Tikri Border: The Day the Farmers’ Protest Ended

Jasbir Kaur Natt recalls when she and her farmer comrades first arrived at Tikri Border from Mansa in Punjab 380 days ago.

“By the time we got here, it was already evening. There had been a lathi charge on us earlier in the day, but we just kept going. When we reached here, the police then threw tear gas canisters at us. That was when our brothers from Haryana, who had arrived before us, kicked the canisters away and jumped into the fray to protect us. On our way here, the police had blocked the highways, but the Haryana farmers made a way for us through their fields. And from the time that we have been here they have stood with us and given us food, milk and complete support in every way possible. We will never forget what they have done for us.”

She remembers their first ‘stage’ which literally consisted of a desk and a sound system borrowed from one of the tractors. She also remembers how how reluctant the locals were, initially, to help them in any way, seeing the state’s brutal response, but she is grateful for how they opened their hearts, homes and facilities once they realised the righteousness of the farmers’ cause and the decency of the protestors.

The protest at Tikri came a long way from that first day. Home to tens of thousands of protesting farmers over a 22-km stretch for over a year, this nondescript border of western Delhi saw hundreds of bamboo shelters come up during April and May that provided a bit of succour from the summer sun and monsoon rains.

Today, the shelter Jasbir Kaur has called home for a year is being dismantled and packed up. When I ask her how she is feeling, she says while she is happy to be going home, she is going to miss those who have become her family here, and the deep bonds of camaraderie that have been formed.

“Don’t make me emotional now,” she warns. “I’ve already cried once in the committee meeting,” and laughs as she wipes a tear.

Almost everyone I speak to says something similar. They are happy to have won but sad to leave their new community of brothers and sisters behind. Mandeep Mann from the Jamindar Socialist Organization thanks Prime Minister Narendra Modi for (unwittingly) helping farmers from Punjab and Haryana who have had a long history of suspicion and rivalry come together again. “Haryana Punjab Ekta Zindabad!” is a slogan one has heard countless times at the borders over the last year. It is now much more than a slogan.

Also read: The Tragedy and Tenacity of the Farmers at Tikri Border

As I walk down the stretch of Rohtak road that I have walked down a hundred times this past year, I run into an old friend. Kulvinder and his friends from Fatehabad, Haryana gave me a ride on their John Deere tractor on the day of the Republic Day Tractor rally. We recall the day and the love and affection we received from thousands of people who lined up on the sides of Rohtak Road to cheer the farmers on and shower them with flowers. Kulvinder also recalls with marked sadness how the police deliberately tried to make them stray from the pre-decided rally route and how they were attacked and tear gassed.

“It still hurts to think about that day,” he tells me, “how our own government and police attacked us the way they did.”

I remind him of the comical minutes it took to get me to climb on his tractor. The rally had begun, boom boxes were belting out defiant Punjabi protest songs, and excitement was a fever pitch as tens of thousands of tractors shot out of Tikri like racehorses out of a starting gate. Kulvinder had told me to wait further down the road and told me they would pick me. What they hadn’t realised was that I had never gotten on a tractor before. It finally them a couple of minutes to literally haul me aboard. We laugh about how I quite literally “held up history” and miles of tractors for a couple of minutes that day.

Not everyone is completely satisfied with the farmers’ victory. There are those like Rishabh, the Delhi university student who has been living at Tikri for a year, who has feels the Samyukta Kisan Morcha shouldn’t have called off the protest, and should have continued it till Minimum Support Price was made a legal right.

But an older Punjab farmer leader and a veteran of many andolans tells me, “Starting a protest movement isn’t difficult, but knowing how to end it well always is. It is important to end a protest at the right time. It is also important to remember that a single protest, no matter how huge, will not change society. This is an ongoing process and this protest has now become a springboard for the next major battle — minimum support price for farmers.”

I also also think about the brutal Delhi winter and the cold that claimed many farmers’ lives, and though I am genuinely sorry to see the old farmers go, I am glad they will spend this winter in the comfort of their homes and in the company of their grandchildren.

The sound of hammers dismantling iron frames of the bamboo shelters is everywhere. Young men on tractors are blasting out protest music. Down the length and breadth of the protest site, men and women are packing up their belongings and loading water containers, mattresses and camp cots onto tractor trolleys. I shake as many hands as I can and thank and hug as many farmers as possible. They hug me back. I tell them I will miss them. They tell me to come and visit them. They also tell me they will be back if the government misbehaves again.

Jasbir Kaur points out, “We have forced the government to repeal the three Laws, but with this protest we have also challenged the deep influence of the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF on India’s economic policies, so you can be sure that the battles ahead will be even fiercer.”

This protest may have ended, but the larger and deeper battle against the neoliberalism that has impoverished India in so many ways has only just begin.

Rohit Kumar is an educator with a background in positive psychology and psychometrics. He works with high school students on emotional intelligence and adolescent issues to help make schools bullying-free zones. He can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com.