Chandigarh: Farmers’ unions and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been at loggerheads ever since the RSS’s annual report for 2023-24 claimed that the latest farmers’ protest was being used to restart anarchy in the poll-bound country and that separatist terrorism in Punjab has again raised its ugly head.
Two days after the said report was released in Nagpur, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee – farmers’ bodies leading the Delhi Chalo agitation currently stuck at the Punjab-Haryana borders – slammed the RSS in a media briefing here today.
They said that the RSS’s assessment was not just hollow but also smelled of a conspiracy to defame their peaceful agitation so that people don’t question the BJP ahead of the general election.
They also said the RSS’s remarks were uncalled for and alleged that it was an organisation that continues to promote polarisation for the BJP’s political gains.
Saying that the comments in the RSS’ report were unfortunate, Jagjit Dallewal, who is convener of the SKM (non-political), stated: “We are being called anarchists, but it was our youth who were attacked mercilessly by the security forces of BJP-ruled Haryana to halt our peaceful march to Delhi for our legitimate demands.”
The protesting farmers’ demands include minimum support prices (MSPs) for their crops, debt waivers and pensions.
Dallewal said that though a young farmer was killed and hundreds more were injured, the protesting farmers did not retaliate and remained patient.
“Is it anarchy when even today, hundreds of our farmers are peacefully waiting at the Punjab-Haryana borders for routes to Delhi to reopen?”, Dallewal added.
He said it is the RSS that was causing anarchy in the country and said it tended to forget what Punjab stands for as far as sacrifice and national unity are concerned.
Dallewal said that up to half of those who sacrificed their lives to make India free from British rule were from the undivided Punjab.
But look at the history of the RSS, he said, claiming that while their leader V.D. Savarkar tendered an apology only to release himself from British jails while Punjabis, who were hung during the freedom struggle, are being questioned now.
He also said that the Punjabis’ sacrifice for their motherland was not just historic and that when the country was recently humiliated in the wake of the Chinese intrusion in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, it was people in the Sikh and Jat regiments who protected India’s sovereignty and gave a befitting reply to intruders.
Dallewal added that this was in addition to the “supreme sacrifice” of Punjabi soldiers, whom he called sons of our poor farmers and workers, who arrive every now and then draped in the Indian flag.
He said, “We don’t need a lecture from those who claim to respect the national flag but did not hoist it in their Nagpur headquarters for almost 50 years.”
Sarwan Singh Pandher, another leader of the Delhi Chalo agitation, said that the RSS is now thinking about ending the concept of minorities and accused it of dividing the nation.
Pandher said this line of thought clearly reflected the RSS and BJP’s polarisation agenda and also contradicted their own Citizen Amendment Act, which promises protection to minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
He said disruptive forces like the RSS can’t be good for the country and its constitution, which otherwise ensures equal rights to all citizens irrespective of caste and religion.
Another farmer leader, Abhimanyu Kohar, said during the media conference that the RSS was calling Punjab’s farmers as anarchists but asked what was to be made of farmers in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Haryana and other states who are also protesting for the legalisation of MSPs.
“Are they anarchists too?” Kohar asked.
He said that whenever the ruling government fails to answer the people’s legitimate demands, it often comes out with all sorts of allegations to defame them.
Kohar continued to say that the RSS’s latest allegations on the farmers were also the BJP’s “diversion tactics”, which are bound to fail.
He also asked why senior ministers from the BJP government held multiple rounds of negotiations with protesting farmers if the unions were spreading anarchy in the pretext of farmers’ protests.
Young farmer’s death takes centre stage
The death of Shubhkaran Singh, a young farmer who was killed during clashes between farmers and security forces in February, has taken centre-stage in the farmers’ agitation against the BJP-led Union government.
Listing out the agitation’s future programmes, Dallewal informed the media that Shubhkaran Singh’s mortal remains are being carried in a procession through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other states.
In remembrance of him, a tribute ceremony is being organised on March 22 at Majra Piyau in Hisar and then on March 31 in Ambala, where farmers will assemble in large numbers to address what Dallewal said are the Modi government’s unfulfilled promises, including a legal guarantee on MSPs.
Apart from this, farmers’ bodies planned major programmes on March 23 at all their morchas in Shambhu and Khanauri to remember the sacrifice of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
Dallewal said that maha kisan rallies are being planned in April to list out the BJP government’s failures and to ensure that their issues remain in the wider political narratives as the country votes in phases to elect a new Union government.
