Farmer protests ‘politically motivated’, MSP law demand ‘unreasonable’, says RSS-linked magazine

As protesting farmers try to break through police barricades at the Shambhu border in Haryana to reach Delhi, the latest issue of the RSS-affiliated magazine The Organiser has called their demands for a legal guarantee of MSP “unreasonable”, and called their protests “politically motivated”. This is in sharp contrast to the Sangh’s earlier stance of supporting the agitating farmers’ demand.

The magazine also sought to link the Sandeshkhali incident in West Bengal to “sex slavery” inspired by the ISIS.

“The farmers’ agitation that we witnessed around Delhi in 2020 was in the context of three Bills related to reforms in the agricultural sector. This time around, there is no such reason,” said an editorial of the magazine penned by its editor Prafulla Ketkar.

Suggesting that the farm stir was political in nature, the editorial said, “The modus operandi is the same – massive mobilisation and blockade of roads with unreasonable demands such as legal guarantees related to Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all crops, loan waivers and pensions for all farmers to withdraw from the World Trade Organisation. Some are also raising the sensitive and provocative issue of Khalistan.”

Ketkar argued that following the 2020 protests, the Union government had announced MSP on various crops, and kept engaging with the farmer bodies.

“Even when negotiations are ongoing, the kind of mobilisation that is taking place, not just to draw attention but also to obstruct traffic on roads, is undemocratic. In the popular perception, opposition parties are fueling this protest to create an anti-government atmosphere. Using farmers in this political game undermines the genuine concerns of the agriculture sector,” Ketkar further said.

The editorial concluded