What is the future of your protests? Won’t it peter out with time? What do you plan to do next?
Time will not kill the struggle. The government wanted to break up the protests, it wanted to divide us. It could not and that time is past. Now we’ll go to Haryana, meet the people. We need to ensure the protests continue at all the sites. Those leading the sit-in at Tikri (at Delhi-Haryana) border need to continue, and not allow any efforts to break down the movement.
I can understand if the government has any compulsion. But let us sit down and discuss what that compulsion is. Let us find a way to overcome the constraints, if any. But they need to take us into confidence and share the compulsion and we can suggest the solution.
I do not want a wrong picture (of our country) to be painted before the world. I’ll never want a message to go out that the government has bowed. Both sides should respect each other and find a way where no one’s dignity is compromised.
There are reports of differences between you and your brother Naresh Tikait, who is the BKU president, but you have mostly prevailed. Even during the ongoing agitation, he announced that Ghazipur protest will be called off since he did not want a confrontation with the police and administration, but you stuck to it.
Why should we differ? It’s all part of a disinformation campaign, an effort to break the movement. First, they targeted those from Punjab, the Sikhs. Then they spread canards about farmers from Haryana, then it was the turn for those from western Uttar Pradesh. They called us Khalistani, they called us Pakistani…
