BATHINDA: The events of Republic Day turned three protesters into the faces of the farmers’ struggle against central farm laws. If the tears of 52-year-old Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait moved the country, the images of Jagsir Singh and Ranjit Singh shook the world.
Jagsir Singh, a 31-year-old from Barnala’s Pandher village, was clicked raising slogans even when his face was soaked in blood. He had taken lathi blows to retrieve a piece of his turban.
Ranjit Singh, 22, of Kajampur village in Punjab’s Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district had his face crushed under a cop’s boot on Delhi’s Singhu border, an image that reminded the world of George Floyd of Minneapolis, pinned to the ground with a cop’s knee over his neck for 9 minutes. Floyd’s death had sparked the global ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.
Law graduate and former constable Rakesh Tikait is son of Mahendra Singh Tikait, one of the tallest-ever Indian peasant leaders. His tears on the Ghazipur border when the Ghaziabad administration ordered farmers to vacate the protest site, turned tables and made him country’s darling overnight. So far, Punjab’s farmers were in the forefront but now Rakesh Tikait is more in demand. He said: “If I am the son of Mahendra Singh Tikait, I will take the protest to its logical conclusion, even if takes months.”
Jagsir Singh of a poor family living in the village gurdwara has long served ‘Kar Sewa Baba’ Harbans Singh. He was serving the baba’s langar on the Delhi borders during the tractor march from Tikri to Nangloi, where he lost a bit of turban in trying to dodge police batons. After retrieving the turban, a blood-soaked Jagsir was still full of energy. “Turban is a baptised Sikh’s pride,” he told TOI.
Ranjit Singh was at the Singhu protest of Kirti Kisan Union on January 28 when a group claiming to be of locals came over to ask the farmers to vacate for lowering the Tricolour’s dignity. He took out his sword to scare them away. Accused of attacking Delhi Police with sword, he was put under a cop’s boot before being arrested with 43 others. He is in jail but this image continues to scare social network.
The protest’s heroes will also include 25-year-old Navreet Singh of Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, who died in the Republic Day tractor parade, and 26-year-old Navdeep Singh of Ambala’s Jalbera village, who on November 26 turned down the water cannon that was pounding the protesting farmers.