The proponents of swadeshi plan to take this struggle to the grassroots. To take on the government's food import policy, the BMS hopes to launch a farmer-awakening programme. The BMS feels that once it makes the farmers understand the evil of food imports, they will be able to build a pressure group the government cannot ignore.
For a pilot survey, farmers in 180 of Pune district's 1,800 villages were given a set of questionnaires addressing the issues or problems faced by the farmers. The response was so encouraging that the survey was extended to 4,000 other villages of Maharashtra.
Now it plans to expand the study to two lakh villages so when the real battle starts, a sizeable number of farmers stand united. Explains BMS vice-president Keshubhai Thakkar: "Our organisation has a strong support base among the postal and health department employees in north and central India. We plan to reach every single village through these activists."
BKS and BMS leaders believe that once the danger of food imports is understood by the farmers, they will be ready to launch their agitational programme. Sources in the BMS say that the masterprint for this "janajagaran karmasuchi" is going to be finalised in the forthcoming national working committee meeting in April.
Other Sangh organisations are not far behind. The SJM plans to publish and distribute books, leaflets, and other publicity materials promoting swadeshi. In every state capital they intend to open shops for swadeshi publications. They are also not averse to the idea of taking the help of like-minded organisations. With the introduction of vans ("swadeshi raths") an aggressive campaign for swadeshi ideology is scheduled to be launched soon.
These vans will carry literature, audio and video cassettes, T-shirts and caps all promoting the swadeshi cause. SJM is preparing special video cassettes on the environment as well-how natural resources are destroyed due to "westernised development"-and even on MNC's. For the urban middle class, they are stressing on how MNC's are creating unemployment in the country and destroying indigenous industries. These cassettes feature speeches of Sudarshan and senior leaders like Dattopant Thengari, S. Gurumurthy and Bharat Jhunjhunwala.
Apart from all this, the BMS has drawn a detailed plan to organise training classes for their activists between April and July. August will see the launch of the "MNC Quit India Week". Dharnas, gate meetings and other agitational programmes have been planned. In the last half of the year, BMS leaders have marked one week for their "Save Indian Industry, Save India" campaign. That should be music to the ears of the Bombay Club.
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