January 26 and After - In the Words of a Prominent Kisan Leader

India had never seen such a magnificent sight in its history. On Republic Day, January 26, 2021, lakhs of farmers rode over one lakh tractors on the outskirts of the national capital Delhi. Each tractor proudly held aloft the national flag and the flag of the kisan organization to which it belonged.

It was an unprecedented show of peasant unity that crowned the two month long, entirely peaceful struggle by lakhs of farmers on the borders of Delhi, being led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), comprising over 500 farmers organizations in the country.

The most heart-warming aspect of these Kisan Tractor Parades was the love and affection showered on them by the common people in and around Delhi. Thousands of them came out on the streets to welcome the farmers, showered rose petals on them, and offered them sweets, water bottles and other eatables. This showed strong public support to their cause.

Central and state leaders of the AIKS, CITU, AIAWU, AIDWA, SFI and DYFI participated in the Kisan Tractor Parades at all the Delhi borders. Red flags of the AIKS flew high along with others.

The same picture was replicated, albeit in smaller proportions, in all the states and hundreds of districts in the country. Lakhs of farmers and workers came out on the streets in their tractors, trollies and other vehicles and held massive rallies at their state and district centres.

The farmers around Delhi and all over the country were demanding the immediate repeal of the three anti-farmer, anti-people and pro-corporate Farm Laws that were bulldozed by the central government; the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill that would lead to the privatization of the power sector, ending of cross subsidy and massive hikes in electricity rates across the board for all sections of working people; and a new law that would guarantee a remunerative MSP as well as procurement.

The SKM had originally wanted the tractor parade to go along the Outer Ring Road of Delhi. But the police refused and gave alternative routes which avoided central Delhi. Not wanting to complicate matters, SKM leaders agreed, with the clear understanding that the parades must take place, but must take place peacefully. It was decided to begin all the Kisan Tractor Parades from 10 am on January 26, after the official Republic Day Parade ended.

In the serious review discussion which took place in the SKM meeting at the Singhu border on the evening of January 27 it became clear that 99.9 per cent of the protesting farmers in all the borders around Delhi enthusiastically participated in the Kisan Tractor Parades through the designated routes in an entirely peaceful manner.

It was 0.1 per cent of the fringe elements among the protestors who flouted discipline and began their marches between 7 and 8 am. They were not stopped by the police, and it was they who entered various parts of Delhi. Some groups went up to the Red Fort and the ITO. One group, without touching the national flag that flies from the Red Fort, hoisted the Sikh Nishan Sahib flag from another empty flag pole. This was clearly wrong. Police unleashed barbaric repression with tear gas shells and lathi charges. One young farmer Navreet Singh was killed when his tractor overturned in the melee. Hundreds of farmers were injured in police lathi-charges and some of them are still in hospital.

The SKM immediately condemned this unfortunate turn of events in a statement released in the afternoon of January 26, and in another statement issued a few hours later, appealed to all farmers to stop their tractor rallies with immediate effect and return to their camps.

Who were the culprits in this episode? The SKM meeting concluded that there were three main culprits – Deep Sidhu, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) led by Satnam Singh Pannu, and the government with its Delhi police.

Deep Sidhu is a Punjabi actor who was the election agent of BJP candidate Sunny Deol who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Gurdaspur. Sidhu’s photos with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have become viral all over the country. From the night of January 25, he was seen instigating young farmers at the main stage of the Singhu border to storm Delhi. He is seen in a video clip at the Red Fort instigating some youths to put up the Nishan Sahib flag. The same video shows several farmers loudly arguing with him and denouncing him for this act. He is then seen escaping on a motor cycle.

As per a report in the Indian Express of January 28, Deep Sidhu on January 20 went on Facebook to livestream several tractors en route from Punjab to Delhi and said, “Picture toh abhi baaki hai mere dost.” (The picture, my friend, is still remaining.) On January 23, he shared a web channel interview in Punjabi, in which he said, “We can’t plan what will happen on January 26. It would be out of our calculations. It would be unpredictable. It is up to the Almighty what happens on January 26.”

How is it ever possible, given the massive police and Army security around Red Fort, that too on Republic Day, for some youth to hoist any flag at the Red Fort? It could evidently not have happened without ‘instructions from the top’. The Nishan Sahib flag was not pulled down immediately and was allowed to flutter there for a couple of hours, evidently to oblige the servile Godi media. The conspiracy clearly was to drive a religious wedge between Punjab and the rest of the country and disrupt the united farmers struggle.

The KMSC did not join the protests at the Singhu border on November 26 when it began. Its adherents joined over two weeks later and were escorted to a separate enclosure away from others by the police themselves. They repeatedly asserted that they would flout the designated route of the tractor parade and would go along the Outer Ring Road straight into Delhi. They also began their march at 8 am, two hours before the designated time. The police made no attempt to stop them, and when the farmers reached Delhi, police unleashed their repression.

There are many more complaints against the police. At the Palwal border, although the route decided was 45 Km, the police began its lathi charge when the paraders had only covered a distance of 15 Km. At the Ghazipur border, the police refused to remove the barricades on the designated route, and allowed the fringe elements to take another route.

The conclusion that these agent provocateurs were set up to defame and discredit the two month long peaceful struggle of the peasantry, is inescapable. On January 22, in the 11th round of talks with the SKM, the union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar is reported to have told the farmers delegation, “So now you begin your preparations for January 26. We shall begin ours.” What their ‘preparations’ were has now been exposed for the world to see. It is gratifying that at least some sections of the mainstream media and many more sections of the social media have exposed this conspiracy of violence.

The central government ls culpable on four more counts. First, it has let an unprecedented nationwide struggle of lakhs of farmers to drag on for over two months in the bitter cold of Delhi, exposing its sheer adamance, utter insensitivity, and more importantly, its complete servility to the Ambani-Adani-led corporate lobby, under pressure of which it has enacted these Farm Laws and the Labour Codes.

Second, it was the BJP state government of Haryana and the BJP central government that began tremendous violence against its own farmers through tear gas shells, water cannons and lathi charges when the peaceful struggle to enter Delhi began on November 26, 2020.

Third, it was top establishment leaders who have constantly tried to defame and discredit the valiant farmers struggle by dubbing it as the handiwork of Khalistanis, Maoists and Naxalites, and also as agents of Pakistan and China.

Fourth, the Delhi police have filed over 25 FIRs against several farmers and also against several leaders of the SKM, in an attempt at a crackdown. The farmers struggle has triumphed over all earlier conspiracies; and it will surely triumph again this time.

Drawing the proper conclusions from all these events in its meeting held on January 27, SKM leaders addressed a joint press conference the same evening at the Singhu border. While hailing the predominantly peaceful nature of the Kisan Tractor Parades around Delhi and all across the country, the SKM completely disassociated itself from the violence indulged in by fringe elements that were in connivance with the BJP government and the police.

It exposed these elements by name and called for their social boycott.

It boldly accepted the moral responsibility for what had happened since January 26 was an SKM call, expressed regret, and decided to postpone the Farmers March to Delhi on February 1 to coincide with the placing of the union budget. But it gave a clarion call all over the country to observe the Martyrdom Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated by an RSS man Nathuram Godse and his accomplices today on January 30, through large public meetings and by observing a one day fast for truth, peace and non-violence.

Most important, it announced that the farmers struggle will continue and intensify throughout the country until its demands are won.