Tactical politics, pan-India appeal key hurdles for new Indian farmers’ party Samyukt Samaj Morcha

Kolkata: The possibility was always there, but now it’s a reality.

Twenty out of the 30-plus farmer lobbies from Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) in India announced on Saturday the launch of a new political party called Samyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM), under the leadership of Balbir Singh Rajewal. As reported by Gulf News earlier this month, the writing was very much there on the wall right from the time the farmers’ agitation forced the federal government to repeal the contentious farm laws.

Late last month, when Gulf News visited Singhu Border on the outskirts of Delhi, bordering the state of Haryana, the mood among the agitating farmers was quite upbeat. Harpreet Singh, one of the youth leaders from the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Punjab wing had told this correspondent: “All options are on the table and our leaders are deliberating upon them.” In roughly a month since then, SKM has made public its political avatar in the form of SSM and its decision to field candidates in all the 117 assembly seats in Punjab early next year is being see with a lot of interest in India’s social and political circles.

The big questions are whether SSM will have its desired results at the hustings and what kind of a political impact is this transformation going to have on India’s socio-political landscape in the long run. While some social scientists and academics felt that emergence of SSM was inevitable, some others found parallels between the rise of SSM and that of Aam Aadmi Party.

‘The best option’

“The peasants in India are in a state of crisis for various reasons and for a very long time now. From minimum support prices to farmer suicides, the agrarian community in the country is facing very challenging circumstances, just like the peasants in China and Russia once did. And mind you, it’s not just the backward states of India, but even in relatively prosperous states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka there has been a lot of distress within the farming community. The Indian farmers knew that they had to do something in order to be heard. Forming a political party is the best option they had to make sure they were heard and that is precisely what they have done,” Ashis Nandy, political psychologist and social theorist, told Gulf News from New Delhi on Sunday.

Nandy further said: “There is no doubt that the three contentious farm laws were repealed sensing a strong possibility of electoral reversals. So, in that sense, the launch of a political party by the farmers should be cause for concern for the ruling party and even other established political forces in the country.”

Winning over farmer lobbies

However, Nandy was not too sure whether SSM will be successful on a pan-India basis. “The new party is likely to be a very crucial factor in certain parts of India, particularly in the North. This is because the recent movement against farm laws was primarily backed by farmers from Punjab, Haryana and western UP. But whether they will be able to replicate that success in other parts and regions of India is something that we will have to wait and watch. This is because the established political parties also have their farmer wings to which many of the agitating farmer lobbies owe their allegiance. To what extent SSM will be able win them over remains to be seen,” Nandy added.

Nandy’s voice found an echo in what academic Rohit Azad had to share. Speaking to Gulf News from New Delhi on Sunday, Azad, who teaches Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said: “It remains to be seen to what extent they can spread their political appeal to the rest of India. That will be the real challenge. SSM’s future will depend to a large extent on how soon and how many more members of the agrarian community from other parts of India join this outfit.”

‘No easy task’

Explaining the point further, Azad said: “Wining votes depends on a lot of factors, apart from popular support. For instance, funding is going to be very crucial. The new party will be up against the muscle power and money power of established political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, and Samajwadi Party (SP). It’s no easy task to take on such well-organised and experienced political forces. So, how well the farmers’ party organises themselves and their finances will determine, to a large extent, their political fortunes. They may not win that many seats in these elections, simply because there is not much left.”

Azad also said that some amount tactical thinking and strategising would also be crucial. He said: For instance, in a large state such as Uttar Pradesh, SSM may not have the wherewithal to put up candidates in all the seats. But if they offer tactical support to any of the established parties and urge voters to vote for it, then that can make a crucial difference to the results in many seats — particularly in western UP.”

Both Nandy and Azad feel that in a way, the metamorphosis of SKM — a vehicle for a social movement — into SSM, the political party, was inevitable. “Given the way farmers were feeling marginalised, forming a political party was inevitable. Even if they go on to win a few seats in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, it will still give them some bargaining power in those state legislatures. The farmers needed to make sure they had a voice within the political system, they needed to make sure that they too had an opportunity to present their case among the lawmakers. So forming a political party is more out of desperation than anything else. It’s a matter of survival,” Nandy explained.

Parallels with Aam Aadmi Party

To that, Azad added: “I’d say that SSM has very strong parallels with the way the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement led to the formation of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Who would have thought that a party with absolutely no moorings in politics would actually go on to win a state election [Delhi] and be in power for this long? From that perspective, the farmers’ lobby forming a political party has a much wider and potent appeal than that of IAC, simply because even today, about 55-60 per cent of India’s population derives its livelihood from agriculture, unlike the IAC movement that was primarily an initiative backed by the middle class.”