Farmers constitute an integral part of the agricultural economy of Punjab—not just in the past but even today. Moreover, this equation of the linkage between agriculture and economy is an all-pervasive global phenomenon. Recently, farmers were seen jamming roads in the metropolitan cities of Europe with their tractors and dumping their agricultural products in public places, in protesting poor prices and the indifference of their respective governments towards the resolution of their long-pending grievances. They face challenges from the fast-growing world of corporatism, which, of late, has also turned its gaze on the lucrative business in food. The market had been poaching agriculture land for quite some time which, in turn, forced farmers to part with their only livelihood, lured by high land prices and finally adding to the burgeoning number of unemployed people. Many among those who sat on long-drawn dharnas at farmers’ protest sites earlier in the periphery of Delhi, are now camping at Khanauri and Shambhu borders on the Punjab-Haryana highway, and belong to the category of farmers who were deprived of the entire or large portion of their already small landholdings. Thus, the majority of the protesting farmers, as the general impression also alludes to, are not well off and do not have the wherewithal to remain on dharnas, away from their toiling field🍨s for a long period without further incurring losses. They generally hold small patches of agricultural land, two to three acres, and are hard-pressed both in terms of cost of agricultural inputs and poor prices of the produce🦩. They have been fighting a battle of survival in the farming profession.
Yet another facet of this long-drawn farmers’ movement for better prices of their produce as well as to guard against the corporatisation of their landholdings lies in the mega projects of what is called the Green Revolution that pushed farmers towards fertilisers and chemically-induced kheti (farming) pegged on deep tube-wells, tractors and all other tools of mechanical farming, replacing the plough and the Persian wheel. Till very recently, farmers were showered with various subsidies accompanied by repeated loan waivers, of course, to keep them enthusiastic towards filling the national food bowl. No doubt, the farmers of Punjab helped India overcome the daunting challenge of becoming self-reliant in indigenous food production against the perennial fear of starvation during food shortages in the pre-Green Revolution era. Now, in the neo-liberal Indian state, when the same farmers, who find themselves in a situation of not getting similar favourable treatment that they were used to during the welfare phase of the Indian State, resort to protest measures leading to fast unto death—Jagjit Singh Dallewal at the Khanauri border is a case in point—it require༺s a fresh probe to explicate the complexities of the current phenomenon of farmer protests i🍌n Punjab.
Situated in the larger context, the current farmers’ protest movement can be understood as a continuation of the legacy of the historic Pagrhi Sambhal O’ Jatta movement of the pre-colonial era. This historic farmers’ movement in Punjab emanated from the withdrawal of pro-farming 🐼measures, through which the British administration induced the sturdy farmers from different parts of undivided Punjab to move into its newly carved canal colonies in West Punjab and develop the vast space of arid and forest land into a cultivable one for growing food, though for its imperial interests. Pre-partition Punjab witnessed many farmer struggles that bequeathed a rich legacy for generations of farmers. With agriculture being the mainstay of the majority of its populace, and given the unregulated and oppressive system of local moneylending accompanied by heavy land revenue and water taxes, farmer struggles became a routine occurrence during pre-partition Punjab. After the annexation of Punjab in 1849, the British government put its entire land in the state under meticulously devised legal control. Another major project undertaken by the British Raj was the canalisation of large tracts of barren land, leading to the advent of irrigation and sudden prosperity among the otherwise pauperised peasants of the state, as was experienced by Punjab farmers during the initial period of the Green Revolution launched under the aegis of the Indian state.
It is in the aforementioned context that the Pagrhi Sambhal O’ Jatta movement of 1907, the pioneer peasant movement of Punjab, provides clues to the critical understanding of what sustains the vigour of the current farmers’ protests at the borders of the Punjab-Haryana highway. This movement was launched primarily to force the British administration to withdraw the Punjab Land Colonisation Act, 1906, which was aimed at depriving landowners of their land rights. However, what prompted the landowners to rise against this law was its various stringent clauses that ‘forbade the transfer of property by will’, introduc🅷ed ‘strict primogeniture as interpreted by the Canal Officer’; imposed fresh conditions like planting of trees as well as prior permission for their cutting, sanitary rules and higher occupancy fee, legalised fines and debarred the courts from ‘interfering with executive orders’ and many more similar restrictions. All this forced landholders to turn hostile and get organised under the revolutionary leadership of Sardar Ajit Singh, uncle of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who with the support of the Bharat Mata Sabha, an underground radical organisation, fought the Punjab Land Colonisation Act, 1906, tooth and nail.
The threat of losing land was articulated as a threat to the very existence (Hond di Larhai) of the landowners, and this sentiment was captured in the movement’s slogan Pagrhi Sambhal O’ Jatta (Take care of thy turban O, Jat). Eventually, the movement itself came to be known by the name of this very slogan. Similar movements in the due course of time, both in the pre- and post-independence period in the state, followed suit. Nili Bar Morcha of 1938, Amritsar Agitation of 1938, Muzara Struggle of Gurdaspur, Charhik Morcha of 1938, Korotana Struggle, Lahore Morcha of 1938-39, Harsa Chinna ‘Mogha’ Morcha of 1946, Tanda Urmar Morcha, Pepsu Muzara movement, Lal Communist Party movement, Anti-Betterment Levy Agitation, Mehatpur Byet Muzara movement, Chandigarh Morcha of 1984, and the latest farmers’ protest movement at the gates of Delhi are various such peasant agitations that kept the legacy of the Pagrhi Sambhal O’ Jatta movement alive. The ongoing farmers’ protest is also a manifestation of similar conditions, though in a different context. If in pre-partition Punjab, farmers were provoked by withdrawing facilities—through which they were initially encouraged to develop barren land into cultivable one—once the land became highly profitable, then similarly, in the current situation, they were compelled to launch a struggle in the face of the withdrawal of the state from buyin🌺g their produce at appropriate prices, once they filled the ‘national food bowl’ with the sweat of their brow.
(Views expressed are personal)
Ronki Ram is Shaheed Bhagat Singh professor at The Department Of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh
(This appeared in the print as 'The Turbanators')
