How Mahendra Singh Tikait Eroded The Moral Credibility Of Govts
India Today, in March 1988, wrote: (although) “besieging cohorts of Mahendra Singh Tikait’s BKU have folded up their tents and gone home, the 25-day dharna raised a potent new force that will continue to haunt Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Bir Bahadur Singh and influence political developments in the state.”
With the escalation of violence averted, Tikait had, within days, regrouped at the site of the firing and begun the 110 day-long Rajabpur satyagraha which eroded the moral credibility of the state and central governments.
The protest was called off only after the demand for judicial enquiry was met. Yet BKU never gave up on farmers’ primary demands: loan waivers, cut in electricity dues, increase in sugarcane procurement price, farmers representation in Agricultural Price Commission, etc,.
Like the present dharna sites that farmers are occupying, back in 1988 too, they came to Delhi in tractor-trollies, truck-tops,…