Govt suspends Internet, fortifies sites and chokes supplies to stifle farmers’ unrest, but it won’t deter them

The resurgence of the farmers’ agitation in western Uttar Pradesh over the past few days, with tens of thousands of participants thronging ‘maha panchayats’ held in Muzaffarnagar on Friday, in Mathura on Saturday and in Baghpat on Sunday is significant for more than one reason.

For one, it has punctured the narrative being propagated by the government functionaries, right-wing elements and the godi media since November-end when the ‘Dilli chalo’ campaign culminated in thousands of farmers, primarily Sikh peasants hailing from Punjab, setting camp at Delhi’s Singhu border, that it was a ‘conspiracy’ by ‘anti-national’ elements and ‘Khalistanis’ to foment trouble.

It also demonstrated that the government’s attempt to evict protesters from a protest site such as the one at Ghazipur border could be scuppered by the sheer determination and strength of character displayed by farmers’ leaders such as BKU spokesperson Rakesh Tikait, whose emotional response to the administration’s move triggered an influx of thousands of farmers from all over western UP to Ghazipur within a couple of hours. This led to the vast number of policemen deployed to clear out the site, which was relatively deserted following the mayhem on Republic Day, retreat even as a crackdown had seemed all but imminent.

The renewed resolve and vigour on the part of the farmers to carry on with the agitation till the government acceded to their demand of repealing of the three farm laws, which had somewhat softened due to the violence perpetuated by some fringe elements in Delhi on Republic Day, has clearly put the government on the back foot again.

It’s a different matter that this did not deter PM Narendra Modi from alleging during his monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ monologue on Sunday that the ‘country was saddened by the insult to the tricolour on January 26’, clearly a reference to the events at Red Fort on Republic Day when some people hoisted the ‘nishan sahib’, a Sikh religious flag from an empty flagpole there. This, of course, flew in the face of facts that the tricolour fluttering atop the monument was never touched.

A cornered government reacted by resorting to an information blackout, suspending the internet at all the protest sites on the borders of Delhi, and going so far as to halt SMS services in 17 out of Haryana’s 22 districts.

In another development, on Monday, 250-odd Twitter accounts belonging to individuals, groups and media organisations were ‘withheld’ by the social media site, with the only common thread connecting these accounts being that they had been posting updates and opinions on the farmers’ protests regularly. These included accounts which had been set up to ensure smooth communication of updates from farmers’ protesting against the three farm laws, like @Tractor2twitr and that of the Kisan Ekta Morcha (@Kisanektamorcha).

News agency ANI quoted unnamed ‘sources’ as having said that Twitter’s move came at the behest of the Union Home Ministry headed by Amit Shah.

With increased deployment of security personnel, four-layered barricading on the main highway connecting Delhi with Haryana, and trenches dug up on the adjacent roads, the Singhu border protest site’s connectivity with the Capital also remained snapped throughout Sunday, leading to disruptions in supplies and movement of people. According to protesters at the site, they were unable to even access portable toilets and water tankers arranged by Delhi govt.

It also emerged that iron spikes were embedded overnight on the highway near the Singhu border in a bid to stall any attempt by the farmers to move on tractors towards Delhi.

The Delhi Police, on its part, took recourse to literally picking up a freelance journalist – involved in exposing the fact that a group of ‘locals’ who had managed to simply walk in and attack the peacefully protesting farmers at Singhu border, leading to violence, were in fact outsiders apparently deployed to create mischief – from the site on Saturday evening.

The journalist, Mandeep Punia, was thereafter untraceable, only to be produced before a magistrate on Sunday, and summarily remanded to judicial custody in Tihar jail for 14 days, without the presence of a defence lawyer.

Punia’s wife later revealed that while the journalist was slated to appear before the court at 2 pm, the police ushered him in within the court premises at 1:30 pm, causing the proceedings to begin even before the scribe’s lawyers could arrive.

According to the FIR against Punia, a group of protesters tried to break the barricades at Singhu border and after they were stopped, ‘one person got into a scuffle with a constable and started to drag the latter towards the protest site’, referring to Punia. It claimed that three policemen were injured in the scuffle.

The event triggered a huge outcry on social media and among members of civil society, but it remains to be seen if the journalist manages to secure bail.