Farmers Movement Archive

A field day for Rakesh Tikait

Rakesh Tikait saunters beneath the Delhi-Meerut flyover on NH 9 like he is strolling in his fields in Sisauli village in Muzaffarnagar. The national spokesperson of Bhartiya Kisan Union is one of the many farmer leaders participating in the ongoing negotiations with the government. He is the younger son of Mahendra Singh Tikait, who once made the BKU the voice of farmers in north India. Today, it has been fragmented into 50 odd factions with the Tikait group holding on to its influence on farmers in west U.P. Well-informed about the demands of the electronic media, he keeps shifting on tractors to give bytes to newspersons. And when the Ghaziabad officials arrive to negotiate, he educates them on where Delhi ends and Uttar Pradesh begins. Many see him close to senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh. When one asks whether he was disappointed that Mr. Singh was missing from the government panel, Mr. Tikait nods. ‘Long struggle’ “It’s the government’s decision. He might join at a later stage. Abhi to lamba chalega (It will go on for a long time),” he predicts. He quickly clarifies that the BKU was not speaking for the government. “It seems the government is paving the way for agro-industries and is looking at farmers as labour. We are staring at the privatisation of agriculture,” he says. “The government is trampling on what is essentially a State subject. When we talk of writing minimum support price in the law, we are told MSP is a separate issue.” On the slow mobilisation in western U.P. in comparison to Haryana and Punjab, Mr. Tikait says, “In Haryana and Punjab, farmers are comparatively freer during this period. Also, the lack of rail transport has resulted in slow mobilisation.”

The Hindu

2020-12-06

Ghaziabad