutive Lok Sabha elections. Sanjeev Balyan of the BJP emerged as a dominant leader among the Jats. RLD along with the other opposition parties, namely the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and the Congress now see a ray of hope to electorally capitalize on the stir.

The numerous Kisan Mahapanchayats held by various farm leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, witnessed massive turnouts which made the BJP anxious. It forced the party brass to hold a closed-door meeting with prominent local Jat leaders. Several top BJP leaders attempted to clear the “misconceptions” about the three laws and tried to convince the farmers to come to the negotiation table. The Jat farmers are engaged in cultivating crops like wheat, paddy, and maize which are covered under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime. The support from the Jat community to the farmers’ agitation stems from the demand to provide a legal guarantee to MSP as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission. The Jats are reportedly angry with U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as they feel he is favoring people from his own Thakur caste at the expense of the other castes.

Jat Politics and Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, the Jat community has the largest presence among farmers as about 90% of the Jats are engaged in the cultivation of wheat, cotton, mustard, jowar (sorghum), barley, etc. Most of these items are covered under the MSP system and are sold in mandis (a large marketplace). This forced the state’s Jat farmers to rise against the new farm laws which sought to destabilize the mandi system. The community is spread across the state and has a significant presence in 45-50 Assembly seats. The Rashtriya Loktrantik Party (RLP) led by Hanuman Beniwal exited the BJP-led central government owing to pressure from its Jat voter base. The party is a very weak force in the state dominated by the Congress-BJP duopoly and hopes to consolidate the Jat votes for electoral success. The state Congress leadership did not leave any opportunity to reach out to the disgruntled Jat farmers.

Jat Politics and Haryana

The Jats have always been a very prominent force in the state as most of the Chief Ministers have belonged to this community. The majority of the farmers in the state belong to the Jat community and they have a strong presence in 47 Assembly seats. The BJP tried to reduce the political dominance of the Jats by promoting a non-Jat Punjabi Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Minister. This policy backfired as the BJP could win only 40 Assembly seats in the 2019 Assembly election and had to stitch up a post-poll alliance with Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) to remain in power. 

The Jat community strategically voted for Congress in the Rohtak-Sonepat-Jhajjar belt. The JJP benefitted from their votes in northern districts like Hisar and Jind. JJP led by Dushyant Chautala had earlier broken away from Indian National Lok Dal(INLD) led by Dushyant’s uncle Abhay Chautala and took away the majority of the Jat votes that INLD commanded. Abhay Chautala resigned as the MLA from Ellenabad and claimed that his party is the real party of the Jats while JJP was sold out to the BJP. This put the JJP in a fix as they sought to retain the Jat votes while being in power. The party’s top leaders were forced to relay the grievances of the Jats to the BJP high command.

Many of the leaders belonging to BJP and JJP faced severe resistance from the Jats when they tried to enter their constituencies. The farmer’s movement has revived memories of the 2016 Jat agitation over OBC status and has further alienated the community from BJP. The high-handed approach to the protests by the state government has been criticized by various sections.

Jat Politics and Punjab

The state of Punjab saw some of the most intense protest programs. The farming community consists of both Jat Sikhs and Jat Hindus. They led the protest together from the front and withstood the Centre’s repeated attempts to create a wedge between these two groups by labeling the Sikhs as “Khalistani terrorists”. The state, which goes to the polls in a few days, saw all the major players like Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Shiromani Akali Dal(SAD) pledge their support to the farmers. SAD was forced to quit the alliance with BJP as their core Jat farmer vote bank started to agitate against the farm laws. The Punjab government, which was then headed by Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh, put its weight behind the farmers. The Punjab Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution seeking unconditional withdrawal of the three farm laws, thus becoming the first state to formally reject the contentious laws. 22 farmer groups have joined hands to create a new political outfit called Sanyukt Samaj Morcha and contest the Punjab election in 2022.

Conclusion

The election results of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh would be a significant indicator of the extent of the damage the farmers’ protest did to the ruling BJP. Most political observers are unsure of how the rollback of the three farm laws would impact the polls. Will the Jat community re-emerge as a dominant caste in Indian politics? That remains to be seen.

*“The views expressed in the article are author’s personal and is not endorsed by the Global Policy Consortium (GPC) or assumed by their members”