The rise of Modi is the rise of certain corporate houses: RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary

Jayant Singh Chaudhary is the vice president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, a regional political party which has its base in western Uttar Pradesh. The RLD was formed in 1996, by Ajit Singh, Jayant’s father, after Ajit broke away from the Janata Dal. Its predecessor was the Lok Dal, founded in 1980, by Chaudhary Charan Singh, Jayant’s grandfather. Charan Singh was a former prime minister of India and a famous farmers’ leader. Since its inception, the RLD has, at various points, allied with the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, and contested legislative council, legislative assembly and Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh. In 2018, it fielded a candidate for the first time outside of UP, for the Rajasthan assembly elections. Its candidate, Subhash Garg, won and is the party’s sole member of legislative assembly currently. The party’s best performance was in 2009, when it won five seats in the Lok Sabha in alliance with the BJP. Two years later, the RLD broke away from the BJP and joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.  

Jayant was the RLD’s member of parliament from Mathura between 2009 and 2014. In 2019, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Baghpat but lost to the BJP’s Satyapal Singh. He is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and served on Standing Committees on agriculture, finance and ethics during his time in the Lok Sabha. Sunil Kashyap, a reporting fellow at The Caravan, spoke to Jayant about the ongoing farmers’ protests against the three farm laws recently enacted by the BJP government, and the political landscape of UP.  

Sunil Kashyap: Can you tell us what the farm laws are and why are farmers so angry that they have taken to the streets? Do you think their demands are justified?
Jayant Singh Chaudhary: The laws have been named after the farmer—this government excels in naming things. But the bills, the reason behind the bills, the haste [with which they were passed]; its motivations have less to do with the farmer and farming. Out of the three laws that were brought in, one of them is called the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance Bill. Neither does it have anything to do with empowerment, nor does it provide any protection and there is nothing about price assurance either. If there was price assurance, then the provision of MSP [Minimum Support Price] would have been a legal guarantee under this law. They do not even mention MSP but they have given it that name.

Since the BJP has come to power, this is their main focus—they want the centralisation of politics, the centralisation of power, be it economic or social. Accordingly, there is a process of formalisation of the economy going on—the formal sector is going to be emphasised.   

The country is going through a financial crisis. People in villages do not have the money to even pay their children’s school fees. People can’t even pay their electricity bills. But if you look at the stock market—new highs, all time, lifetime highs, the stock market is jumping higher. That’s because that’s the formal sector—the country has just about 200 to 250 such corporate entities. And only 4 or 5 among them are the main players, the ones who have benefitted the most since the BJP came to power. These are the people who are running this government. They are the power behind the laws that are being made.

But what are the farmers being told? “Do your farming; don’t try to run the government. You cannot understand governance; you uneducated people cannot understand the law.” These laws are for the farmers only in name, and the farmer understands this, which is why they don’t want them and are protesting.

SK: What do you have to say about the allegations being raised time and again that the protesting farmers do not look like farmers?
JSC: Talk to them, engage with them, see if they know about farming and you will find out, instead of focussing on what language they are speaking. I went to the Singhu border [a farmers’ protest site on the Delhi-Haryana border], I spoke to them, I asked them, “Where have you come from?” I found there is resentment in them against the government. But there is also compassion—they do not want to harm anyone. They are, in fact, losing by coming here, it’s not like they are gaining anything. This stupid version you hear that says unknown forces are supporting them; these people are camped here on the roads, in the cold. They have left their villages, left their families and walked so far, what reward are they are getting? Are they fighting only for themselves? And even if it’s just the farmers of Punjab and those farmers have shaken this government today, and the farmers of Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra and Bihar also benefit from this, what is illegitimate about that?

SK: Why does the government appear hesitant to deal with the issue of MSP?
JSC: MSP is not a guarantee, it is not a right, it has no legal forum; no farmer can go to court to say that I have not been given the MSP as it was declared. And the fact is that the new laws will drastically weaken the APMC mandis [the Agricultural Produce Market Committee are marketing boards established by state governments to regulate transactions and safeguard farmers from exploitative practices by retailers]. There will be no trade in the mandis and the mandi system will become meaningless. Once that happens, where will the government buy from? Will they buy from Reliance or will they buy from the farmer? When big private firms buy the farmers’ produce, and the government has to procure produce for ration distribution, how is the government going to get those quantities? Somewhere they will have to buy from Reliance only. Hence, the farmer is scared that they are not only encouraging private participation, they are also targeting MSP. Because in this new system, announcing MSP will have no meaning. And this is being done under the garb of encouraging the private sector, because the government wants to get out of it.

Today, there is still pressure on the government to buy and that is why FCI [Food Corporation of India] godowns are full.  But the condition is such that our stock of grains is five times the required amount and yet there is starvation. When this oddity, this poor policy is questioned; they do not want to be answerable and want to be free from that. Their thinking is, today, we gave Rs 2,000 in their account [under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana wherein small and marginal farmers would get up to Rs 6,000 per year as minimum income support, with the first tranche amounting to Rs 2,000], tomorrow we will give Rs 3,000. Why do we need to buy? There is a large lobby of economists, of policy makers, who dominate this government. They are the ones explaining these things to the government.

SK: What is the prime minister Narendra Modi’s policy for farmers? Do you think that the new laws are giving an impetus to the private sector?
JSC: They are, absolutely, but see, the private sector in agriculture it is not a bad thing per se. I was a member of parliament myself when FDI [foreign direct investment] in retail was being discussed. At that time, these people [BJP] were at the opposite end protesting. They said it will wreak havoc in farming; the relationship between agents and farmer will be spoiled; why the private sector is being promoted in agriculture? Even today, our argument is not that the private sector should not enter agriculture. Farmers will have more options if some private companies come in.

But the existing mandi [regulated market] system has to be improved first. Look at Bihar, the FCI buys only two percent of the total production. And if FCI will not buy, if the government mandi system is not supported by basic infrastructure, then the farmer will not get the appropriate price. This is the experience of [reforms in] Bihar, the state which has already privatised [in 2006]. And now, they want to do the same in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, they want to ensure that the farmer has no alternative.

There is an existing system, a structure, which the farmer is familiar with. You want to demolish it and build anew but not with the intention of improvement. You want to do this so that you can prove to the entire world that you are a big reformer. And this is Modiji’s desire—whatever he does, it has to be something spectacular, unique. After his second win he wants to establish that in the 70 years of our history there hasn’t been a leader as great as him.

That is why they bring such laws. Look at demonetisation. Everyone knows it caused losses. You ask a child on the street, ask the farmers, ask the businessman, ask the BJP’s voters, ask the BJP’s leaders. Behind closed doors, everyone admits that demonetisation was a failure. But will the [BJP] government admit that? No—demonetisation was a very good decision. They are stubborn people, they won’t change. They do it and we suffer the consequences.

SK: What will be the place of farmers in “New India?”
JSC: In New India, the farmer will toll the bells empty handed, he will stand outside temples, he will beg. And those corporates who are saying that the middlemen will be removed; the middlemen will not disappear. Now, it will be a young man in a tie and a suit, who gets a job with Reliance or ITC, he will buy from the farmer at half or one fourth the price. The farmer will become a labourer—the ownership of land that the farmer has today, the ancestral rights over that land, who knows how long that will last in this scenario. This is New India, and people like us will be busy discussing issues like Love Jihad [a right-wing conspiracy theory that alleges that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriages to convert them]. And Bollywood and sports celebrities, who we see and fawn over on television, they will intervene and mediate on government policies. And there will be the pretense of see, the country is doing so well, the country is changing, there is progress.

SK: Do you think the farmers will be able to sustain their protest or the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and the BJP might break this solidarity in the name of religion, region or caste?
JSC: There is already a lot of diversion. I was reading and you can see now, the intellectuals are talking in their language, that “enough of rural politics. Why are these villagers deciding the direction the country will take?” It is the rise of urban politics. The way it is being broadcast, the discussions that are going on, and the kind of narrative that has been spun. It is all about how urban politics will decide the country’s politics—these are the analyses. These are those intellectuals who move around in the RSS’s circles and the Sangh’s forces boost them further. People in villages realised their power, the weight of their politics after Chaudhary Charan Singh. They [RSS] want to take it back.

SK: Chaudhary Charan Singh is known as the farmers’ messiah. That is your legacy but you have no presence in the farmers’ movement.
JSC: If we were in Parliament, we would have strongly opposed this bill from day one, when this law was being drafted. But I and Chaudhary Ajit Singh lost the elections. Fact is the political aspect could have been solved if there was the political will to do so; the agitations would not have happened then.

Right now, the political power of farmers has weakened. This is a social movement. This is a spontaneous movement; it has come up as a grassroots movement connected to the land itself. These people have not been called here. There is no big political force behind them and this is the power of this protest. This is the reason why these protests have found acceptance. This is why the protests are being taken seriously in the drawing rooms of Delhi and Mumbai. If we had called for RLD, not all farmers would have been able to participate in it. I went to the Singhu border; I went with a sense of service so that I could understand their concerns and voice them forward. We are working within the political system towards that.

SK: How do you place your politics within today’s dominant strain of Hindutva politics? How do you see the future of politics in India evolving?
JSC:  Identity politics does not end; politics always revolves around identity. The question is what is that identity? Charan Singh had said we will talk of the village—that will bring in and include the labourers, the agricultural workers, the tenant, the small businessmen, the ones who live in comfort, all of them. If all are brought in, then the village will not be divided. Perhaps this was his desire when Chaudhary Charan Singh chose this identity as his politics.

But the Sangh knows only one thing, they understand only one language, they are taught only one thing since childhood—their Hindu identity. An exclusionary identity that has no sanction in the spirit and constitution of this country. Those whose history is in this country, whose generations upon generations have sacrificed, who have given their all to liberate and build this country, today they find themselves outside the mainstream of the system. Now, the narrative is that it is the time of, it is the turn of Hindutva.

This why issues like love jihad and gau raksha [cow protection] have become ascendant. And make no mistake, it is all economically driven. Do you know how overnight they create these groups full of unemployed youth? They get them together, tie saffron dupattas around their head, get them ready by giving them some money and then they hand them swords. Then they go and stand on the checkposts—of police stations, districts and state borders. If someone crosses the checkpost with cows, no matter who it is, even if it’s a farmer, they will attach their flag and extort money; only then are they allowed to leave. And the police have also started coordinating with them. The police, the administration, the bureaucracy, all of them have completely adopted the BJP and have become a part of this system—they have become a part of this politics and are fully propagating it.

Saving the cow is not the idea, it is about making money. But when it’s the time for politics, the speech will be full of the Mughals. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh [Ajay Singh Bisht, commonly referred to as Adityanath], wherever he goes, he talks about the [2013] Muzaffarnagar riots, he talks about the Mughals, he talks about love jihad. He doesn’t have anything to talk about apart from this. I challenge him to give a speech without these issues, show that you can discuss anything without these. Their agenda is not the development of the country. This Hindutva is their only pillar and it is regrettable that this narrative is dominating the discourse of the country today.

SK: How has the Adityanath government performed when it comes to crime in Uttar Pradesh because incidents of murder, rape and robbery seem to be increasing by the day?
JSC: Under the patronage of the BJP’s people, a political mafia has developed in areas of ​​Uttar Pradesh, which never had organised crime, or a mafia. I am talking about western Uttar Pradesh, which was different from other parts of Uttar Pradesh.

In our areas, if a leader walked around with gun-toting aides, people would not consider him good. But now, here, too, the criminal elements get political patronage and are visible everywhere, whether it is in sand mining, contracting work, district work, panchayat work, MLA fund work, everything.

And then there is the encounter culture. The police attack the unarmed, everyone is always shot in the same spot, at the same angle, all the FIRs are also the same. The police uniform has become tainted. Ever since the BJP has taken over Uttar Pradesh, the justice system has been completely weakened. Look at Hathras, I had gone to meet the family. On one side the severe injustice to a poor family and on the other side the entire might of the whole government.

SK: In particular, Adityanath has been accused of increasingly reinforcing caste. Is his government promoting casteism in a renewed manner? What is your view on this?
JSC: For those who have not suffered it, we cannot even imagine caste. We do not understand how much caste is all pervasive. A person does not forget their caste even after being highly educated. And caste remains present even after conversion.

This narrative of development, that Modiji wants development or Modi ji does not believe in caste; they are using caste everywhere, they are fully utilising it. Where they have to divide, they use caste; where they have to consolidate, they start talking about being Hindu. This is part of their strategy. The hold of caste has not been weakened anywhere. Especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the chief minister’s caste becomes aggressive—it’s a natural trend. They feel that power has finally come to our hands.

There is some truth in the allegations against him and it is the chief minister Adityanath’s responsibility to tackle those. Society cannot run on one caste. What we call 36 biradari— the fraternity of 36 clans—that is what runs a society. If you deprive even one section of society, history is witness it causes social and political changes. All those in power who have done this have lost power.

SK: Your party’s position is already weakened. The RLD’s performance in the recent by-elections was also dismal. What do you think are the reasons?
JSC: There are challenges. There has been a social change in our traditional vote base. The BJP wants to win elections by showcasing just one fear; only one thing—Hindu khatre mein hain [The Hindu is in danger]. So, on the one hand, the people are facing an identity crisis. Today, the groups, the organisations we allied with, we bonded with, they are questioning the relationship itself. I believe this is the time we have to stay strong. We cannot change our path or our stance but we have to do that with due respect to public sentiment. We will do the things that need to be done to understand public sentiment. We need to go back to the grassroots level programmes to understand what the real issues of people are.

Why is there no work being done, no governance, despite such a huge mandate by the people [for the BJP]? There is no development; they have just not been able to create any progress. Why is it not happening? When Modiji says he himself is from a poor family then why do the farmers need to agitate on so many issues? Why did the public give them such a majority and what have they done with it? We need to understand all this.

We are launching a new program called “Mera Gaon Mera Sangathan”—my village, my community. It has been designed as a micro programme in which I will also participate as will other party leaders. We will listen to the villagers without any divisiveness. I want to listen to the villagers; I want to see where and why we have lost strength. We will take the politics of the Lok Dal to the grassroots.

SK: Will your alliance with the Samajwadi Party continue for the 2022 elections? What is this alliance’s future plan?
JSC: Our alliance will continue and in 2022 we intend to provide a strong alternative to the BJP. Akhilesh Yadav [president of the SP] is a young leader, he has progressive ideas. Our alliance will move beyond love jihad and the Mughals, we will focus on issues of development and progress.

SK: Has the RSS, the BJP and their political Hindutva damaged you in western Uttar Pradesh?
JSC: They have caused a lot of difficulties because over the last ten years, individualism has increased due to the influence of the media. The spirit of “I” has developed in our society and the BJP has entrenched itself very well in this system. Now, when I go to the villages, I see that the unemployed youth are always on the phone. And fake news is very prevalent and very fast on them [mobile internet]. The BJP keeps using this [fake news] from time to time.

Some time ago, mainstream media ran this fake news on Pakistan, that we waged battle against Pakistan and destroyed some of their territory. The army then clarified that no such incident had happened. [On 19 November 2020, several news channels erroneously cited and misrepresented a PTI report to claim that the Indian Army had conducted airstrikes in Pakistan Administered Kashmir, which caused scores of casualties and destroyed infrastructure. Later in the day, the army refuted the claims.]

The question is why was this fake news released in the first place? Because they wanted to show that they can release any level of false information and they can spread it as far as they want. They are really effective in these kinds of strategies.

But I believe that a lie cannot be cut by another lie, only truth can do that. It will be our endeavour to explain to the youth in the village, at the grassroots level, to make them aware of fake news and not to pay attention to it. We have to tell them that do not riot here by watching fake videos on Pakistan; keep the brotherhood we have. We have to train our workers in this this constructive exercise and take them to the grassroots level.

SK:  You talked about the link between the farm bills and the corporate sector. The same corporates own most of mainstream media, too, and build a specific narrative. Do you think this media chooses to highlight the RSS’s ideology more? How do you view this politically?
JSC: The media used to function in a particular way. The role of the editorial board was to decide what was responsible reporting, what was journalism. All of this was done internally; the media did not want interference from the government or from the industry. Because a free media is one of the main pillars of a democratic society and it is needed in the interest of the citizens. That is how it used to be, more or less.

Now, newspapers cannot survive on just subscription charges. Ultimately, a few corporate houses bought a few channels. They do not care about whether their audience has the paying capacity or not because their money is coming from advertisements. Corporate houses have their own agenda.

I do not know how true this is—how many editors today, have the spine to stand up to their owners and tell them, “Do not interfere in our work.” The government’s interference in the media has definitely increased significantly. That’s the crisis that the government wants to set all the agendas.

The media also has to think about this, it’s a question of their credibility after all. As long as the public is watching, you are dancing, but the day the technology shifts, no one will ask for you anymore. Several media people are bringing in the subscription model—The Caravan has had a role in that. When that change happens, these media houses will have to shut shop. A lot will depend on how much the public trusts them. Personally, I do not watch any news channels and neither does my family. Today, the news is less about facts and more about someone else’s opinions; it is more about entertainment. And sometimes you feel as if they are out to get people to fight and kill. Better then to watch a movie than this.

SK: How big a role has the media played in the present government? Do you think the media benefited them?
JSC: Absolutely. This government’s main agenda is focussed on just a few corporate houses. And this is invisible to common people. End corruption at the lower levels; increase corruption at the higher levels, so that the money reaches the government directly. And then use that money to buy the public’s votes. Use that money to control institutions that shape public perception, like the media, and to control other institutions of a democracy. This is the main focus of the BJP.

There is no transparency. How are electoral bonds in public interest [introduced in 2017, they are anonymous bearer bonds that are tax-free and time-limited and can be deposited into political parties’ accounts directly]? No one knows. Money is coming from outside but who’s money is it? This is not the common man’s money. There is no doubt that this money that is used to fight elections has also been spread among media houses.

The rise of Modi is because of the rise of certain [corporate] houses. There is a link between the corporate houses and the media. You can see that the wealth of these corporate houses will increase rapidly and Modi’s graph will increase at the same speed. When this wealth decreases, Modi’s graph will also decrease.

This interview has been translated, edited and condensed.