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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Kisan politics shows the way to a possible populism -Mukul Kesavan

Kisan politics shows the way to a possible populism -Mukul Kesavan

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published Published on Dec 2, 2018   modified Modified on Dec 2, 2018
-The Telegraph

There is something heroic about tens of thousands of farmers marching and wringing concessions from a BJP state government

The farmers’ rally in Delhi, the Kisan Mukti March, organised by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) happened the day after the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and just before the assembly elections in Rajasthan. The politics of the rally was different from the politics of elections but the two were also intertwined.

The principal agenda of the rally was the demand for a special session of Parliament devoted to farmers’ issues and the passage of two bills drafted by the AIKSCC demanding loan waivers and better agricultural support prices. Unlike the state elections, the rally was conspicuously pan-Indian: the farmers gathered in Delhi had travelled from all over India. Some two hundred organisations had gathered under the AIKSCC’s umbrella. The rally in Delhi was the result of a long drawn-out agrarian crisis that has little to do with the electoral cycle.

It came in the wake of gathering discontent and kisan mobilisation. It was in part inspired by the Long March of peasants from Nashik to Mumbai organised by the All India Kisan Sabha in March where they walked 180 kilometres to draw the attention of the state government to their plight. In Delhi, in September, the Ram Lila ground hosted the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally, where Left organisations representing workers, agricultural labourers and peasants gathered to critique the Central government’s indifference to rural livelihoods and the despair gripping India’s villages.

The Long March and the September rally were both initiated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its affiliated workers and peasants organisations. One of the paradoxes of the CPI(M)’s political career is that its presence in class politics remains relatively pan-Indian even as it has shrunk electorally into a provincial rump. After its rout in Bengal and its defeat in Tripura, the bracketed ‘M’ in the party’s name might well come to stand for ‘Malayali’.

This would be cause for regret if only because the CPI(M) is the one party that pays lip service to the idea of a materialist politics. Given the identity politics that defines contemporary India, there is something heroic about tens of thousands of farmers walking for a week led by Left organisations that count for nearly nothing in the electoral politics of Maharashtra, and successfully wringing economic concessions from a BJP state government.

The Left was also important in the organisation of the Kisan Mukti March, which represented the combined efforts of many groups and organisations. Sitaram Yechury addressed the gathering as one of many political leaders. One of the successes of the rally was the number of Opposition leaders who lent it their support. The Aam Aadmi Party as the party of government in Delhi helped with administrative bandobast and the chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, often seen as the quintessential urban politician, lent it his full-throated support. Rahul Gandhi, despite pressure from the Delhi unit of the Congress to shun Kejriwal, shared a platform with him. They were joined by leaders of the Trinamul Congress, the National Conference, the Nationalist Congress Party (represented by Sharad Pawar himself) and the Communist Party of India. The Bahujan Samaj Party stayed away because it didn’t want to be seen sharing a platform with the Congress till the state elections were over and while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam didn’t participate, Kanimozhi was careful to send a message saying that her party’s absence was the result of a ‘miscommunication’.

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The Telegraph, 2 December, 2018, https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/kisan-politics-shows-the-way-to-a-possible-populism/cid/1677252?ref=top-stories_home-template


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