Day 199

Toll 505+

#FarmersProtest

Caste as Fault Line

The alliance yesterday between Shiromani Akali Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party is more a coming together to stay relevant rather than to win the next Panjab elections in 2022.

Since the sacrilege incidents in 2015/16, SAD has been on a downward spiral in Panjab. The party was decimated in the 2017 elections. Yet, in spite of big statements during the 2017 election campaign and later in Panjab Assembly, it is Congress’ Captain Amarinder and SAD’s control on the Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee – SGPC that has kept SAD propped up in the state. The BSP has not won an MP seat in Panjab since 1998 and MLA seat since 2002. Its MLA vote percentage in Panjab has reduced from 5.69% in 2002 to 1.52% in 2017. BSP remains largely unengaged with the caste issues in the state.

AAP entered Panjab with a bang in 2017. It did not perform as well as it expected or even the media expected. Now in the run up to 2022, it has not been able to build itself up. As of now, after the break-up with SAD last year, over Farm Laws, the BJP is at an all time low in Panjab. In fact, now after six months of the famer protests, senior BJP leadership in the state has started issuing statements against the central leadership on farmer issues.

The Congress, in spite of its dismal performance in Panjab, seemed to be without competition in the state in the 2022. For the past few weeks, it is entangled by inner factionalism, some even on caste lines. That is why, it could very well be that the SAD-BSP alliance has the blessings of the Central BJP leadership. While the larger sentiment remains anti-BJP, this alliance could break the traditional Dalit votes from the Congress.

For the farmers protest, the alliance forces Panjab’s numerically less, but powerful and dominant Jutts to re-consider their position. Jutts are about 25% of the population. Some are landed, many small and marginal. Dalits are 32% in Panjab. The BJP has been trying to rouse the Dalit sentiments against the Jutts but has not succeeded. Now with BSP being reactivated, that fault line can open based on a ground issue – sowing rates of paddy.

For the last many years, since UP and Bihar labour has reduced footprint in Panjab, now because of COVID-19 for two years, the local labour – mostly landless Dalits and marginal Jutts – have been asking for revised rates for their labour. The Jatts, themselves struggling with low rates at which they sell paddy, contest the labour rates.

In some villages, Jutts pass resolutions, even through panchayats and Gurdwaras, fixing the rates. They go to the extent calling for boycott of any farmer or labourer who does not abide by their paddy sowing rates. This has become a matter of contention, even an impasse in some cases.

Earlier this week, Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) issued a statement against such ‘discriminatory’ resolutions passed by any panchayat. Yet, the labour demand more. They say no rates should be fixed without consultation with the labour.

Like women, right from the beginning of the protest, the labour has stood with the farmers. We have all celebrated that solidarity. In fact, the slogan itself is ‘Kisan Mazdoor Ekta Zindabad’.

That is why SKM needs to step in and solve the impasse. If the caste fault line widens, both the farmers protest and Panjab as a state going to elections will suffer by BJP getting a foothold through the backdoor.