The last time I visited Shambhu border, which separates Punjab and Haryana, was days after tens of thousands of farmers had been prevented from peacefully marching to Delhi to demand Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops. On February 13, 14 and 21, paramilitary forces and the Haryana police brutally attacked them with tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring hundreds and killing one.
Shambhu border looked very much like Delhi’s borders at the time of the 2020-2021 farmers’ protest. Thousands of protesting farmers camped on the highway in their trolleys, tents and makeshift shelters. Volunteers served langar, paramedics tended to the wounds of those injured in the police action and farmer leaders gave speeches from a makeshift stage barely 200 meters from a heavily barricaded state border.
A young Sikh doctor told me that at least 4,000 tear gas canisters had been fired on the farmers at Shambhu in two days. He handed me an empty canister shell and said, ‘Keep it. With compliments from Narendra Modi.”
I still have it.
The caravan of trolleys and tents at Shambhu border. Photo: Rohit Kumar
Four months later when I visited Shambhu border again, the temperature was 47 degrees. The caravan of trolleys and tents was still there, stretching along 4 kms of highway. Elderly farmers were serving langar, washing dishes, and sweeping the road.
The makeshift stage near the barricaded border, had been made pakka. A couple of hundred farmers were sitting under a tin shelter that, covered on top but open on all sides, quietly listening to speeches by their leaders and breaking into “Bole So Nihal… Sat Sri Akal!” ever so often.
As I walked along the line of tents and trolleys, I was overwhelmed by the chorus of crickets from the fields flanking the highway. The metaphor was not lost on me. The farmers’ fight this time is not against the roar of the Godi media, it is against the silence of the government and its agencies that have decided to simply ignore those still sitting here.
I ask Kirpal Singh of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Krantikari) where everyone was. He replied, “It’s sowing season, so most of us are working in the fields. But as soon as that is done, people will be back. Don’t be fooled by the relatively few numbers you see here. If we send out a call, one or two lakh farmers can gather here in a matter of hours.” I knew this was not an empty claim. The farmers’ ability to mobilise quickly is legendary.
When I asked him what he thought about the Union government’s recent announcement of MSP on 14 crops, and about Modi’s claim that the first file he signed in his third tenure as prime minister had to do with krishi kalyan (farmers’ welfare), Kirpal laughed.
“They only make announcements, they haven’t actually given us MSP. We don’t trust their announcements. Just as they have announced one price today, they can easily announce another rate tomorrow. Announcements mean nothing. We want MSP to be made a law,” he explained.
Kirpal took me to meet Baldev Singh Zira, state president of his union. The 500 metre walk in the sun almost burned my skin.
Baldev offered me a cold drink and talked about how the farmer’s battle is a lonely one. “It hurts when people tell us our protests are a ‘nuisance’. Do they not understand that the purpose of these protests is to help people? The fact of the matter is, in Punjab and Haryana, only the farmers come to the aid of those who are in trouble. If toll booths are charging exorbitant rates or if the weak are being exploited in any way, it is the farmers that will go and fight for them. What I don’t understand is why small businessmen and traders, who are suffering just as much, don’t stand with us and fight? A lot has to do with the way people, especially those in urban India, have been brainwashed and propagandised by the Godi media.”
Farmers at Shambhu border. Photo: Rohit Kumar
Baldev recalled the farmers’ march to Delhi.
“When we went to Delhi’s borders in 2020-21, people at Singhu and Tikri borders actually locked themselves into their homes for three days. They had been told we were terrorists. But when they finally came out of their homes and started meeting and talking to us, they realised we weren’t such bad people after all. By the time we finally left Delhi’s borders a year later, these same people had become so fond of us, they were weeping and telling us not to go back!”
I ask Baldev if he had a message for Modi. “The biggest problem with Modi is he thinks he is a superhero. We would like to remind him he isn’t. He doesn’t listen to our messages, and so we are here to give him a warning. Learn from history, Modi ji. No dictator has ever managed to remain in power for long. Look at how they are prosecuting Arundhati Roy. By the time you start jailing journalists and truth tellers, you should know your time is up. You cannot rule with force and cruelty. You have to listen to people, understand their pain, and learn to take them along.”
Baldev also made it a point to remind me that the battle for MSP is not just for the farmers, it is for everyone. Making MSP a legal guarantee, he says, will stop crooked middlemen from creating artificial shortages in the market and charging exorbitant prices.
Both Baldev and Kirpal talked about how Ayodhya has taught BJP a hard lesson and how the people of India need to learn from them.
A farmer at Shambhu border. Photo: Rohit Kumar
I asked Kirpal about Kangana Ranaut’s recent statements on “rising terrorism” in Punjab. He said, “During our earlier agitation too, she had made shameful remarks about our mothers and sisters being paid Rs 100 each to sit in protest. Is that how you talk about those who feed you? Is that how you talk about someone’s mother or sister? Maybe no one ever taught her the difference between right and wrong, so we let it go, and prayed for god to give her intelligence. But this time she has crossed all limits by calling us terrorists. Is this how an elected MP should talk? Does she realise that when five of our jawans are killed in an encounter in Kashmir, four of those are usually from Punjab? Does she not know that Punjabis have sacrificed the most for India? Shame on her!”
I spoke to many of those serving langar and asked them where they found the strength to carry on in such conditions. “The grace of god and our guru,” said Bhupinder Singh, an elderly farmer, smiling as he looked up from a bright red milk can that he was diligently washing in a tub full of soapy water.
Joginder baba who had come to do seva chimed in,“We carry on our struggle because we have been given strength and resilience to bear injustice. But Modi’s paap ka ghada (cup of iniquity) is now full. In fact, it is overflowing.”
Kirpal walked me to my car as I prepared to leave and had one final thought. “They say that this is a small protest and there are very few people here. We are not worried. Because we know that those who are willing to fight for truth and justice are always few.”
Rohit Kumar is an educator, author and independent journalist. He can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com.
