As thousands of farmers land up in Chandigarh with a rather fixed periodicity, demanding what is due to them, and normally less than that, lovers of Corbusier’s creation whip out their SLRs and pens, snapping farmers lined up in the morning as they answer the call of nature in Chandigarh’s Rose Garden. But for all that it is worth, I used to see these protests by farmers as a great exhibition of unity among those who have made a fine art out of splitting. No one splits hair finer than the Reds, but farmer union leaders, themselves Red products, offer fairly strong competition.
It is interesting to know how every single farmer organization has its root on one or the other Naxal groups, right from Charu Mazoomdar onwards. If today you want to study Naxal activity in Punjab, you may end up writing a thesis on farmer union activity. No, no one carries Little Red Book these days, but then, not many leaders have been frisked. Who knows?
Some acknowledgements would be in order here. The headline was inspired by Puran Singh’s The Spirit Born People (Punjabi University Publication Bureau). The dispatch was inspired by an intense conversation with my friend Dharminder Kumar, now working with The Hindustan Times in Delhi.
The
Split Born People:
Punjab’s
Myriad Kisan Unions
Where Reds Run Farm Debates And Confusion Reigns
S P Singh
Chandigarh:
IN times of extreme crisis threatening their very survival, any group of people with shared worries would tend to coalesce together. But Punjab's farmers, caught between threats of MSP scrapping, plunging agri returns and apathetic governments on one hand and a looming WTO on the other, are witnessing a strange phenomena -- they split by the day.
Farmers' unions, already over two dozen and marred by ideological hair splitting about both tangible and abstruse issues, continue to split with unfailing regularity, the latest to suffer the malaise is one of the biggest BKU factions led by trademark flowing white beard-sporting Pishora Singh Sidhupur.
Split perhaps is destined to happen, considering that deeper shades of Left, the naxalites, have long penetrated deep into farmers' unions, and no one splits hair finer than these committed comrades.
Adding to the ranks of split-born people is BKU (Krantikari) led by Surjeet Singh Phool. But splitting of unions and hair have so far been the only revolutionary content of peasantry's long march towards a goal as limited as survival. Prosperity is not even being sold as an attainable goal in myriad manifestos and declarations.
Maximum recall-value union activity has been reduced for years to road-side dharnas near government's seat of power in Chandigarh when farm-issues fight for media shelf-space against photographs of fellow peasants defecating in genteel people's gardens maintained by municipal bodies. Farmers suffer lathicharge for demanding payment of arrears for sugarcane supplied to mills years ago, but the simplicity of demand fails to shock urban populace or shake regimes. Despair heightens, and more splits happen.
Today, even agri-beat reporters fail to keep track of kafquesque atrophy of umpteen BKUs but with palpable anger simmering inside the entire agri sector, intelligence agencies are perhaps the only ones keeping meticulous details of individuals. Of course, an exhaustive list may need many clones of R P Singh. (Oops! Punjab’s intelligence secrets, did someone say?)
Mix of angry farm sector and apathetic regimes has often been explosive in history. Unfortunately for those hanging by the economy's survival cliffs across Punjab's fields, the farmer unions are gripped with more confusion within themselves and total lack of clarity on what WTO-laced future has in store for them.
Upsurge of farmers' unions was fairly late as the green revolution was punctuated by the 1965 war, and then followed by politically turbulent naxalite activity and garibi hatao years, emergency and much else, but as the 1980s brought the first moments of despondency, hordes of farmers laid a month-long siege to Chandigarh and to Punjab Raj Bhawan. This was heyday unionism; Sharad Joshi sparkled nationally and Bhupinder Singh Mann-Ajmer Singh Lakhowal shined in Punjab. Never since has state seen such a siege.
Remnants of nearly all the naxalite groups infilterated deep into farmers' unions, militant activity existed side by side, and loyalists of the `line' advanced by Charu Mazumdar, Poohla Reddy, Satya Narayan, Naga Reddy and R.P.Saraf were to soon bring a culture of grow-by-splitting.
By 1983, the BKU had split into Lakhowal and Mann factions; part of the reason lay in theorising of Bhindranwale phenomenon by naxalites within.
For a few years, militant activity left no room for mass actions, but when that space was re-created, naxalites challenged Lakhowal's hold who threw out Gurmit Dittupur, Joginder Ugrahan, Balkar Dakaunda, Surjit Phool, Jhanda Singh Jethuke and finally even Sidhupur. For those brought up on Jaswant Singh Kanwal's writings, Dittupur of those days was the inspiration for Lahoo Di Lau character who is hung upside down and tormented by a snake. He and Dakaunda belonged to Inqilaabi Kender, Ugrahan, Jethuke and Darshan Kuhli to Lok Morcha or Paigaam, Ruldu Mansa was with CPI(ML) Liberation.
Lakhowal expelled Satnam Singh Behru who set up his own farmer group. By 1999, Sidhupur and Ugrahan split and all Lok Morcha people went with Ugrahan. Now CPI(ML) Poohla-Reddy loyalist comrades work the levers inside Kirti Kisan Union of Hardev Sandhu. Traversing the distance between Charu Mazumdar and R.P.Saraf's Proletariat Party of India to Internationalist Democratic Party to deepest Red shades is Khetibari Te Kisan Vikas Front.
Today so much confusion mars strategy exercises of farmer unions that every meeting can end in a potential split and more unions. Farmer unions often hold crucial meetings at Kisan Bhawan in a hall where an engraved 1985-vintage plate announces Surjit Singh Barnala as CM and Amarinder Singh as Agriculture Minister.
Clearly, politicians progress far more, while farmers have lagged behind, though both followed split routes. So next time you want to split, split for power, not ideas.
September 19