As thou­sands of Pun­jab farm­ers con­verge in Delhi and the In­dian gov­ern­ment suc­cumbs to the pres­sure ex­erted by the Sikh peas­antry in a well-co­or­di­nated and dis­ci­plined ‘Dilli Chalo’ cam­paign, po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Ku­mar San­jay Singh traces the his­tory of Pun­jab peas­ant ag­i­ta­tions and ex­plains how the re­cently passed farm bills have spelt the death-knell of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Pun­jab.

Pas­sage of the three farm bills in the Par­lia­ment on 20 and 22 Sep­tem­ber—the Farm­ers Pro­duce Trade and Com­merce (Pro­mo­tion and Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion) Bill 2020, the Farm­ers (Em­pow­er­ment and Pro­tec­tion) Agree­ment on Price As­sur­ance and Agri­cul­tural Ser­vices Bill 2020 and the Es­sen­tial Com­modi­ties (Amend­ment) Bill 2020–has wit­nessed an in­tense peas­ant move­ment in Pun­jab. 31 farm­ers’ or­gan­i­sa­tions have com­pletely closed off the state: trains were stopped, toll plazas re­main closed, Re­liance’s malls and petrol pumps were shut and Re­liance-owned Jio’s SIM cards are be­ing boy­cotted.

Till now all at­tempts to ca­jole or pres­sur­ize the peas­antry to with­draw it’s ag­i­ta­tion have failed. In­fact, the BJP finds it­self iso­lated in Pun­jab. The fury of peas­ant ag­i­ta­tion forced it’s old­est ally, the Akali Dal to with­draw from the NDA. On 20 Oc­to­ber, the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment passed three bills to coun­ter­act the laws in­tro­duced by the Cen­tre, with the sup­port of the Akali Dal and AAP. Now that the peas­ant move­ment has reached Delhi, the BJP led NDA gov­ern­ment is con­fronted with the win­ter of peas­ant dis­con­tent.

To un­der­stand why the peas­antry is so fu­ri­ous at the farm bills and why the cen­tral gov­ern­ment has failed in tame­ing the ag­i­ta­tion it will be worth­while to un­der­stand the legacy of peas­ant move­ment in Pun­jab pol­i­tics and the roots of peas­ant anx­i­ety with the farm bills.

Peas­ant move­ments have been a pow­er­ful fea­ture of pol­i­tics in Pun­jab ever since the in­tro­duc­tion of com­mer­cial agri­cul­ture dur­ing colo­nial pe­riod.

The peas­ant move­ments in Pun­jab have de­vel­oped through dis­tinct phases.

Dur­ing the British colo­nial rule peas­ant move­ments emerged to re­sist the colo­nial gov­ern­men­t’s at­tempt to en­hance land rev­enue and in­crease tax was in the form of canal tax.

In the princely state of Pun­jab  peas­ants ag­i­tated to se­cure land which was seized by the com­bine of land­lords and of­fi­cials. The ten­ants re­fused to pay the batai or share rent to the land­lord.

In the canal colonies ag­i­ta­tion of 1907, Pun­jab peas­antry was mo­bilised by lead­ers of the stature of Sar­dar Ajit Singh, an un­cle of Sha­heed-e-Azam Bha­gat Singh. Sar­dar Ajit Singh or­ga­nized the Pa­gadi Samhaal Jatta move­ment–ag­i­ta­tion by Pun­jabi peas­ants against anti-farmer laws known as the Pun­jab Coloni­sa­tion Act 1906 and ad­min­is­tra­tive or­ders in­creas­ing wa­ter rate charges. Again in 1924 Pun­jab peas­ants suc­cess­fully fought an ag­i­ta­tion against the wa­ter rate.

Con­tra­dic­tions within this feu­dal agrar­ian sys­tem led to peas­ant mo­bil­i­sa­tions over tenur­ial rights, largely un­der the Kisan Sabha of the Com­mu­nist Party.The Kisan Sabha move­ment in 1930s mo­bilised the peas­antry on the is­sues of wa­ter rate and land rev­enue. Kisan Sabha led ag­i­ta­tions cul­mi­nat­ing in the Land Ceil­ing Act iin the post-in­de­pen­dence pe­riod.

In­tro­duc­tion of new farm tech­nol­ogy and the con­se­quent mon­eti­sa­tion of agri­cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties un­der the ‘green rev­o­lu­tion’ sig­nalled the sec­ond phase of agrar­ian trans­for­ma­tion. Un­equal terms of trade be­tween rural and ur­ban sec­tors be­came the ma­jor con­tra­dic­tion char­ac­ter­is­ing this phase, and farm­ers’ move­ments arose seek­ing re­dres­sal of this dis­crim­i­na­tion. MSP regime was a re­sult of this phase of ag­i­ta­tion.

The lat­est phase of agrar­ian strug­gle is to se­cure the se­cu­rity net of MSP. Peas­ants in Pun­jab are aware of the detri­men­tal ef­fects of ab­sence of MSP, on in­ter­ests of the peas­antry.

In Pun­jab, there is 100% gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment at MSP for wheat and paddy. But it is not the case with crops like maize, for which the Cen­tre an­nounces MSP every year, but there is hardly any gov­ern­ment pur­chase at that rate in the state.

For crops where there is no as­sured gov­ern­ment pur­chase even af­ter the an­nounce­ment of MSP in the state, farm­ers have no op­tion but to sell their pro­duce in the open mar­ket at much lower prices.

This ex­plains why peas­ants from Pun­jab are up in arms against the Cen­tre’s new farm laws and re­main firm on their de­mand for the roll­back of the con­tentious laws.

It is per­ti­nent to un­der­score that MSP is a life and death ques­tion for peas­ants from Pun­jab. While green rev­o­lu­tion trans­formed Pun­jab into the bread bas­ket of In­dia, it also trans­formed agri­cul­ture from a labour in­ten­sive to a cap­i­tal in­ten­sive process. In the ab­sence of ad­e­quate for­mal credit fa­cil­ity there’s a sig­nif­i­cant de­pen­dence of agri­cul­ture on pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions and in­di­vid­u­als for credit. The re­sul­tant in­debt­ed­ness is the most im­por­tant rea­son for the dis­tress of mid­dle and mar­ginal peas­ants in Pun­jab.

It is ur­gent that gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes this ne­ces­sity of the sup­port of MSP for the vi­a­bil­ity of the agrar­ian pro­duc­tion in Pun­jab. Desta­bi­liz­ing the sec­tor which even now is the largest source of em­ploy­ment is­n’t pru­dent eco­nom­i­cally speak­ing.

The Gov­ern­ment of In­dia can un­der­es­ti­mate the im­pend­ing agrar­ian cri­sis to it’s own peril. The emerg­ing cri­sis and peas­ant angst against the un­der­min­ing of the MSP reg­i­men would be akin to ig­nit­ing a match­stick that lit a prairie fire.

Ku­mar San­jay Singh is As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor in the De­part­ment of His­tory at the Swami Shrad­dhanand Col­lege, Uni­ver­sity of Delhi with spe­cial­i­sa­tion in Mu­ta­tions in In­dian State for­ma­tion post-1947, Ex­tra­or­di­nary laws es­pe­cially In­ter­nal Se­cu­rity Leg­is­la­tions and Hu­man Rights with spe­cial fo­cus on North-east In­dia and Adi­vasi so­ci­ety.