In this photo-es­say, Gurmeet Singh of WSN takes you on a jour­ney to Singh Garh where farm­ers are camp­ing on the thresh­old of Delhi since the last six weeks. The first day of the Farm­ers’ Year 2021 was a mem­o­rable day of my life, fam­ily and the Sikh peo­ple across the globe. While the world was ush­er­ing in the New Year with many Covid19 re­stric­tions in force across In­dia and the world, the de­vout and every­body else marched in pro­ces­sion the en­tire stretch of ten kilo­me­tres singing praises from Guru Granth Sahib to God Almighty, ac­cept­ing his will and reded­i­cat­ing them­selves to con­tinue the Farm­ers strug­gle till the ac­com­plish­ment of their le­git­i­mate rights.

REWRIT­ING THE SCRIPT FOR CEL­E­BRAT­ING NEW YEARS, a page was added to the his­tory of strug­gle move­ments in South Asia and the cur­rent In­dian sub-con­ti­nent, when the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Farm­ers’ Mor­cha or­gan­ised a Na­gar Kir­tan -Re­li­gious Pro­ces­sion, through the Mor­cha dis­trict on the bor­ders of Delhi, un­der the aegis of Guru Granth and Guru Panth. Cov­er­ing the vast stretch of the Singh Garh -the city-state of the Sikhs of Pun­jab on the thresh­old of Delhi, with tra­di­tional Lan­gars all across the 7-kilo­me­tre route, the Na­gar Kir­tan pro­vided an­other dose of Chardikala.

Farm­ers Mor­cha on the bor­ders of Delhi is adding to the sur­prises day by day and the world is star­tled and amazed, why should­n’t the world be? Every day a new story, an event, a tech­nique, a con­cept, a  new kind of Sewa -self­less ser­vice, not only for the pro­tes­tors but also for those liv­ing around this city-state, is pop­ping out and only the Almighty knows where it comes from.

 

With the tem­per­a­ture drop­ping to nearly zero de­grees centi­grade at 1.1 de­grees, with the dense fog en­velop­ing the roads in Delhi and on the high­ways, with vis­i­bil­ity, not more than 50 feet, with the icy cold weather chill­ing the bones, the farm­ers from North­ern In­dia, led by the Sikh farm­ers of Pun­jab de­fied the dif­fi­cult times and spent time with God, yearn­ing for re­sults, yet ex­press­ing grat­i­tude.

It was grat­i­fy­ing to see Bhar­tiya Kisan Union leader Bal­want Singh Behramke, sit­ting next to the Guru Granth Sahib, un­der the huge open marigold flower-be­decked trac­tor, dis­trib­ut­ing Par­shad -the Gu­ru’s sweet of­fer­ings.

The Ni­hangs,-the Guru kiyan ladliyaan fau­jan -the beloved army of Guru Gob­ind Singh, marched in their tra­di­tional blue at­tire and shas­tras on horses. Their bat­tal­ion in­cluded men across all ages from the teens to the oc­to­ge­nar­i­ans who were rid­ing horses bare­footed and play­ing Gatka -the tra­di­tional Sikh mar­tial art.

Like in all re­li­gious pro­ces­sions -a must dur­ing Sikh Gu­rus’ birth an­niver­saries and other fes­tiv­i­ties, young men and women could be seen clean­ing the roads prior to the ar­rival of Guru Granth Sahib – the Throne of the Guru and the pre­ced­ing Panj Pyaras-the Five Beloved Ones -as the tra­di­tional lead­ers of the pro­ces­sion.

The three rows of Panj Pyaras in the Sikh colours of blue and yel­low walked with the “Nis­han Sahib -the flag of the Sikh Na­tion”. The glory on their faces and head high with the spir­i­tual spirit was im­bib­ing the Chardikala spirit amongst those who were wit­ness­ing it, with many of the on­look­ers of the re­gion see­ing the spec­ta­cle for the first time.

 

The furl­ing Niushan Sahib was roar­ing with “Deg Teg Fateh” -Food and Jus­tice shall be al­ways avail­able, Panth Ki Jeet -the Peo­ples’ will shall pre­vail. This is how the Sikh spirit of food, se­cu­rity and peo­ples will from the House of Guru Nanak was reaf­firmed to the Sikhs and con­veyed to the friends of Sikhs and the gov­ern­ment of the day.

Glory to God, Mag­nif­i­cently, Mar­vel­lous, As­ton­ish­ing…one falls short of words. Guru Granth Sahib was placed in a trac­tor. It was like a vic­tory march where the Lord him­self has blessed the farm­ers, their trac­tors and their hard work, their skills, their tem­pera­ment and their huge pa­tience de­spite the daily deaths of their brethren.

Thou­sands of San­gat -men and women, walked be­hind the Guru, singing hymns, prais­ing the Lord. Count­less, hum­ble, dis­ci­plined, calm, com­posed and of course with a charm and equipoise.

My young kid Harnoor Singh was so amazed that he said, ”What bet­ter way than this to cel­e­brate the New Year!”

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, Bal­want Singh Behramke said, “the Guru blessed us with this idea only a day be­fore. We thought it would be a good idea to spend the day in grat­i­tude.” Some lead­ers of the Kisan Mor­cha were seen par­tic­i­pat­ing and do­ing Sewa dur­ing the Na­gar Kir­tan.

My fam­ily and farm­ers were blessed by the Guru at the ad­vent of the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar New Year. I have all the rea­son to be­lieve that the year will usher in a New Era for the Farm com­mu­nity, not only in Pun­jab but even the rest of In­dia, South Asia and the world.