Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government these days is being compared by some leaders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to a “matwala haathi”, which they feel needs to be tamed. To bring this giant elephant under control so that it doesn’t become invincible, the RSS leadership has pitted its most powerful lion – the trade union wing, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).

Recently, Live Mint stated in an article that this battle will be Modi’s Thatcher moment. The late former prime minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, had one of her controversial confrontations with striking coal miners in the 1980s, which completely stained her legacy. The current encounter that Modi may be about to face almost four decades on in India, is no less. The only paradox is that it is led by BMS with the support of RSS, which is also the parent body of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of which Modi is the leader.

The Modi government’s effort to push through the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill that would open the coal mining sector to private players and allow the government to e-auction coal blocks has been strongly opposed by RSS-affiliated BMS.

The nationwide five-day strike (proposed between January 6 and 10) by employee unions of the Coal India Limited (CIL) is not only initiated but even led by BMS, with the complete backing of the top leadership of RSS.

It was BMS along with Communist Party of India’s (Marxist) workers wing Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) — that has opposed the denationalisation of coal industry throughout — which was instrumental in bringing coal workers together. Now, all the other major trade unions in the coal industry – Communist Party of India (CPI)-backed All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) and Congress-backed Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) – are forced to fall in line.

For the Congress, this is a lost opportunity since it failed to occupy the opposition space yet again. Ideally, it should have taken the lead against the BJP government, but that didn’t happen.

In an attempt to convince the unions to call off the January-6 strike, Minister of State for Coal Piyush Goyal had called a meeting of representatives of unions on January 3, but faced a boycott. This means that the country may see a five-day strike for the first time in 30 years. The last time coal workers had stalled production was in 1984, according to union leaders.

With just a few hours left for any reconciliation to happen and the unions in no mood to bow down, the country may just be headed for a historic strike. And if that happens, parts of India will face a complete blackout. With thermal power plants facing coal shortages, experts say that if the strike is not called off, there could be load-shedding across the country.

According to latest data from the Central Electrical Authority, 43 thermal power plants have coal available for less than seven days as on five days. Coal-fired power plants generate 70 per cent of India’s electricity, and any disruption means that all the other essential services like water supply, transportation, industrial production and so on will be hampered.

Clash within the saffron brigade

In a short time, ministers of the Modi government have become inaccessible to even the top leadership of RSS and the cadres who left no stone unturned for Modi’s victory in the 16th Lok Sabha elections. Naturally, this had miffed the cadres, who had worked hard to help BJP achieve the kind of mandate it did.

Ideologically, too, BMS has been opposed to the denationalisation of the coal industry. In the past, when the United Progressive Alliance was in power, it had always opposed both disinvestment of CIL and the opening up of the coal sector to private players.

While tensions were brewing for some time now, the immediate spark was what RSS leaders describe as the arrogance of Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal.

Sangh leaders claim that the minister went back on his word.

In fact, Dr Basant Rai, who is an RSS functionary and National Vice-President of BMS and a prominent leader of the coal industry, has come out in the open: “This matwala hathi [Modi government] needs to be brought under control. The government betrayed us after it went back on its words,” he said.

Another senior BMS leader YN Singh, who is the Deputy General Secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Khadan Mazdoor Sangh (ABKMS), a major trade union in the coal sector was more frank. He said, “Goyal doesn’t understand the issues related to the coal sector. Had it been Hansraj Ahir or Dharmendra Pradhan, this confrontation wouldn’t have happened.” The fallout of this battle has political, ideological and economical dimensions.

It all started with a September 24, 2014 order of the Supreme Court that quashed the allocation of 214 coal blocks given to private companies terming them as “arbitrary”. The court direction led the government to make changes in the existing Coal Mines Nationalisation Act 1973 so that fair coal block allocation can happen.

Even before the SC had cancelled the allocations, BMS leadership had met Goyal on August 9 and discussed issues pertaining to the coal sector. “We presented him a 60-page report detailing all the issues that the government needs to look into and the amendments pertaining to the coal Act,” said Singh of BMS. However, the leaders were left upset when Goyal did not pay much heed to their demands.

The BJP government, which was looking to introduce reforms in the coal sector, saw the SC order as an opportunity. On October 20, the government promulgated the ordinance for opening up the sector. They cited the reason that since the SC had cancelled the allocations, there could be coal shortages and thus it had become indispensable to open up the sector.

When the cabinet cleared the ordinance, employee unions proposed a one-day strike on November 24, the opening day of the winter session. BMS tried to influence other unions (CITU, HMS, AITUC and INTUC) to not to go ahead with the strike, claiming that it would be able to convince the government to withdraw the ordinance. “We told the BMS leadership that Modi won’t stop but they took pride in saying that they will be able to stop it. But this did not happen,” said a top leader of AITUC who did not want to be named.

When the BMS tried to sort out differences (because of its political partisanship), the coal minister “ignored and disregarded” the BMS top leadership. In a major embarrassment for the union, when they tried to meet the minister again, Goyal acted “pricy”.

According to a top BMS leader, on November 12, a meeting was fixed first at Goyal’s office at Shastri Bhavan. When the leaders reached there, the venue was changed after they were made to wait for hours. When the leaders of BMS reached the minister’s house, they were informed that the minister had left and that he didn’t have time since he needed to fly abroad.

“Eventually after a long wait, we finally met him at the airport briefly and he assured that the government would talk to us before introducing the bill in parliament,” said Pradeep Kumar Dutta, All India General Secretary of ABKMS – coal wing of BMS.

A meeting was convened by the coal ministry on November 22 to sort out the differences with coal unions. BMS remained absent from the meeting thinking it would be able to convince the government through the backchannel. Rai said BMS representatives remained absent because they were already in talks with the government, which it had communicated to other unions.

Despite Goyal’s assurance to them, government introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha that was passed on December 12 and is currently pending in the Rajya Sabha.  BMS leaders were infuriated since they had been sanghis for decades, while Goyal was a sort of lateral entry.

BMS could not take this two-sided embarrassment and approached the top RSS leadership. In a joint-meeting attended by representatives of other RSS wings in November in Nagpur, the union got a green signal from the sangh.

Though, Dutta denied knowledge of any such meeting, an RSS source confirmed the consultation with the top leadership of RSS. According to the source, the RSS told the union to go ahead with the strike until the government meets their demand.

The November-22 meeting had resulted in three trade unions, except CITU, agreeing to defer the proposed one-day strike of November 24 on the assurance that a meeting with higher authorities will be convened shortly to discuss policy-related issues. These included the deletion of the clause allowing commercial mining by private companies from Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014 before it is placed or passed by parliament. However, in a statement, the trade union said unfortunately the government did not consult the unions before introducing the bill.

After this there was a deadlock between BMS, CITU and the other unions. While CITU gave a strike notice for January 13 and started holding black-flag demonstrations, other unions remained silent. They were joined by the BMS who later took on the leadership.

However, with the backing of RSS, the BMS leaders called a joint meeting of all coal union leaders on December 17 in Ranchi to discuss a strategy. The joint meeting in Ranchi called by the BMS was attended by four unions, which decided to go on a five-day strike; CITU, which had not participated in the meeting, immediately supported the strike.

“We are an independent labour union but yes we have full support of the RSS leadership. I am more of an RSS man than BJP,” said Datta. When asked if the strike would be called off in case the RSS and BJP strike a truce, Dutta said, “The RSS will never ask us to withdraw the support as the government is not listening to us and have disregarded our leadership.”

Despite two meetings, the minister hardly understood our concerns, said Singh.

“We are a wing of RSS and not BJP. If the government thinks that the BMS will support them in all their initiative, they are wrong. We want achche din for labourers and not just for industrialists,” he added.

It should have been INTUC and not BMS that should have taken the lead. “Our leaders in the INTUC did not show any conviction and we lost out on a historic opportunity to RSS-based BMS,” said a leader of INTUC from Delhi. However, Secretary General of INTUC SQ Jama denied this. He said, “We are all united and the strike will be historical.”

CITU, which is supporting the strike, however, said it would separately hold a strike on January 13 if the January 6 plan fails. This will also put pressure on other unions. “We really hope other unions don’t back out this time,” said Jibon Rai, General Secretary of CITU.

The author has emailed questions to the coal minister for his comments but has not received a response yet. His text messages and calls too went unanswered. The story will be updated as soon as he hears from the minister.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen if and whether the “matwala hathi” is curbed, and how the prime minister will deal with his first big challenge emanating from within the saffron family.