Chandigarh: With the fourth round of talks between protesting farmers and Union ministers under way in Chandigarh, all eyes are on the two farmer leaders, Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarvan Singh Pandher, who have been spearheading the protest that entered its sixth day Sunday.
Dallewal, the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta Sidhupur (BKU Ekta Sidhupur), made the headlines Thursday after a video purportedly showed him talking about checking PM Modi’s rise in popularity. Pandher, who heads the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) which represents landless farm labourers, had courted controversy during the 2020-21 protest for leading farmers into Delhi on Republic Day.
Farmers from Punjab have been protesting on the Punjab and Haryana border near Shambhu since 13 February to press for a legal guarantee of a minimum support price for their produce, among other things. The first three rounds of talks between farmers’ leaders and Union ministers, including Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda, failed to yield any results.
One farmer died of a cardiac arrest and several others were injured Friday when Haryana Police and paramilitary forces used tear gas shells and plastic bullets to disperse them at the Shambhu border.
Most of the 32 farmer organisations from Punjab, which had come together to form the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) during the 2020-2021 protest against the three Central farm laws, are not directly participating in the protest this time. Dallewal and Pandher have had run-ins with the SKM in the past.
Some of the organisations, however, have shown support from outside.
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Mahasangh’s ‘Kakkaji’ among Dallewal’s supporters
Dallewal (65) is from Faridkot and is considered close to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. On his invitation, the CM or one of his ministers has been participating in the talks with the Union ministers.
Dallewal’s role as an independent leader came under attack after a video surfaced Thursday, purportedly showing him talking to farmers about the spike in popularity of the Prime Minister after the Ayodhya Ram temple inauguration and how there is only a small window of opportunity to bring the graph down. The Congress, however, came to his rescue, saying that any farmer leader is free to air a political opinion.
BKU Ekta Sidhupur was formed by Punjab farmer leader Pishora Singh Sidhupur, who had been the national vice president of the BKU when Uttar Pradesh farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait was leading it. Dallewal took over as the head of BKU Ekta Sidhupur after Sidhupur died of a heart attack in 2017.
BKU Ekta Sidhupur has been active in the Malwa belt fighting for the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations. It has also been at the forefront of protests against land acquisition and the imposition of cess on canal water, apart from demanding compensation for farmers who died by suicide. Lately, it has been demanding financial compensation for farmers who gave up paddy stubble burning.
It was one of the 32 farmer organisations from Punjab that had come together to form the SKM. However, after the 2020-21 protest ended, the SKM split. Dallewal was critical of SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal for forming the Samyukta Samaj Morcha to contest elections in Punjab in 2022 and party to the SKM decision to suspend Rajewal and his group. But, once the elections ended, the SKM welcomed back Rajewal and his group. Dallewal then broke away with a handful of other SKM members to create SKM (non-political) and refused to participate in SKM programmes. Since then, Dallewal has expanded the base of SKM (non-political) with organisations from Haryana, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.
Shivkumar Sharma ‘Kakkaji’, who heads RSS-affiliate Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh, has been among Dallewal’s constant supporters. Due to this, Dallewal has faced criticism for allegedly working for the RSS agenda, especially from Rajewal, who has often said publicly that Dallewal has been an active member of the Mahasangh for years.
Dallewal also hogged headlines in November 2022 when he undertook a fast to protest against remarks made by Punjab CM Mann about farmers’ organisations. No SKM member supported this fast, which he finally ended after Punjab Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal apologised to him on Mann’s behalf.
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Pandher led ‘rail roko’ protests in 2020, 2023
Pandher (58) is from Amritsar and emerged as a leader of the landless labourers during his student days. In 2007, he joined hands with Satnam Singh Pannu to form the KMSC, a breakaway faction of the Kisan Sangharsh Committee. The KMSC cadre primarily comes from Punjab’s Majha region.
The KMSC organised a ‘rail roko’ protest across Punjab in September 2020 against the three central farm laws. It did not, however, join the 2020-21 SKM protest at the Singhu border initially. Nearly a month into the protest, in December 2020, the KMSC cadre reached the Singhu border and set up its stage, separate from the main SKM stage. The KMSC stage came to be known as the ‘majhe wala‘ stage.
On Republic Day in 2021, when a large number of farmers protesting at the Singhu border managed to enter Delhi, leading to violent clashes with the police, Rajewal accused Pannu and Pandher of working with the Delhi Police and facilitating the farmers’ entry into Delhi only for them to be trashed. Rajewal called the duo “traitors” and alleged they were trying to jeopardise the farmers’ cause by diverting attention to the 26 January violence. Pandher quickly issued an apology via an interview.
On 30 January, barely a few days after the Republic Day violence, a mob entered the Singhu protest site and attacked the KMSC stage, injuring several protesters. The police, called in to control the mob, allegedly remained mute spectators. Pandher again faced criticism for not giving any official written complaint to the police for several days after the incident.
Last year, Pandher brought together 18 different farmer organisations in Punjab and formed the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, which also includes farm labourers’ unions from several other states. One of the first agitations by the morcha was the September 2023 ‘rail roko’ protest across six states.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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