As a response to the violent agitation by the farmers of Madhya
Pradesh the Chief Minister of the state, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan, resorted
to Gandhigiri. The CM began fast at Bhopal's Dussehra Maidan on 10th
June 2017 and ended on 11th June. “I will not sit in my office, but
I will work from here”, he said. The opposition parties called it a ‘drama’ and
‘hypocrisy’. One wonders how a man groomed in RSS ideology and methodology
could adopt the Gandhian method of fasting. Is it a strategy to escape from the
failure to tackle the farmers’ agitation? Does the Sangh Parivar believe in
non-violence?
The farmers of Madhya Pradesh were on a war path towards
the government from the beginning of June, demanding waving of loans and better
price for their produce.
The protesting farmers
blocked roads, vandalized property and set vehicles on fire on Tuesday, 6th
June 2017. The police opened fire to control the situation.
The situation escalated
when five farmers
died on the spo
t in
Mandsaur and another farmer, who was allegedly detained by police died on 9th
at a hospital in Indore. The death of the farmers in police firing gave further
impetus to violence by the agitating farmers. The Free Press newspaper reported
on 8th June that 170 vehicles were burnt on Indore-Bhopal road alone
during the agitation.
From the very beginning of the agitation
the BJP and the Chief Minister were accusing the Congress party responsible for
the violence. The anger of the farmers has been brewing for some time. They are
angry because the government neither made arrangements to procure the crop on
time nor intervened to ensure a reasonable price. They threw onions on roads
given the prices of the vegetables plummeted to as low as Re 1 to Rs 2 per kg
in certain markets, especially in the Malwa region, last year. This year too,
farmers had to sell their winter crop — tomato and potato — at throwaway
prices, bearing heavy loss. According to the National Crime Record Bureau
(NCRB), 1982 farmers and farm labouers committed suicide between February 2016
and February 2017. The reasons for the suicide according to NCRB are crop
failure, failure to sell produce, inability to repay loans, and other
non-agriculture factors such as poverty and property disputes. The loan wave
declared by the Yogi Adityanath government in UP was another reason for the
agitation of the farmers.
When the farmers’ unions started agitation
the government did not take it seriously. The government reached an understanding
with Bharathya Kisan Sangh (BKS), an organization affiliated to RSS and accused
that anti-social elements were behind the agitation. This further angered the
other farmer unions and they intensified the agitation, resorting to violence.
The government could have avoided large scale violence and the loss of precious
lives, had it entered into a dialogue with the representatives of all unions of
farmers. The BJP governments both at the centre and the states have become
arrogant and dictatorial because of the numerical strength in the Lok Sabha and
the State Legislative Assemblies. The weak and disunited opposition has
further contributed to the arrogance of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar outfits.
The BJP has started paying the price for
using violence as a means for political mobilization. Large scale violence
during the farmers’ agitation in MP shows that people have learned from the
Sangh Parivar that the end justifies the means, however cruel and damaging the
means adopted. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar often kept silence when the
Vigilante groups resorted to violence. Its leaders, including central and state
ministers, indulged in hate speech against the minorities and justified the
actions of gaurakshaks. It also justified the army using a citizen of India as
a human shield to quell stone throwing in Kashmir valley. Many studies and
investigations have brought to light the role played by the Sangh Parivar
outfits in the Gujarat pogrom in which more than 2000 Muslims were killed and
more than one lakh Muslims were displaced and lost everything. The Sangh
Parivar has never accepted its culpability in the Gurjarat violence. It always
tried to defend the BJP government in Gujarat comparing the Gujarat riot with
the anti-Sikh riots in 1984.
All political parties in India have resorted to violence as a
political mobilization strategy. But the ideology of the Communist Parties and
of the BJP justifies use of violence for political mobilization. MS Golwalker,
whom the Sangh Privar considers their guruji, was an admirer of Hitler who was
responsible for murdering six million Jews in Germany. The following statement
of Golwalkar indicates his attitude towards violence. “To keep up purity of the
nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of
the Semitic races, the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested
here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and
cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into a united
whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by." (We…,
1938, p.37). The BJP, in its political journey, has amply exhibited the
ideology and approach of its guruji.
The
BJP which had only 2 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984 could increase its strength
to 282 (more than absolute majority) in 2014 through a combination of various
strategies. Polarization of the Hindus through sensitive issues like Ram Mandir
at Ayodhya, cow slaughter, uniform civil code, appeasement of Muslims, ‘pseudo
secularism’ etc. played a major role in increasing its political strength. BJP
also benefited immensely from the communal riots in different parts of the
country. Right from Ranchi riots in 1967, the Babri demolition in 1992, the
Gujarat riots in 2002 to the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 the Sangh Parivar has
always used strategies to foment, organize and spread communal riots for rich
political dividend. The degeneration of the Congress party because of large
scale corruption, dilution of secularism by adopting soft Hindutva and dynastic
functioning also contributed to the emergence of BJP as strong political
alternative to the Congress.
The BJP and RSS always deny that they do not use violence
as a political mobilization strategy. The hate speeches of the Sangh Parivar
leaders, filled with revenge against the minorities, reflect the intense
violence within them and their hate filled statements widen the divide between
the majority community and minority communities. Hate speeches create revulsion
in the minds of the majority community against the minorities. Hate speeches
present minorities as enemies, traitors, terrorists, anti-nationals etc. Take
for example the statement of Baba Ram Dev, the yoga guru turned businessman
during Sadbhavna rally organized by RSS in Haryana (April, 2016). While
referring to Muslims he said,
“Some person wear a cap and stand up, and “… say I will not
say ’
Bharat Mata ki jai’ even if you decapitate me. This country has a
law, otherwise let alone one, we can behead lakhs…if anybody disrespects Bharat
Mata, we have the capability of beheading not one but thousands and lakhs.”
Another veteran in hate speech is Praveen Togadia, the International Working
President of Vishva Hindu Parishad. Maximum number of cases for hate speech is
registered against him. According to the Home Ministry sources until August
2014 nineteen cases were registered against him in twelve cities of India.
Togadia had reportedly exhorted an audience in
Bhavnagar to force a Muslim businessman to vacate a house he had bought in a
Hindu locality. "Remember Nellie in Assam, where the police was removed,
over 3000 people died, not one of them was a Hindu. Remember Bhagalpur, where
the police was removed, so many people died that it was difficult to count, not
one of them was a Hindu. Dead bodies flew into the sea. Remember Meerut,
Moradabad, Gujarat'', said Togadia in a tit for tat to Akbaruddin Owaisi on 22nd
January 2013 at a place called Bhokar in Nanded district of Maharashtra.
The year after Modi assumed the mantle of Prime Minister was a period of hate
speech and attacks on the minorities by the Sangh Parivar organizations. “365
Days: Democracy and Secularism Under the Modi Regime- A report by Human Rights
Group” documented 200 cases of persecution against Christians,170 Against Muslims
and 230 cases of hate speech within a year of Narendra Modi becoming the Prime
Minister of India.
The
overt and covert support given by the BJP governments at the centre and the
states to the Sangh Parivar Organizations to indulge in violence against the
minorities on the pretext of cow protection, preventing love jihad and
religious conversion has created an atmosphere in which any individual or group
of individuals who are the supporters of the Sangh Parivar can take law into
their hands. As a result the Jats in Haryana, who were the supporters of BJP in
the previous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, resorted to large scale violence
for including them in the list of communities eligible for reservation. The
relatively wealthy farmers of Madhya Pradesh, who have been the supporters of
BJP, indulged in violence to get their demands accepted by the government.
The
BJP and the Sangh Parivar have to understand that violence as a means for
political mobilization has a limit; beyond a limit it will boomerang and that
is what happened in Madhya Pradesh. This is, indeed, a dangerous game. If the
BJP wants to be counted as a party of all Indians, time has come for it to shed
its hatred against the minorities and stop the culture of allowing violence
targeting the minorities. The future of BJP as a political party is in
transforming itself into an inclusive party and not an agent of Hindutva.
Without undergoing this attitudinal and ideological change, meeting the
bishops in Kerala by Amit Shah, the President of BJP, is a futile exercise.