The “Gurdwara Rikabganj agitation” of Delhi exactly a hundred years ago shows some quite startling parallels with the farmers’ agitation cu...
The “Gurdwara Rikabganj agitation” of Delhi exactly a hundred years ago shows some quite startling parallels with the farmers’ agitation currently roiling New Delhi. As today, the earlier agitation was primarily by Punjabis and Sikhs against autocratic rulers in the capital oblivious to their sensitivities. As today, the ruling regime’s first response was to spread misinformation, demonise the protesters, and suppress the agitation by misguiding the public about their real intention.
In the end, the Gurdwara Rikabganj agitation shows the rulers caving in, realising that to play with the sentiments of Punjab was to play with fire. At this point, it seems difficult to tell if the buckling of colonial rule in the face of the Rikabganj agitation is also a foretelling of the Punjab farmers’ agitation – or whether colonial rule was in fact in some ways less malign – because of its willingness in the end to listen – than the centralising and autocratic tendencies on display today.
