Farmers and Policemen and Barricades

  

Feb 3, 2021

 

Last evening after I was done with my retreat, I turned on the news and saw this image. Not at the border of India with Pakistan or China (with whom we are engaged in a border conflict currently), but outside Delhi, to barricade the farmers into their protest sites. Iron spikes, concrete walls, trenches and barbed wire. 

 

There are many ways of telling this story…

 

On Republic Day farmers rammed into the Red Fort, attacking Policemen, and throwing down the Indian Tricolour thus hurting the sentiments of 1.30 crore Indians. They replaced the Indian flag on the ramparts with a Khalistani one. Four hundred policemen were hospitalized on that day. A farmer also attacked a Policeman with a sword. The Police had no choice but to fence in the protesting farmers who have shown stubbornness in the face of the Government’s willingness to dialogue with them. The Prime Minister has even set up a direct phone line to him that any farmer can pick up and call from. The protesting farmers, from just one or two states of India, are being maximalists and refusing to compromise, thus harming the interests of millions of farmers from other parts of India who are in favor of the new laws. Those protesting haven’t even defined exactly what they want from the Government. They are just puppets manipulated by opposition parties, anti-nationalists, the Left, China or Pakistan. The Police were also forced to file FIRs against farmer leaders. Some farmers are in jail.

 

The story could also be told in another way…

 

Desperate farmers who had been peacefully protesting the New Farm Laws on several borders of Delhi for the last two months are now being boxed into their protest sites by barricades, trenches, barbed wire and iron spikes. Internet, electricity, water, and other supplies have been cut off. On Jan 26^th a breakaway group of rebel farmers had broken police barricades and proceeded to the Red Fort. The Tricolour had not been touched, as some are reporting, but the Nishan Sahib flag had been put up alongside it. Four hundred policemen were allegedly injured in this confrontation. Majority of the farmers though participated in the tractor march in a peaceful manner and condemned the actions of the few farmers who had entered the Fort. Since then, the Police have cracked down on the borders in an attempt to force farmers to vacate the sites but an emotional appeal from one of the leaders has intensified the protests and more farmers have joined in. Five days ago, despite Police presence, a group of men broke into the farmer site at Singhu and broke their washing machines and attacked the farmers in their tents. In the conflict a Policeman was injured by a farmer using a sword to protect himself. Farmer leaders have been charged under the draconian UAPA. A former Police Commissioner while defending the actions of the Police has also said that both these decisions, to allow tractors into Delhi and to barricade the farmers, were Political decisions and not Policing ones. He said that the Government should stop using the Police as their face. 

 

Same stories, but I suppose if I read one and not the other, I would build a certain idea about the Police and the Farmers. The first sympathises with the Police, the second is possibly attempting to be neutral but perhaps those sympathising with the Police would call it loaded against them. But I could actually write a third story that would show the Police as positively evil or at least crafty and incompetent.

 

Let me take a stab at it…

 

On Republic Day the Delhi Police showed just how incompetent they were. Despite having warnings, from several farmer leaders, about a group of farmers who talked about breaking barricades and going to the Red Fort, they did not strengthen the force around the Fort nor revoke permission for the Farmers Tractor March. In fact, they allowed the troublesome group to lead the march. This along with pictures that show policemen sitting on chairs and silently watching while protestors swarmed into the Red Fort makes one wonder if indeed they were not incompetent but crafty, and planned on allowing this incident to take place. This then would give them a good reason to clamp down hard on the peaceful farmers whom they and the government have not been able to dislodge, or demonize despite propaganda to do so. Questions also arise on how 200 goons entered the Farmer site at Singhu while Police were controlling all entries and exits from it? Surely 200 men could not have slipped through? Also, it is being alleged that the Police stood by doing nothing while these goons attacked farmers. Now they have shut the Farmers into an open-aired prison without water and electricity. I don't need to remind readers that there are women and children present at these sites, and all of them have been living there peacefully for 70 days. The Police have also charged many peaceful farmer leaders with sedition. This modus operandi is how the Delhi Police, under the guidance of the Home Minister, has handled previous situations. Their SOP many would say. 

 

Hmmm…

 

The retreat was good for me, but I felt compelled to explore this today rather than write more about it.