Ser­pen­tine queues of trac­tors of farm­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the his­toric Trac­tor march, of all brands -big and small, rus­tic and mod­ern, bear­ing the flag of Farm­ers bod­ies and those from Pun­jab up­hold­ing the Nis­han Sahib, in an ex­em­plary dis­ci­plined man­ner, with­out ob­struct­ing the traf­fic flow of am­bu­lances and other emer­gency ve­hi­cles, trav­elled the 10-kilo­me­tre dis­tance be­tween the Singhu and Tikri bor­der and the Gazipur and Tikri bor­ders in a unique spec­ta­cle per­haps never be­fore seen on the streets of Delhi. Gurmeet Singh of WSN Delhi Desk re­ports.

THE SINGHU, TIKRI AND GAZIPUR BOR­DERS OF DELHI WIT­NESSED Young and old, men and women, and kids par­tic­i­pat­ing in a huge Trac­tor Rally pass­ing through the vil­lages of Haryana on the out­skirts of Delhi march­ing on hun­dreds of trac­tors in an ut­most dis­ci­plined man­ner giv­ing goose­bumps to on­look­ers and rein­vig­o­rat­ing the spirit of the protest­ing farm­ers. Dis­ci­pline, Co­or­di­na­tion, Col­lab­o­ra­tion were the hall­marks of the Trac­tor March with ral­lies.  from Singhu to Tikri, Tikri to Singhu-Kundli, Gazipur to Pal­wal and from Re­wasan to Pal­wal.

The farm­ers at Singhu as­sem­bled at the Ra­soi Dhaba, which has been sup­port­ing the Farm­ers Mor­cha in the forenoon and af­ter trekking cheek by jowl a dis­tance of 10 kilo­me­tres in 5 five hours, they marched led to the Tikri Bor­der. On the other side, the farm­ers at Tikri Bor­der started their rally to­wards the Singhu Bor­der. Mid­way the two con­tin­gents met, ex­changed pleas­antries, boosted each other with slo­gans and hand­shakes, with arms up in the air to demon­strate their de­ter­mi­na­tion. The same drill was fol­lowed, from Gazipur and Pal­wal.

Speak­ing to WSN, Bal­want Singh Behramke, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Pun­jab) -one of the 32 Farm­ers Unions of Pun­jab said, “This is a re­hearsal for the 26 Jan­u­ary Re­pub­lic Day March into Delhi. The gov­ern­ment and the lap­dog me­dia is spread­ing ca­nards about our Farm­ers Mor­cha but this march should serve as an eye-opener.”

The Kundli-Mane­sar-Pal­wal road saw the power of farm­ers who af­ter in­form­ing the po­lice and the dis­trict au­thor­i­ties held a march but al­lowed all emer­gency ve­hi­cles. A young Kisan par­tic­i­pant from there said, ”We are not in­hu­man like the gov­ern­ment.”

Sig­nif­i­cantly, even though all the vil­lagers around the route were in­con­ve­nienced, there was not a sin­gle pub­lic op­po­si­tion to the move­ment of farm­ers.

A de­light­ful site was to see kids rid­ing in sol­i­dar­ity in their toy trac­tors with love, hap­pi­ness and en­thu­si­asm.

This is a re­hearsal for the 26 Jan­u­ary Re­pub­lic Day March into Delhi. The gov­ern­ment and the lap­dog me­dia is spread­ing ca­nards about our Farm­ers Mor­cha but this march should serve as an eye-opener.”

Bal­want Singh Behramke, leader Bhar­tiya Kisan Union (Pun­jab)

Bal­want Singh Behramke also told WSN, “We have a meet­ing to­mor­row and though we are hope­ful, we are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed. We hope that the gov­ern­ment gets the mes­sage that truth will tri­umph.”

As the weather was a lit­tle less harsh in terms of rains, once again the tra­di­tional charm of the masses was back. Shoe-shin­ing se­wadars at var­i­ous bor­ders were seen re­pair­ing and prepar­ing shoes for all and sundry.

The de­fence min­istry dur­ing its se­cu­rity re­view was re­port­edly highly wor­ried about the Delhi sit­u­a­tion be­cause of the farm­ers’ ag­i­ta­tion. The pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in the In­dian Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions has been scaled down from a hun­dred thou­sand to one fourth the num­ber. The po­lice and para­mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment will be as high as 25,000.

The Trac­tor March has made it clear that the farm­ers are go­ing back from Delhi only af­ter be­ing vic­to­ri­ous.  Will, the gov­ern­men­t’s ego take a dip and ac­cept all five le­git­i­mate de­mands of farm­ers?