The severity of the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra is increasing day by day, and the growing anger of the protesting farmers is a highly worrying issue for the BJP-Shiv Sena government. Raosaheb Danve, BJP's state President has been only adding fuel to the anger among farmers with his derogatory language.
On the morning of May 8, Raosaheb Danve, after seeking blessings of Sai Baba in Shirdi, said, “Opposition should give a guarantee that farmers will stop committing suicides if loan waver is given.” This created a huge controversy, with the opposition and farmers strongly reacting against the insensitivity of Danve. Ashok Chavan, Congress President said, “Loan waiver is just one of the reliefs that farmers need. UPA had given loan waiver of Rs 71,000 crore along with a substantial increase in the Maximum Selling Price (MSP) for all crops and steps for improving irrigation.”
Before the first controversy subsided, Danve, while addressing party workers in Ahmednagar said, “Rahul Gandhi leads Congress, but has never even shook hands with a single Member of Parliament. He doesn't understand public issues. Rahul Gandhi is dumb and deaf animal. He will never become PM.” Later in the evening, while replying to a question by one of the party workers at the inauguration of Babanrao Lonikar's office in Jalna, Danve used an abusive word for farmers complaining about the 9 lakh quintal of Toor dal remaining to be purchased by the government.
Ratnakar Mahajan, Congress spokesperson, said, “Even Modi has used highly unparliamentary language about Gandhi family. Danve uses language that suits his level of thinking and culture. It has been RSS way to ridicule opponents in a derogatory manner.” He added that a sort of “race of uncivilised madness” has begun within the BJP leaders to supersede each other in the derogatory language that they use.
“Having the worst language qualifies for a higher post for RSS and BJP. They never want discourses on legitimate issues to happen and, hence, invariably use such language, but we refuse to stoop down to their level,” Mahajan said.
Soon after Danve's usage of the abusive word for farmers, six youngsters from different district in Maharashtra went to Bhokardan, Danve's village in Jalna district, and sat in protestation in front of his house. “We demand that Danve give an unconditional apology and not just issue a “regret”. Or else, we demand his resignation,” said Manas Pagar, a 24-year-old student and son of a farmer. Manas Pagar, Hanumant Pawar, Akshay Puranik, Nilesh Chavan and two other youths, all of them sons of farmers, participated in the protest.
“This was not politics. Danve insulted our father, he insulted the sweat and blood that we put into farming despite an unforgivable treatment by the government,” Hanumant said. “We had every democratic right to register our protest.”
But these six youngsters were arrested on May 12 at 11.30 p.m. under sec 151. They were locked up like petty criminals for 24 hours and were released only on the condition for leaving Jalna district immediately.
“They started talking about our arrest after many friends and journalists started questioning them about our sudden disappearance,” Manas said. “Danve thought that some faction within the BJP was behind our protests.” The act of arresting six harmless youths, who are sons of farmers, invoked huge reactions across the state, and every political party condemned it.
Ashok Chavan issued a press statement comparing these arrests with the Nazi rule of Hitler. Nitesh Rane said, “We will adopt a highly aggressive approach in the Sangharsh Yatra in the coming days. BJP should realise the extremely angry sentiments of farmers in distress.”
Maharashtra is bound to see more combative protests in the days to come.
