As Pun­jab shifts into elec­toral gear and po­lit­i­cal par­ties jos­tle to po­si­tion them­selves just right, the farm­ers’ ag­i­ta­tion sees in this sce­nario an ex­is­ten­tial cri­sis. The farm­ers’ move­ment, the likes of Bal­bir Singh Ra­je­wal, Dar­shan Pal and their co­hort sus­pect, will not be able to grap­ple with this new re­al­ity. They have now opted for a dik­tat that di­rectly speaks to the very ques­tion of democ­racy. Se­nior jour­nal­ist and de­bate mod­er­a­tor, SP Singh, en­gages in an an­i­mated con­ver­sa­tion about whether farmer unions were cor­rect in ask­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties to not un­der­take elec­tion cam­paigns at this junc­ture.

Pun­jab is pass­ing through an ex­is­ten­tial mo­ment in his­tory, and wit­ness­ing a war of nar­ra­tives. One of the most widely sup­ported re­sis­tance move­ments – against the three fed­eral agri­cul­ture-re­lated laws that were rammed through in Par­lia­ment by the Modi gov­ern­ment – now seems to be run­ning into an on­com­ing elec­tion ma­chine.

The ag­i­ta­tion fears that once the par­ti­san po­lit­i­cal ma­chine gath­ers speed, the mor­cha will lose out in the game of eye­balls, head­count, me­dia space and steam gath­er­ing. Any par­ti­san po­lit­i­cal joust is likely to bring out fis­sures within the so­ci­ety and will split the elec­torate in vil­lages and towns. Elec­tion cam­paigns, by their very na­ture, are loud, noisy and di­viders of votes, nar­ra­tives, loy­al­ties and po­lit­i­cal strengths, the move­ment lead­ers fear.

Claim­ing a mo­nop­oly over re­sis­tance pol­i­tics, most farmer unions un­der the ban­ner of Samyukta Kisan Mor­cha (SKM) have is­sued a di­rec­tive, la­belled as “ap­peal”, ask­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties not to in­dulge in any po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity: “Do not call too many peo­ple, do not hold ral­lies, do not do elec­tion­eer­ing, do not go can­vass­ing for votes, do not do po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity in vil­lages or cities that might be seen as vote can­vass­ing ex­er­cise.” That’s the sort of nar­ra­tive that has be­come the stan­dard line of those claim­ing loy­alty to the Singhu bor­der mor­cha hordes. 

The fact is that po­lit­i­cal par­ties at­tract the same cadre that’s also camp­ing at the bor­ders or is seen as the sup­port base of the farmer move­ment. The SKM’s “ap­peal” came with a rider: “Those who do not ad­here to it will be un­der­stood as op­po­nents of the Kisan mor­cha.” This has had a chill­ing ef­fect on any mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion about how the farmer ag­i­ta­tion and sched­uled elec­toral process will find a way to play out at the same time.

Pol­i­tics, as every­one and his un­cle un­der­stands, is a highly com­pet­i­tive field, and the pro­ject to get into power is a full five-year-long ex­er­cise, not just the last 15 or 30 days al­lowed for cam­paign­ing. The Kisan Mor­cha lead­ers said politi­cians are free to at­tend so­cial func­tions, but the So­cial-Po­lit­i­cal line is a Ma­son-Dixon bound­ary for politi­cos.

By ask­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties to with­hold their ral­lies, the Kisan Mor­cha is ac­tu­ally recog­nis­ing their power. But at the same time, the party in power at the Cen­tre, and the one in State, are splash­ing crores on ad­ver­tise­ments that clearly are aimed at im­pact­ing voter minds.

In an era when po­lit­i­cal par­ties are into spin-doc­tor­ing, and the Prashant Kishoring of elec­tions starts hap­pen­ing months or years in ad­vance, the Samayukt  Kisan Mor­cha’s dik­tat against poll ral­lies is prob­lem­atic, to say the least.

Be­sides, there are deep fis­sures within the farm­ers’ ag­i­ta­tion, with BKU (Ekta Ugra­han) not fully back­ing the call of ap­peal to po­lit­i­cal par­ties to not hold ral­lies. Be­sides, the Ugra­han group is­n’t re­ally in love with par­lia­men­tary democ­racy.

In an era when po­lit­i­cal par­ties are into spin-doc­tor­ing, and the Prashant Kishoring of elec­tions starts hap­pen­ing months or years in ad­vance, the Samayukt  Kisan Mor­cha’s dik­tat against poll ral­lies is prob­lem­atic, to say the least.

Be­sides, the SKM is not giv­ing any guar­an­tee that el­e­ments with ac­cess to the Singhu Bor­der Dharna stage will not be can­di­dates in up­com­ing polls. That com­pli­cates the de­bate even fur­ther.