Caste, Politics, And Agriculture: Decoding Punjab’s Farmer Mobilisation

Since the beginning of the farmers’ movement in India in 2019, the farmers of Punjab have become a special focus of analysis for writers and social scientists as well as the media. During the 2019-2020 farmers’ movement the major issue that emerged was how could this movement sustain for such a long time. The second significance of this movement was that it concluded with success to the extent that the controversial farm laws were repealed through the Parliament’s decision duly signed by the President of India. However, the Government of India did not notify the repeal of laws in the government gazette, forcing the farmers to launc🍌h another struggle these days. It seems that 🅘the Union government was determined to corporatise the farm sector and in a way misled the farmers, who believed in the government’s decision. The present phase of farmers’ struggle is a reaction to the government’s failure to honour its promise to them.

Invariably, the question is raised why the farmers of Punjab have been agitating all the time, whereas the more serious issue is how they are able to continue and sustain their struggle for such a long duration. In the existing literature on movements and political mobilisations, scholars have put forward the resource mobilis♏ation theory. According to this theory, there are two indispensable conditions for a movement: the ability to organise th🌺e people with common interests and sustain it till it succeeds. Two kinds of resources are needed for this purpose, namely leadership and ideology, as well as sufficient human and economic resources. In other words, there is a need for continuous replenishment of worn-out participants through the continuous replacement with new participants, and for funding for various purposes, including that of feeding the participants. When we examine India, the issue of caste background comes to the fore despite the fact that ‘farmer’ is an economic category comprised of large, middle and small farmers. Caste could be a facilitating as well as an inhibiting factor in mobilising people for, sometimes, even a common economic cause.

Caste identities of Punjab’s farmers is an interesting case for understanding how the dynamics of regions within India differ from others and becomes a reason for distinct political processes. The most numerous among the farmers of Punjab is the Jat caste, both Sikhs and Hindus. It was noted in 1899 by Baden-Powell when the united Punjab had Hindu, Muslim and Sikh Jats that Jats dominated villages to the extent that the villages are identified with them. It is safe to say that all Jats have agriculture as their traditional occupation and post independence, they became ꦉowner-cultivators after the passing of tenancy legislation in the state, turning all occupancy tenants into landowners. As a matter of fact, the area under princely states had witnessed a powerful tenant movement in the 1940s that morphed into the Red Communist movement after independence. After the abolition of the Biswedari system and tenancy reforms, the tenants became owners of the land that they had been cultivating for centuries. However, it should be remembered that though all the Jats are farmers, all the farmers are not Jats. Among the farmers, the prominent castes are Rajputs, Sainis, Kamboh, Lobana, Khatris, Ramgarhias and Brahmins. Owing to the Land Alienation Act of 1900 passed by the British, the transfer of land remained confined to the traditionally cultivating castes.

The caste aspect does not end here. It is followed by the local term used for the surname, got, that acquires both social and political importance. American anthropologist Marian W. Smith noted in the 1950s that there were distinct village identities in terms of got, as local people identified villages accordingly, such as Sidhu village or Gill village. Tom Kessinger further substantiated Smith’s findings when he specifically mentioned that the village he studied was dominated by the Sahota Jats. In Punjab, one may not find a single village with a particular got, rather there are adjoining villages with Jats sharing a common got. All of them sharing a surname worship their ancestor called Jathera. This aspect is not confined to the Jats, as other castes also practise ancestor worship in Punjab and many other places in India.We can see that there are two levels of solidarity a Jat is equipped with: the caste identity and the got identity, in addition to which there is village identity that has been historically made important by the Singh Sabha movement in the 19th century when many leaders abandoned their got and took on the ൲village name as their surname. These three identities together make up a strong potential for solidarity. At the same time, these features are not unique to the Jats of Punjab. Other regions have similar identities and subsequently affecting politics. What makes Punjab unique is another dimension quite specific to its political dynamism.

The existence and prevalence of factionalism among the Jats of Punjab not only provide the essential reason for joining a particular kind of politics, but also prevents caste solidarity in political terms. British anthropologist Joyce Pettigrew observed that factions among the Jats of Punjab have horizontal unity and vertical solidarity. In other words, a faction is politically affiliated in opposition to another faction of a similar kind, which seeks to garner support at the base and gets connected from region, district to the state level. As a result of this Punjab is unique in its own right. We find families and villages having allegiance to a political party and such a relationship remains stable and durable. Interestingly, there has never been any caste-based mobilisation among the Jats so far. Also, the Jats being the landowners in Punjab, have a dependent population economically and traditionally. Despite the fact that the Green Revolution has reduced economic dependence on the landowners, the low caste and class people still go along with the landowners on various issues excepting village Panchayat elections when two Jat landowners are competing. Till recently, many Punjab villages were identified as ‘Akali villages, Congress and Communist villages’, meaning that these villages would🦩 largely vote for certain parties. The Aam Admi Party (AAP) coming to power did not demolish this element of electoral politics. Rather, it benefitted from the declining political influence of Communist parties in the elections.

There is no unambiguous evidence to establish that caste has played a major role in the farmers’ mobilisation. At the same time, the existence of a large number of farmers’ unions in Punjab seems quite normal if we understand the role of factions in politics. We should not forget that farmers’ unions are also the pressure groups demanding fair treatment from the Union government. However, there are internal differences among the farmers’ unions. One of the major reasons for this is that these unions are politically affiliated to different political parties ranging from extreme left to right. So, it can be said that the present struggle of farmers is purely economic, but they are internally divided by decades’ old factional politics. So long as their economic interests are common, they may continue to stay together, but it is a temporary truce for a common cause. It would be erroneous to conclude that they could be manipulated by exploiting their politicaꦗl differences.

(Views expressed are personal)

Paramjit S. Judge is former professor of sociology, Guru Nanak Dev University & former President of the Indian Sociological Society

(This appeared in the print as 'Ties That Bind')