Rally by RSS-affiliated farmers’ body puts Modi-Shah duo on notice

The Kisan Garjana Rally organised at Delhi’s Ramleela ground on Monday by RSS-affiliated farmers’ body Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) against the ruling establishment led by Narendra Modi might have unnerved its top leaders, for it reflected the despair and anger of farmers against them.

Moreover, it may well be a precursor not only for their own decline but also preparation for sacrificing their own government to keep their support base for the larger interest of establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’.

Let us recall the call given by RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) about 20 years ago given for swadeshi as against globalisation under the premiership of Atal Behari Vajpayee riding on the ‘India Shining’ boat that capsised in the consequent general election of 2004.

The BJP was troubled from within and the RSS could not help the ruling establishment because it preferred keeping its support base to the BJP’s rule.

The RSS does not play short term politics. Its politics span over hundreds of year for establishing a strong ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and sacrificing one or two of its prime ministers or governments is immaterial.

BKS is the only one organisation at present that the RSS has brought in the forefront obviously to tame the arrogance of the Modi-Shah duo that has been harming the larger interests of the RSS. It is just like it had brought SJM to tame Vajpayee-Pramod Mahajan duo’s highhandedness.

The RSS hates its own leaders when they become bigger than their shoes and start believing that the RSS or the BJP survives only because of them. Whenever it happens in the RSS family, the entire rank and file become non-cooperative, and the arrogant leaders suffer an ouster too humiliating for them.

By now, the Modi-Shah duo has already antagonized many RSS leaders and karyakartas along with the numerous enthusiasts of the BJP by their arrogance under which they are not listening to any wise and sane suggestion. It has alienated a large number of BJP supporters. It has cost the BJP power in the MCD and Himachal Pradesh in the recent elections and cleared a little inroad into Gujarat for the AAP.

Modi’s charisma, as such, is on the wane, in the absence of non-cooperation of the RSS cadre.

The RSS has thus served a clear warning to the Modi-Shah duo that they must change their ways to keep the support base intact for the larger interest of the RSS’s long-term dream of a strong ‘Hindu Rashtra’ rather than pursuing their own interests and the interests of their corporate friends.

Choosing BKS this time to serve this message is significant. Hindutva easily catches the imagination of Hindu farmers, and the RSS evidently has a plan to penetrate into about four lakh villages of the country through their organisations before 2024 general election.

It should be noted that there are about 6.25 lakh villages in the country and penetrating into 4 lakh villages completes its dreams. It has already made its presence felt in these villages in the last three years. It had penetration in over 1 lakh villages by 2019, and during the lockdowns since 2020, the RSS karyakartas of these one lakh villages penetrated to 3 lakh villages through their relations and service work among villagers and farmers.

The level of RSS penetration among villagers and farmers can also be imagined by the fact that people from 60 thousand village committees of 560 districts of the country out of 766 had come to participate in the Kisan Garjana Rally in Delhi.

The RSS won’t be interested in foregoing such a huge base among farmers and villagers just to support the Modi-Shah duo.

The demands of the BKS now, and the demands of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an apolitical organization that led a historic farmers’ struggle in the country since August 2020 after the passage of the three controversial farm laws, are strikingly similar. The SKM had refused all the offers and stuck to the demand of scrapping of the three farm laws because they suspected that the Modi government was trying to bring corporates to the farms and the farmers would be reduced to merely labourers.

The SKM had given the call of Dilli Chalo and the farmers were barricaded at three borders of Delhi, where they started a sit in protest from November 26, 2020. After a long struggle of about one year, PM Modi had to scrap the three laws unilaterally, but the promises given were not kept. About 750 farmers lost their lives during the agitation.

Since then, farmers have campaigned against the BJP’s candidates in all elections, and the BJP has been paying a substantial cost.

The RSS cannot afford to lose its support among farmers in the first place and secondly, its larger dream of establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ is extremely important for it. It is due to this reason that they have chosen the BKS to launch an agitation against their own political wing, the BJP, which is running under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.

Just like the SKM, the BKS has also demanded a guarantee of Minimum Support Price for their produce.

The SKM had observed the third anniversary of their agitation on November 2022, and had demanded legal guarantee for MSP for their produce among others. They are planning to restart their second phase of agitation against the Modi government if their demands are not met.

The RSS-affiliated BKS has not only voiced its concern over the MSP issue but has also demanded a rollback of GST on agricultural goods to lower the input costs for agriculture. It has threatened to intensify protests if these are not met by the Modi government.

“The government will face trouble if our demands are not met in time,” warned the BKS leaders in the Kisan Garjana Rally. The warning was spelled clearly against the BJP-led Central and state governments.

The BKS is also pushing the Centre to increase the financial support provided under PM-KISAN.

Incidentally, the BKS has also demanded permission for commercial production of genetically modified crops. Recently, the Modi government allowed GM-Mustard cultivation, while experts have warned against any permission since GM crops is harmful for humans and ecology.

A case has already been filed against GM crops in the Supreme Court of India on which notices have been issued to various stakeholders including the Centre.

This demand of the BKS shows that the RSS is also trying to maintain its support base among the corporates at the same time.

PM Narendra Modi’s assurance of “doubling the farmers’ income by 2022” has miserably failed, and farmers continued to suffer, with hundreds of them committing suicides across the country.

With BKS on the war path and SKM already reviving its agitation, the entire farmers’ community of India is clearly against Modi govt’s agricultural policies.