SKM, which stumped Modi govt over farm bills, faces split for a second time

Chandigarh: Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a forum of farmer organisations from different states which came together in 2020 to oppose three bills passed by the Modi government, caught national and international attention after it successfully led a historic farm protest outside Delhi borders.

Thanks to SKM leadership, thousands of farmers camped day and night for over a year, finally forcing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the centre to scrap these bills last November. Several political observers marked the event as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first major political humiliation since 2014.

After their victory, SKM emerged as a major pressure group with its 9- member central core committee pledged to return again if their pending issues including legalising Minimum Support Price (MSP) were not timely addressed.

Euphoria was short-lived

Ahead of Punjab assembly polls in February this year, two key members of its core committee - Balbir Singh Rajewal and Gurnam Singh Chaduni- formed their separate political outfits in a hope that their popularity during farmer protests would translate into votes.

This was the time when the first split took place in SKM. After Rajewal formed Samyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM) with help of 22 farm unions last December,  the remaining seven core committee members - Dr Darshan Pal, Yogendra Yadav, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, Yudhveer Singh, Shivkumar Sharma “Kakka ji” and Hannan Mollah- disowned Rajewal and all other farm unions, which joined his political outfit. Similar action was taken against Chaduni as well.

SKM leaders openly declared that all those farmer leaders who formed political outfits would no longer be part of SKM. Later it issued a statement reiterating its policy of not allowing any political party to use its banner or stage.

On January 15 this year, SKM held its meeting in Delhi where it officially announced that the leaders and farmer organisations participating in elections “were no longer with SKM.”

What causes the latest split?

The reason for the latest split is being blamed on Dr Darshan Pal. A core committee member Jagjit Singh Dallewal told Newsdrum that Dr Darshan Pal helped take back all those organisations, which left SKM to join Rajewal during Punjab elections, without the consent of its general body meeting.

This move, he said, compromised the ideology and principle on which this forum was made in the first place, added Dallewal, who is the president of BKU Ekta Sidhupur, having considerable influence in Punjab’s Malwa region.

Dallewal said that “non-political” ideology was at the core of SKM formation. This was important to keep the politicians at arm’s length and to ensure that farm organisations remain committed to farmers’ welfare. Several farm organisations however violated this pact by fighting elections in Punjab due to their “greed for power”.

“Not only this, four of them - Balbir Rajewal, Harmeet Singh Kadian, Kulwant Sandhu and Butta Burjgill - were involved in parallel negotiations with the Modi government during the height of the farm protest without the knowledge of many people. They were even ready to dilute SKM’s stand on complete withdrawal of all three farm bills,” he added.

Dallewal said despite holding inquiries or taking action against them, they were again welcomed into the SKM, thereby drifting from SKM’s core ideology. All this was engineered by 16-17 farm organisations with help of Dr Darshan Pal and others by holding a meeting in Ghaziabad on July 3, which was skipped by most of the SKM members.

He added in response to this, 65 farm unions including 18 from Punjab and 15 from Haryana held a meeting in Delhi on July 12 to flay their move and again pledged to stick to SKM’s original constitution to stay apolitical.

Claiming to represent the “real” SKM, Dallewal said that the actual SKM is a group which still sticks to its core ideology. Those who have drifted away from it should have no right to call themselves SKM.

Further responding to why conflict emerged in SKM, Dallewal said two members of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) in the SKM core committee - namely Hannan Mollah and Yogendra Yadav- are in favour of electoral politics.

“They too fear their exit from SKM in future if the latter’s stand not to accommodate leaders - who plunged into electoral politics - remains unchanged,” said Dallewal.

He alleged the recent exercise to take back all such farm organisations who participated in Punjab elections was basically to keep the positions intact of those people who believe in electoral politics.

Dallewal said he personally has no problem with their viewpoint. They have every right to contest polls. But they should not stay in SKM. The reason why SKM could manage to force the Modi government to withdraw farm bills was this only that it remained apolitical till the very end.

“But the recent events hampered SKM’s credibility, which can only be restored by sticking to its core principles for which we and 65 other organisations are fully committed. We are even ready to embrace other organisations too if they are equally committed to SKM’s core plank,” he added.

However, Dr Darshan Pal refuted the charges and blamed Dallewal for having too puritanism approach views.

He told Newdrum that SKM was a front, which emerged from a situation in the wake of the farm protest. Its principle was to fight together for the withdrawal of three farm bills and further legalising MSP for farmers. Then in the course of the protest, new demands were added including justice for Lakhimpur Kheri victims.

“After the withdrawal of the farm protest, SKM is fighting hard to achieve all other pending demands and there has never been any dilution on any of our commitments.  So I don’t understand who is leaving SKM’s ideology then,” he said.

Dr. Darshan Pal said that Dallewal’s charge that they have diluted non-political ideology is also misguided. “We are still sticking to our stand that any of the farm leaders who make political formation can’t remain part of SKM,” he added.

He explained that is why SKM have yet not taken back either Rajewal or Chaduni since they are still running their respective political outfits.

“We have accommodated only those farm leaders and their unions, who gave in writing to us that they had committed a mistake by tilting towards Rajewal or Chaduni’s political outfits during Punjab elections and they are committed to maintaining the SKM unity in future,” he informed.

Dr Darshan Pal asked what problem Dallewalji has if leaders are returning back by renewing their pledging to the SKM and its core ideology.

He said the problem with Dallewalji is that he has been adopting too “puritanism approach” in order to “misutilised” the sentiments of the people.

“Farm organisations of different ideologies are part of SKM. Sometimes one has to be “flexible” to take everyone along. If tomorrow Rajewal says that he has made a mistake by fighting elections, I will be the first person to welcome him back to SKM. One can’t dictate his terms and conditions. But Dallewal is dictating those terms,” he added.

Darshan Pal said that farm unions supporting Dallewal are very small formations and have a “very limited” mass base. “There are more than 700-800 farmer organisations across the country and most of them are supporting us in taking our fight on MSP and other demands to the next level,” he added further.

Will SKM end up like BKU?

Major proof of the latest split in SKM is that both factions announced their separate programmes in days to come.

Both Dr. Darshal Pal and Dallewal factions announced a parallel grouping to the SKM’s call for protests starting from July 18 against the Centre.

Besides this, Dallewal also announced a massive one-day protest against the centre at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar next month on August 22.

Apart from this, their press communications have stopped referring to each other’s names unlike the previous practice when the names of all SKM core committee members were mentioned in all official SKM press notes.

This situation reminds many of Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) days, which like SKM gained a lot of prominence in the 70s and 80s for emerging as a powerful voice for farmers. But by the 90s, there were over two dozen BKU factions in Punjab alone.

The major focus of the BKU then was to seek better remunerations for farmers as the advantages of the Green Revolution started declining by the 1990s. This created a new problem – farmer suicides, in the wake of mounting debt on farmers. Many protests were started in order to waive farmers’ debt and increase MSP.

Farm economist Sucha Singh Gill told the Newsdrum that the ideological clashes between many leaders led to the split of BKU. Many had their political ambitions too, resulting in the dilution of their unity.

He added the rift is visible in SKM but it is hard to say right now if SKM is moving in the same direction since most of their leaders still seem committed to the larger cause.

Some political observers think that the open tug of war between various factions in SKM would demoralise the ordinary farmers who last year stayed put for months on SKM’s call. Most importantly, It allows anti-SKM forces to further foster disunity.

If SKM stays divided and the rift gets widened in future, it will become very difficult for them to set the stage for another round of farm protests when their main demand like legalising MSP is still pending and the centre has yet not committed anything on it.

On Monday, July 18, the centre made a committee strengthen MSP, eight months after it promised the same to SKM.

While the centre appointed several members at its own level, it sought the representation of three members from SKM.

On Tuesday, July 19, Dr Darshan Pal's faction declared that it would not become part of a newly formed committee formed by the centre on legalising MSP since the new committee is a farce and its terms and references are not clear.

On the other hand, the Dallewal group has yet not clarified their stand on whether they would join the centre’s committee or stay away from it.