The midnight coup and the counter-coup
We have witnessed massive and small strikes of workers, employees, teachers, railways, aviation. However, never before did we experience a strike of farmers. But farmers of Maharashtra did go on strike on June 1. As the strike was about to enter the third day, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis engineered a vertical rift within the organization of farmers that gave the call of this unusual instrument to exhibit the anger and agony of the farming community in Maharashtra. As I write this article, Shetkari Kranti Morcha, the farmers’ organization that had called off the strike and had appealed the farmers to start sending their agricultural produces and milk to cities, has turned around. Jiyaji Suryavanshi, the leader of the Morcha, announced that the strike would continue. Reports are coming in from all parts of the state suggesting that farmers in many areas do not support the decision taken by their ‘self-proclaimed’ leadership and have decided to continue to agitate.
Does this mean the midnight coup that hatched has boomeranged and there is a counter-coup? The truth will soon come to fore. Another moot question is who made Jiyaji Suryavanshi the sole leader of the farming community? What was he doing at the residence of one of the minister’s close on the heels of the midnight negotiations? Farmers would demand answers.
If Fadnavis and his team members fail to quell the agitated farmers there is a fear that the agitation would relapse and in that case it would be difficult for any government machinery to maintain the supply chain of the food grains and milk to the urban parts of the state. As of now it is unclear whether farmers wish to continue with the strike or resume their business. Considering that political forces including the Congress, the NCP and the Shiv Sena worked over-time on Saturday to ensure that the strike continues, it is obvious that political players have undue involvement and interest in ensuring that the strike continues to cripple the rural economy.
Farmers in the state have been agitated about what they call government’s apathy to look in to their long pending demands for over a couple of years. There have been growing cases of farmers’ suicides in many parts, mostly Vidarbha and Marathwada and parts of South Maharashtra. To make the anger and protest flare up, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) organized ‘Sangharsh Yatra’ all over the state last month. The protest marches passed through all districts of the state to create awareness among the farmers. Though it was called ‘Sangharsh Yatra’, the main motive behind organizing this initiative was to create a united front of the rural electorate against the BJP-led state and Central Government. The effort did not evoke the desired response and the pointer was that the BJP won most of the Village Panchayat, Zilla Parishad, Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation elections held during and after the ‘Sangharsh Yatra’. To overcome this failure, the shrewd Congress and NCP leadership launched the farmers’ Strike agitation, a novel concept of protest in the Indian history.
Wisely, the Congress - NCP duo kept themselves officially away from the agitation, though all the material and financial aid was provided by various wings of the opposition parties. Surprisingly, the Shiv Sena which is a party to the state government also supported the agitation, though from the distance. The Sena that has been losing its rural base of late has been making a frantic effort to reestablish itself as the party having influence all over Maharashtra. On the other hand, Swabhimani Shetkari Saghatana and its leader Raju Shetty was also seen up-in-arms and launched ‘Atmaklesh’ (Self Torture) agitation and travelled from Kolhapur to Mumbai bear-foot. His hidden agenda was of course to exhibit his strength that had become necessary due to his differences with Sadabhau Khot, his close lieutenant now a Minister of State. In short, the stage was made set to take on the BJP and Fadnavis and this time the plight of the farmers was made the ‘reason,’ The Action Committee of Farmers was formed that gave the call of the strike two months ago.
However, the Fadnavis Government did not take the call as seriously as it deserved, perhaps because the BJP Government having an urban face does not have a rural connect. Barring a handful junior ministers, the Government grossly miss rural intelligence. As a result, till the eve of the strike neither on the party level, nor on the government level, was there any move to woo the agitating masses. Actually, it was the responsibility of the Rural Development Minister and the Agriculture Minister to ensure that the situation did not go out of hand. However, neither Pankaja Munde, nor Pandurang Fundkar jumped in to the action. Only Sadabhau Khot only Minister of State was carrying the baton.
The main demand of the agitating farmers is to waive all agricultural loans as done by Uttar Pradesh Government recently. Fadnavis maintained that the previous governments led by Congress-NCP had twice waived the loans of farmers. However, this did not prove to be the full-proof solution as the farmers have again become loan defaulters. Fadnavis wanted a one-time solution to root out the problem. Milk producers demanded raising the procurement price of milk. This would have resulted in sharp increase in retail milk prices in urban and semi-urban Maharashtra. There are couples of more serious demands. As meeting the demands would have put a huge burden on the state exchequer that is already facing an alarming liquidity crunch, Fadnavis tried to bargain time but in vain. Since a last minute-solution was not in sight, the negotiations broke down and the strike began in the wee hours of June 1.
It is a right of the civil society to agitate to put forth their demands. Thus, the farmers’ strike was very much within their right. However, what was not acceptable was the fact that at places milk tankers were stopped by groups of so called agitating farmers and tones of milk was thrown on the streets. Similarly, truck-loads of vegetables and fruits coming from Pune, Ahmednagar, Nasik and Thane were thrown on highways. This was deplorable and I am sure this was not done by milk or vegetable producers but by groups of goons, perhaps working to meet their own political gains and / or settling their own account.
Here Fadnavis plunged himself in action and had a 4-hour long marathon meeting with a fraction of the agitating farmers. After taking the break-away faction led by Jiyaji Suryavanshi in to confidence and assuring them fullest protection, the group announced at early hours of Saturday morning that since 70 per cent of the demands were met and the Chief Minister had assured to resolve the rest of the issues also in a time-bound manner, the strike is withdrawn. This announcement that came on mass media and became viral in no time, created an atmosphere of confusion among farmers and sense of suspicion about the leadership. Now the situation is such that the farmers’ community remains vertically divided and thus their unity broken from within. Such divided groups cannot pull on this type of massbased agitation for a long. Now that the supply of milk and vegetables is likely to limp back to normalcy within next 24 hours, the soared prices would also naturally reduce. That would be a great face-saver for Fadnavis and a slap on the face of so called farmers’ leaders like Sharad Pawar, Ashok Chavan, Ajit Pawar and Raju Shetty.
It would be interesting to watch if the agitation really withdrawn or Congress-NCP duo pull out another trick to sustain the pressure. In any case, though Fadnavis has won the Round One, he will have to settle the farmers’ issues till the end of his first term.
The author is a political analyst and former Member of Parliament (RS)