For two days and two nights now, thousands of farmers trying to make their way to Delhi from Punjab have been attacked relentlessly with tear gas shells and rubber bullets at Shambhu Barrier, one of the borders that demarcates Punjab from Haryana. At the time of writing, over 100 farmers have been injured. Journalists covering the situation on the ground haven’t been spared either.
The visuals emerging from Shambhu are difficult to watch – bloody heads, rubber bullet wounds and desperate attempts to get tear gas out of one’s eyes. For those who were part of the farmers’ protest for any length of time or in any shape or form at Delhi’s borders in 2020-21, these scenes are even more difficult to watch.
These are, after all, the same farmers one visited several times at Tikri and Singhu and shared langar with. These are also the same people who showed incredible fortitude and courage as they braved heat, cold, rain and non-stop calumny at the hands of the godi media. These are, indeed, the same simple and unassuming folk who showed the world yet again that Gandhian non-violent resistance is still possible.
The news coming in from the Haryana-Punjab border is sporadic, as X and Facebook accounts of farmer leaders and journalists in the area have been shut down. One has to look through a lot of YouTube videos to get a sense of what is happening there.
As I watched videos of various journalists covering the situation at Shambhu, I spotted a farmer that I had interviewed at Tikri border in early 2021 right after the January 26 tractor rally that year. A giant of a man, he was difficult to forget. I remember his words had made an impression on me.
He said, “The roads that the government has dug up, barricaded, hammered huge spikes into them, whose money were those roads built with? Our tax money. This is wrong. We are feeling very bad. They are calling us Khalistanis and terrorists. When we stand at the country’s borders and defend them, we don’t look like Khalistanis then, do we? First you use us, and then you call us Khalistanis. The tri-colour is precious to us because we have sacrificed so much to attain it! For them it may just be a piece of cloth, but for us, the tri-colour is our life!
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The farmer’s voice rose as he went on to talk about Modi and the state of democracy in India. “Democracy is in very bad shape in our country. They say India is the biggest democracy in the world. But is it? Modiji, you made so many promises before coming to power. You told us you are a chowkidaar, and we believed you and voted for you. But you haven’t fulfilled any of those promises. Has our income doubled as you promised? You said you would stand with the farmers through thick and thin, but every year you are decreasing our subsidy. Please read the Swaminathan commission report and give us our due! One last thing, did you see how they attacked us with tear gas as our convoy of tractors rolled into Delhi on November 26? How can you treat people so inhumanely?”
For that farmer, whose name unfortunately I did not record, literally nothing has changed. Minimum Support Price (MSP) has not become a legal guarantee, the farmers’ loans have not been forgiven, and the accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri killings continue to go scot-free.
Poster about the Kisan Drone scheme. Photo: Author provided.
It is also practically impossible to tell the difference between the photos of the concrete barriers and concertina wire in 2020 and 2024. All that has changed is that the government is now firing at the farmers with rubber bullets and using drones to attack them with tear gas, a cruel and sick joke, given the promises made in this poster:
Over the last couple of days, I have called up a lot of the farmers I met during the 2020-21 protests. The odds are stacked against them, but their voices reveal no trace of fear or anxiety. Perhaps that courage comes from the knowledge that they are fighting for justice. Whatever the outcome of this protest and attempted march to Delhi is, one thing is clear – the government of the day now stands completely exposed in its unwillingness and inability to keep any of its promises to India’s farmers.
Rohit Kumar is an educator, author, and independent journalist, and can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com