The Jat agitation is rising and growing exponentially; crossing the epicentre of Rohtak the agitation and subsequent violence has reached new parts of Haryana, making the Haryana government of the BJP cripple before the community it once wooed to rise to power.
The BJP government, following its Brahminical fascist ideology, has brought in the army and paramilitary to suppress the agitating Jats. The Manohar Lal Khattar government has issued shoot-to-kill orders to the forces and the security forces killed 3 people on 19 February itself.
The violence is continuing, which has given the ruling BJP and its parent body, RSS, the opportunity to infiltrate the ranks of the agitators and carry on loot, arson and communal rampage in Jind and Rohtak. Most Jat agitators have confirmed the outsider angle in creating the ruckus and arson in Haryana, which even went to the extent of assaulting students living in the girl's hostel of Maharshi Dayanand University.
The national mainstream corporate media, the self-styled nationalist journalists, who were until yesterday blaming the unarmed students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University for plotting an anti-India coup, have suddenly resorted to a self-censored mode on the Jat reservation agitation.
In the meantime, the parliamentary left and other opposition political forces have adopted an attitude of complete indifference towards the Jat reservation agitation, which has become a great setback for the BJP government in Haryana, as Jats were an upper caste ally of the Hindutva forces against the Dalits, Tribals and minority communities.
One reason, which is mostly used as a shield by the protagonists of the parliamentary left, is that the Jats historically have been feudal landlords and they are agitating under the aegis of the feudal organisations that are attempting to harm the interests of the Dalits and Tribals.
Probably that can be the case, probably the entire movement is steered by the most reactionary feudal sections of the society, still, it leaves the vital question unanswered- can one justify the violent repression carried out by the government on the Jat reservation movement?
From a Marxist angle, any struggle must be analysed by checking who are participating in the struggle and against whom it is directed. Only a concrete analysis of the concrete facts can let us arrive at a conclusion.
The Jat agitation has participants from the Jat community of Haryana, many of them are feudal landlords, rich farmers with a great tract of land holdings. However, the broad ranks of the agitators are filled by middle-farmers, middle and lower-middle class city dwellers. They make the numbers, not the landlords or rich farmers. Also, the security forces or the government will not dare to shoot the feudal landlords and the elite Jats, who will rather control the action on the streets and not necessarily be an active participant. The people who are getting killed are of course those who are at the have-not level, which makes it a type of mass revolt of a particular community under the leadership of the feudal forces.
The agitation was against the BJP government, which itself is a Brahminical fascist regime that promotes communal hatred and polarisation of voters through venom spitting and vitriol. The fascist government of the BJP has ordered the killings and have sent the military to combat unarmed Jats in Haryana. Though the merit of their demands can be a subject of scrutiny and debate, however, their valour displayed against the top enemy of the Indian people, the Sangh Parivar, needs to be hailed by the progressive and democratic forces.
Any act of condemning a movement against the ruling classes, against the corporate-funded fascist Hindutva brigade under any circumstances will only strengthen the saffron camp to repress the Jat agitation brutally and then to apply similar strategies to suppress mass movements, especially of workers and peasants, in which the Haryana government has deep expertise.
For the sake of the unity of the people against the corporate-funded communal fascism of the RSS and its offshoots like the BJP, it is necessary that the revolutionary left and the democratic forces rally their support behind the struggle of the people of Haryana against the state-sponsored violence that has killed people protesting against the government.
Communal violence must be condemned by the left and democratic forces, however, the analysis of the movements by social groups should not be judged by the face value of crooked coverage by the corporate media; rather such analysis should be made by gathering the facts from the ground level.
It is the duty of the Marxists to stand beside every force that fights against the communal fascist menace, against the ruling classes. Even in the case of an internal rift between two sections of the ruling classes, the Communists should be ready to utilise that rift and widen it, to take forward the cause of the working class and the toiled peasantry. Unless it is done the cause of the broad rank of people will be significantly betrayed.
Thus, it's imperative for the communists to integrate themselves with the Jat community and wean the majority of the poor and oppressed Jats from the camp of the Hindutva fascists and make them strong allies of their class brothers from other communities, especially the oppressed Dalits and Muslims in a holy crusade against the rich feudal landlords and their political outfits like the BJP.
The poor and downtrodden section of the Jats should not be left to die in the hands of the state machinery, rather the communists should bring them under the fold of the left and thereby widen the rift within the enemy camp. Missing such chances and stamping a community using notorious stereotypes will not help the revolutionary movement even an iota. So, it's better to shed-off the false notions and work extensively to win more friends to isolate the enemy.
