As we are all aware, last night we saw the rhetorical fight between the candidates contesting for the post of president JNUSU as part of the presidential debate in the historic Jhelum Lawn.

I would like to focus specifically on the speech delivered by United Left Panel’s Dhananjay. In the beginning of his speech he mentions that he is the voice of the farmers against the company Raj of the Indian government and then goes on to say that he is the voice of the struggle of dalit landless labourers in the Bihar region.

It’s quite funny to see that the Left Panel’s Presidential candidate has no understanding about the Indian Agrarian Structure and thus is unfit to contest for the post of JNUSU President.

How can he be the voice of both the “farmers” against the State and the “Dalit Landless Labourers” against the “Farmers”?

If the fight of “farmers” is against the Indian Crony Capitalist State, then the fight of Dalit Landless Labourers is against the feudal category of farmers in India, the Kulakhs of India.

Then, how is he the voice of both of them who stand in antagonism with each other?

If we trace the history of this word “farmer” and how its meaning has been created we need to look at the Punjab Alienation of the Land Act, 1909 of the British Indian regime.

This Act mandated and defined two categories of castes,

1. Agriculturist Castes

2. Non Agriculturist Castes

The motive behind this categorisation was the ease of revenue collection and protection of ‘agriculturist’ castes from the market hegemony of non agriculturist Castes, primarily the sahookars, moneylenders who were exploiting the ‘zamindars’ and affecting the revenue collection from agricultural produce which was a major source of wealth of the British Empire in India.

This act thus provided protection to the land ‘owned’ by these ‘agriculturist’ castes from the moneylenders and further consolidated land holdings in the hands of these agriculturist Castes.

Non Agriculturist Castes also included the untouchable castes  (Chamars, Valmikis, Khatiks etc)  who were mere tillers of land and they were not officially designated as agriculturists.

There were nine Castes in this category of Agriculturalist Castes-:

1. Jats

2. Rajputs

3. Ahirs

4. Sainis

5. Rors

6. Bishnois

7. Gurjars

8. Kamboj

9. Meo (Mewati)

These castes have since then consolidated their identity of ‘farmer’ and even today they have become synonymous with this idea of who is a farmer.

And they have a clear hold over land holdings in the most fertile northern Indian plains even today, for which I don’t have to provide you with enough statistics, and it should be known to you already.

This was the background to the concern I am about to raise. So I questioned Dhananjay on his presidential speech which was uploaded  by ‘aisajnu’ on their Instagram account and posted a comment highlighting that how is a voice of two visibly disparate elements of Indian society, the feudal category of farmers which I have just shown above and the Dalit Landless Labourers?

aisajnu has now deleted my comment and blocked me from following them on their Instagram account.

Is this how the Left Panel Celebrates dissent on this campus?

Your insecurities are evident now. I am your nemesis, keep it in mind.