Tikri (Delhi): With hundreds of farmers driving in every day and parking their tractor trolleys on the roadsides, the caravan of protesters at the Delhi-Haryana border in Tikri now stretches 15km, largely comprising farmers from Punjab who have driven down in groups anywhere between 200km and 500km for a cause on which, they believe, rests not only their own livelihoods but also those of generations to come.
According to Shalini Singh, Delhi’s joint commissioner of police who was at the border on Thursday, the entire 15km stretch of the Delhi-Bahadurgarh road was filled with several thousand protesters, rising in large numbers over the last eight days since the first batch of farmers found their way past barricades set up by Haryana and reached the borders.
There is heavy police deployment and barricading and drones are keeping an eye on the swelling crowds. Cops have placed a couple of earth-moving machines and concrete cement blocks across the highway to prevent protesters from crossing over to Delhi. Some policemen have also positioned themselves on the terraces of buildings along the border. The protest, however, has been largely peaceful, with no untoward incidents reported so far.
All through Thursday, protesters raised anti-Modi slogans at this border even as Delhi Police kept a hawk eye on them. Some pro-Badal sloganeering was heard too. Many of the farmers TOI spoke to said they had food supplies that can last them up to six months and have no intention of going back till the three new farm laws are repealed by the central government.
“We are in no hurry to return. Even if the ration gets over, we are sure we will receive help from the local people here who have already extended a helping hand,” said 45-year-old Harjinder Singh from Sri Muktsar Sahib, who covered a distance of about 400 kilometres over two days in a truck and with 40 other farmers. They have been protesting for the past nine days now.
Some farmers said their families don’t want them to return empty-handed. “We have full support from our family members, especially our wives and children who insist that we stay put till our goal has been achieved. In fact, a couple of days ago, a few among us did go back to check on their well-being but our families made sure we returned to the protest site immediately,” said Maninder Singh, a farmer from Patiala.
Apart from many community kitchens set up for meals, some farmers from Haryana are procuring truckloads of vegetables from their farms and distributing them to the protesters free of cost.
Kuldeep Bishnoi, from Tohana in Haryana, brought 30 quintals of cauliflower, 10 quintals of eggplant and several kilos of tomato and distributed these. “This is my way of protesting. I will ensure my co-farmers are well fed and their resolve to fight against these bills gets stronger,” he said.
Rajinder Singh from Fatehabad said he had a hard time ensuring the protesters did not antagonise the large police force positioned across the barricades. Standing atop a wooden table, he urged the crowd to move back. Pointing at a metro pillar, he said, “This is where the jurisdiction of Haryana ends and that of Delhi begins. We have to make sure we do not do anything which gives the Delhi cops a reason to take action against us. We need to maintain a calm and safe distance from the barricades. Those who do not comply with these regulations will be considered as being on Modi’s side,” he told the crowd, drawing a huge round of applause from the people, who instantly obeyed.
On Thursday, farmers from Palwal and Nuh too joined the agitation at Tikri border. “Hundreds of us have come from Nuh and this protest seems to be the only way to make the deaf ears of the government listen to our woes. We will not budge till our demands are met,” said Shauqat Ali, a farmer from Ghasera in Nuh.
The Haryana state president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, Gurnam Singh Chaduni, said the farmers are being misled by the government. “The so-called talks of the Centre with the farmer representatives are an eyewash. This government needs to assure us that farmer loans are waived and there is no loss of minimum support price,” he said.
Cops at ground zero said they do not anticipate any sort of violence in the coming days. “It has been about 10 days since the protesters first started coming to this border and so far, it’s been very peaceful. Several people living right at the border work in factories located in Bahadurgarh and we have not prevented th-em from moving. We hope this impasse gets resolved soon,” said a senior Delhi Police official deployed at the border.