The world has many lessons to learn from the peace­ful, non-vi­o­lent protests of the Farm­ers Mor­cha in Delhi. For the last forty years, In­dia has spared no ef­fort to ma­lign the im­age of the Sikhs and was able to sell its lies and false­hood within and out­side In­dia. In one hard re­sponse, Na­ture and God, in the 550th Year of Guru Nanak, has given such a be­fit­ting re­sponse to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia that the rulers are bit­ing their nails and are at their wits’ ends.  In­di­ans in gen­eral, Sikh-baiters in par­tic­u­lar and the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity is see­ing that side of the Sikhs which they had nei­ther read nor thought about.

AS THE FARM­ERS AND PEO­PLE OF PUN­JAB -MEN, WOMEN AND CHIL­DREN, joined whole­heart­edly and over­whelm­ingly by the farm­ers and peo­ple of Haryana, Ra­jasthan, West­ern Ut­tar Pradesh and Ma­ha­rash­tra demon­strate the high­est lev­els of tol­er­ance and con­tinue their peace­ful protest started on 25 No­vem­ber 2020 as part of the Delhi Challo -On­wards to Delhi march for jus­tice and le­git­i­mate rights, the In­dian state -the politi­cians, the ex­ec­u­tive bu­reau­cracy and the In­dian ju­di­ciary have by their acts of com­mis­sion and omis­sion con­tin­ued with the pol­icy of State Ter­ror­ism in its worst forms.

Oc­cu­py­ing nearly a 10-kilo­me­tre stretch on the Singhu bor­der, nearly a 20-kilo­me­tre stretch on the Tikri bor­der and a kilo­me­tre or two on the other bor­ders, the peace­ful siege of Delhi is vir­tu­ally com­plete. The farm­ers have over­come all ob­struc­tions of ba­ton-beat­ing, wa­ter-can­nons and tear-gas.

The Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia -Naren­dra Modi and his cab­i­net col­leagues are talk­ing to pseudo-farm­ers and us­ing the Modi me­dia -not even wrong to call it the state me­dia to ob­fus­cate facts, tell sto­ries of farm­ers’ gain from the newly en­acted laws which the farm­ers do not want. The In­dian ju­di­ciary makes cos­metic re­marks and post­pones the whole thing as they are on a win­ter va­ca­tion.

For­tu­nately, thanks to the in­ter­net, de­spite ef­forts by the In­dia state to ex­tend its arm of ter­ror­ism to the so­cial me­dia fo­rums, still, farm­ers, farm­ers lead­ers and the con­glom­er­ate of 40 farm bod­ies have been able to suc­cess­fully counter the pro­pa­ganda of the In­dian state. Every let­ter re­ceived by the farm­ers has been de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally replied to by the farmer lead­ers.

Schol­ars, sports­peo­ple, sci­en­tists, re­tired armed forces per­son­nel have re­turned their past ho­n­ours in protest. Ex­cept for a few shame­less ex­cep­tions, singers, ac­tors, movie mak­ers, song-writ­ers, po­ets stand in sol­i­dar­ity with the protest­ing farm­ers, urg­ing again and again to the gov­ern­ment to re­lent and an­nul the black farm laws and en­act a new law sup­port­ing min­i­mum sup­port price for 23 farm prod­ucts.

The Pun­jabi Di­as­pora world­wide is at the door of the In­dian con­sulates and em­bassies protest­ing and ap­peal­ing to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia to see rea­son and back out from its promises to crony cap­i­tal­ists who want to take over the al­ready de­pleted nat­ural re­sources of the farm­ing com­mu­nity -the back­bone of the fam­i­lies and so­ci­eties of these states.

The Sikh com­mu­nity, in its spirit of Chardikala -Al­ways As­cen­dance and Sar­bat da Bhala -Wel­fare of all, has set up a tem­po­rary abode, call­ing it the Singh Garh -the fort of the brave at the Singhu bor­der.  It is pretty ob­vi­ous that only the brave can make a protest site their home on the Grand Trunk Road to Delhi.

Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, Sen­a­tors and Prime Min­is­ters of coun­tries and gov­ern­ments are en­dors­ing the right of the farm­ers to protest.

The Sikh com­mu­nity, in its spirit of Chardikala -Al­ways As­cen­dance and Sar­bat da Bhala -Wel­fare of all, has set up a tem­po­rary abode, call­ing it the Singh Garh -the fort of the brave at the Singhu bor­der.  It is pretty ob­vi­ous that only the brave can make a protest site their home on the Grand Trunk Road to Delhi. Peo­ple from all states are liv­ing in a re­mark­able sense of ca­ma­raderie and cosy com­fort in the nearly zero centi­grade tem­per­a­ture, un­der the open sky in tents. Even though nearly 40 plus farm­ers have died so far, there is no go­ing back.

In­dia con­tin­ues State Ter­ror­ism by acts of omis­sion and com­mis­sion. It tells lies in court. It tells lies to the me­dia. The Prime Min­is­ter lies on tele­vi­sion. The min­is­ters lie in let­ters to the farmer lead­ers. The chief min­is­ters of the BJP-ruled states lie to their con­stituents in a bid to den­i­grate the farm­ers and their strug­gle.

Hin­dus, Mus­lims and Sikhs are re­defin­ing di­ver­sity on the In­dian bor­der and giv­ing a run for the money to the sec­u­lar­ists and pseudo-sec­u­lar­ists of In­dia.  The state-man­aged me­dia is still be­hav­ing like a spoiled brat and not learn­ing lessons in pa­tience, truth­ful­ness, true sec­u­lar­ism and fed­er­al­ism.

Still, In­dia is un­fazed. In­dia con­tin­ues State Ter­ror­ism by acts of omis­sion and com­mis­sion. It tells lies in court. It tells lies to the me­dia. Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi lies on tele­vi­sion. The min­is­ters lie in let­ters to the farmer lead­ers. The chief min­is­ters of the BJP-ruled states lie to their con­stituents in a bid to den­i­grate the farm­ers and their strug­gle.

The state-man­aged Modi me­dia de­fames Sikhs and all oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the unique farm­ers protest. Un­mind­ful as ever, Sikhs con­tinue their strug­gle. 14-year-old Anureet Kaur from Ku­ruk­shetra, fight­ing her tears at the agony of the el­derly at the Mor­cha said, “When I grow up, I will be­come a hu­man rights lawyer.” Through­out the last 30 days, I have been won­der­ing if the United Na­tions hu­man rights bod­ies have lis­tened to her or are they wait­ing for some­thing worse to hap­pen and then take up the mat­ter with In­dia?

Is the United Na­tions wait­ing for the farm­ers to forcibly march to Delhi or to court ar­rest in thou­sands for it to then take no­tice. Even if that hap­pens, will the UN side with the ‘world’s biggest democ­racy” or with the peo­ple of the ‘world’s non-func­tion­ing democ­racy?

Peace­ful as­sem­bly. Peace­ful protest. Le­git­i­mate rights. Di­a­logue and dis­cus­sion con­tinue to hap­pen. They all sound hol­low. All con­ven­tions and covenants on these as­pects are be­ing flouted by In­dia with im­punity in full and glar­ing view of the whole world.

His­tory is record­ing the si­lence of the United Na­tions. Time is not on their side, this time.