Social activist Yogendra Yadav said on Saturday that he had “no complaint” or had “no grudge” against Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the leading organization of farmers’ organizations that oppose the three agricultural laws, for singling him out for one person the peasant chamber has suspended month.
On Thursday the Samyukt Kisan Morcha suspended social activist Yogendra Yadav from the peasant body for a month after meeting the family members of a BJP employee who was working during the Violence in Lakhimpur Kheri. The farmers’ organization suspended Yogendra Yadav for a month because he refused to apologize for the act.
In an exclusive interview with India Today TV, Yogendra Yadav spoke at length about his suspension from the SKM and other issues related to inciting farmers against farm laws.
Yadav said the SKM needed to find more creative plans and the need to take farmers’ agitation beyond four to five states, including Punjab and Haryana, to create “multiple pressure points” to get the union government on the negotiating table.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Q. Do you think that you have been severely punished by the SKM compared to other SKM members like Gurman Singh Chadhuni who have been banned in the past?
Yogendra Yadav: I have no grudge or complaint (against the SKM’s suspension decision). Whatever the collective judgment was, that’s fine. I will stick to it. I wouldn’t waste my timing comparing who got what punishment and why I got this (long) punishment. In a bigger picture in the movement of this scale, these are side problems. And I think it’s important not to get distracted by these minor issues. My suspension is also a side problem. It would be a shame if a movement like this were diverted into the secondary topics.
It is absolutely important to maintain the unity of this movement and that is my focus.
Q. You do not want to comment on the different penalties and actions taken against other farm managers who have faced disciplinary action from SKM.
Yogendra Yadav: It is up to the others to judge, it is not something I should access.
Q: After the violence in the Red Fort on January 26th, the agitation of the peasants has made no progress. Why so?
Yogendra Yadav: It would be wrong to say that the movement has made no progress. Yes, there is no progress in negotiating with the government.
The movement is advanced. I think the response to attempts to eject (Rakesh) Tikait on January 28th gave the movement a huge boost. The government tried to kill the movement, but it failed. The response to the mahapanchayats of farmers across the country is a huge boost to the movement. So we made progress.
I think this movement has achieved three things so far: First, the farmers have regained their own respect. Second, the farmers have realized that they have political weight. And thirdly, the peasants have achieved a unity that is unparalleled in the history of the country.
The problem is that we haven’t made any progress on the three (agricultural) laws. That’s because the government was so persistent. And the Prime Minister has made it a matter of prestige not to give in to the farmers. We’re stuck there.
Q. But you’ve been on the streets for a year not to expand the base of the movement but to ensure the repeal of the three farm laws. And there is no progress in that direction. Don’t you think there’s something missing in the movement that is why you can’t bring the central government to the negotiating table or pressure it to accept your demands?
Yogendra Yadav: Yes, one thing is missing is the kind of intensity that we have achieved in Haryana, Punjab, Western UP, and Eastern Rajasthan that doesn’t exist in many other states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. But please remember that no movement in the history of this country has ever had such an even presence across the country. Movements are always uneven.
Even so, the movement has put tremendous pressure on the BJP leaders. Ask any BJP leader – in off-camera conversations – they would accept how much pressure they are under due to the peasant movement. So the pressure on the ruling party leaders is growing. Any other less undemocratic prime minister would have given way by now.
Q: But do you agree that the SKM lacks the innovative or creative ways to get the government to the negotiating table?
Yogendra Yadav: We can always do better than what we do. We can think of increasingly creative ways to put pressure on the government and get more people involved.
There are two major loopholes in this movement: One is our inability to involve the working class, the common workforce. The (changes to) the Basic Goods Act would affect them. Second, we have insufficiently mobilized the urban middle classes, which could play a decisive role.
Q. The SKM has aggressively criticized the violence that took place in Lakhimpur Kheri. Farm managers met with family members of the farmers who were killed in the violence. However, when a person is hacked to death on the Singhu border, the SKM’s reaction seems contradictory. Not a single prominent SKM leader has met the grieving family members of Lakhbir Singh. No compensation was announced for the family, and no condolences were expressed. Do you see the dichotomy in the responses from SKM leaders?
Yogendra Yadav: It’s a new incident and we’re still responding to it. We are not someone to announce the compensation. But in principle yes – we should share in everyone’s grief or loss. Especially when someone’s death is linked – in one way or another – to the morcha.
Q: Did the SKM make a mistake by not accepting the central government’s offer months ago? Because after the negotiations stalled, we only saw that the SKM organizes events after events without concrete results or decisions on the agricultural laws being available.
Yogendra Yadav: I don’t think it was a mistake because the government made an offer that no peasant organization could have accepted. It was therefore unanimously rejected. I thought the government offer was the beginning of a serious negotiation. In fact, what happened in the first ten rounds (the meetings between the SKM and representatives of the central government) was not a negotiation at all. The negotiations did not begin until the 11th round. If things had continued in the spirit of the negotiations, we would have arrived somewhere.
Unfortunately, the government was not serious about investigating. The negotiations stalled because the government or the prime minister personally stopped this completely. I know for a fact that many BJP leaders, ministers and even bureaucrats are desperate for a solution. In fact, they proposed the solutions to the Prime Minister. And there are many negotiation or solution packages that are in circulation that can lead to serious negotiations. But unfortunately we hear that the Prime Minister has stopped these developments. Because somehow he feels like his prestige suffers when you see him step back.
Q: And do you think something like Mission Uttar Pradesh can make the government rethink its position?
Yogendra Yadav: Mission UP should be. And it’s still an attempt because we think UP is important to them. The developments there will make a difference. So yes, that can be a pressure point.
But with a movement like this you have to think about multiple pressure points. We don’t know which one ultimately works. I said there should be more focus now on leading the movement beyond the four-five states. Because the pressure that arises from it makes the difference.
ALSO READ | Why protest when agricultural laws are suspended, the Supreme Court asks farmers
एक टिप्पणी भेजें