Every long struggle has a day it nearly dies, and a day it nearly loses its soul. This part holds both. In just a few dramatic weeks — and then one terrible October afternoon — the movement was almost destroyed, almost broken from within, and then, against the odds, saved by a single man's tears.
These are the most disputed events in the whole story. For every one, the two sides tell almost opposite tales. So for each flashpoint I'll lay out both accounts as fairly as I can, mark clearly what is proven and what is contested, and let you weigh it yourself.
1The backdrop: stalled talks and a cold, tense January
By January 2021, the camps had survived two months of brutal winter. Talks had gone nowhere — eleven rounds between the government and the SKM, ending in deadlock. The government's biggest offer was to suspend the laws for a year and a half; the farmers refused anything short of full repeal.11Eleven rounds of talks (Oct 2020–Jan 2021) failed; the government's offer to suspend the laws for ~18 months (20–21 Jan 2021) was rejected by the SKM, which demanded full repeal. Contemporary reporting.
On 12 January 2021, the Supreme Court stepped in, put the three laws on hold, and set up a committee to study them. But the farmers refused to appear before it, saying its members had already publicly supported the laws.22On 12 Jan 2021 the Supreme Court stayed the three farm laws and formed a four-member committee; the SKM boycotted it, calling the members pro-reform. Supreme Court order; contemporary reporting. Into this frozen, frustrated moment came the plan for a grand show of strength: a tractor parade through Delhi on Republic Day.
226 January 2021: the parade that spiralled
Republic Day is India's proudest national ceremony. The SKM negotiated with Delhi Police for a tractor parade on agreed routes on the city's outskirts, to begin after the official parade. The idea was a peaceful, disciplined display of numbers. It did not stay that way.
3The Red Fort flag: what happened, and the war over its meaning
This is the single most argued-about moment in the entire movement. The bare facts: a group broke into the Red Fort complex, and someone climbed a flagpole and hoisted the Nishan Sahib (a Sikh religious flag) along with a farmers' union flag.
The Nishan Sahib is the triangular saffron flag that flies at every Sikh gurdwara. It is a religious symbol of the Sikh faith — not, as some claimed, a separatist or "Khalistan" flag. That distinction sits at the very heart of the argument that followed.
What did it mean? Here the two sides split completely:
| How the government & critics saw it | How the farmers & the SKM saw it |
|---|---|
| Protesters stormed a national monument on Republic Day and planted a religious flag — an insult to the nation that revealed the movement's "real face." | The national tricolour was never taken down; the Nishan Sahib went up on a separate, empty flagpole. It was a religious flag, not an anti-national one. |
| The violence proved the protest was not as peaceful or disciplined as it claimed. | The act was by a fringe — and the SKM immediately disowned it. The vast parade on the agreed routes stayed peaceful. |
| Leaders who organised a Republic Day march must own what it became. | The chaos was the work of provocateurs — and possibly plants — who deliberately steered a crowd off-route to discredit the movement. |
Two names became central: actor-activist Deep Sidhu and his associate Lakha Sidhana, both seen at the Red Fort and later charged with instigating the crowd. The SKM accused Deep Sidhu of being a saboteur; he insisted he had only made speeches and had not called for any flag or violence. He was arrested on 9 February 2021.44Deep Sidhu and Lakha Sidhana were charged over the Red Fort events; the SKM disavowed them. Deep Sidhu was arrested on 9 Feb 2021 and denied instigating violence. (He later died in a road accident on 15 Feb 2022.) Wikipedia; CNN.
4The death of Navreet Singh
Amid the chaos, one protester died — Navreet Singh, a 25-year-old farmer from Uttar Pradesh, near the ITO junction. As with everything that day, how he died is fiercely contested.
| The police account | The family & eyewitness account |
|---|---|
| His tractor overturned after hitting a barricade; he died in the accident. | He was shot; eyewitnesses and family alleged police firing, and one expert said the wounds looked consistent with a bullet injury.55Navreet Singh, 25, died near ITO on 26 Jan 2021. Police said his tractor overturned; family and some eyewitnesses alleged firing, and an expert cited possible bullet injury. The Caravan; Scroll.in. |
The government also reported that more than 300 police personnel were injured in the day's clashes.66More than 300 police personnel were reported injured in the 26 Jan 2021 violence. Deccan Herald; contemporary reporting. Whichever way you read the day, real people on both sides were hurt, and one young man did not go home.
5The backlash and the crackdown
For about 48 hours, it looked as if Republic Day had killed the movement. Public sympathy drained away. Television replayed the Red Fort images on a loop. Two unions quit the protest. Police filed cases (FIRs) against dozens of farmer leaders. And the state moved hard on the camps:
The crackdown that followed Republic Day (late January–February 2021)
| Measure | What happened |
|---|---|
| Internet shutdowns | Mobile internet was suspended at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur camps.77Mobile internet was suspended at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur protest sites in late Jan–Feb 2021; roads were fortified with concrete, multi-layer barricades, trenches and iron spikes. Reporting by The Hindu, Reuters and others. |
| Fortress borders | Roads were dug up and sealed with concrete blocks, multi-layer barricades, trenches, and iron spikes embedded in the tarmac — images that drew international criticism. |
| Online clampdown | The government ordered social-media platforms to block hundreds of accounts linked to the protest. |
| Cases on journalists | Sedition and other FIRs were filed against several journalists and a politician over their posts about Navreet Singh's death; one reporter was briefly detained at Singhu. |
The message was clear: the movement was to be squeezed until it collapsed. At Ghazipur, on the night of 28 January, it very nearly did.
6The night that saved everything: Rakesh Tikait's tears
At the Ghazipur camp (Delhi–UP border), the local administration cut the water and power and served an eviction notice. Police massed to clear the site. This was the end — until farmer leader Rakesh Tikait stepped to a microphone and broke down in tears on live television.
He vowed he would take his own life before he would end the protest — and swore he would not drink a drop of water until a farmer brought it to him from his own village. The tears of a tough Jat farmer leader, live on camera, did what no speech had.
The effect was almost instant. Within hours, thousands of farmers poured out of Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat and Hapur and raced toward Ghazipur.88On the night of 28 Jan 2021, facing eviction, Rakesh Tikait's emotional appeal drew thousands from western UP within hours and revived the protest; mahapanchayats spread across the region. National Herald; Hindustan Times. Village councils — mahapanchayats — erupted across western Uttar Pradesh in support. By morning, the crackdown had reversed, and the movement was not just saved but bigger than before.
A mahapanchayat is a huge open-air gathering of a rural community to take a collective stand. After Tikait's tears, these mass meetings spread the movement deep into a new region.
Before this night, the protest was seen as mainly a Punjab and Sikh movement — which made the "Red Fort / religious flag" attack easier to land. Tikait's tears pulled the Hindu Jat farmers of western UP in massively. It even began to heal the bitter Hindu–Muslim split left by the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, as Jats and Muslims stood together under one farmer identity. Overnight, the movement became broader, and much harder to brand.
7The long, grinding middle — then Lakhimpur
Through the spring and summer of 2021, the movement settled back into a patient siege. Mahapanchayats rolled across UP, Haryana and Rajasthan. The government stopped talking. Both sides dug in for the long haul. And then came the movement's darkest single day.
8Lakhimpur Kheri: 3 October 2021
In the Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh, farmers were protesting a visit by senior BJP leaders — including Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni — and had shown black flags. As a group of protesting farmers walked along a road at Tikunia, a convoy of vehicles drove into them from behind.99On 3 Oct 2021 at Tikunia, Lakhimpur Kheri, a convoy ran into protesting farmers. Eight people died in total. "2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence," Wikipedia.
Eight people died that day. It is important to be exact about who, because both sides count the dead:
The eight who died at Lakhimpur Kheri, 3 October 2021
| Who | Number | How they died |
|---|---|---|
| Protesting farmers | 4 | Run over by the convoy of vehicles. |
| A local journalist (Raman Kashyap) | 1 | Killed while covering the protest. |
| BJP workers & a driver | 3 | Killed in the mob violence that erupted afterward. |
| Total | 8 |
At the centre of the case was Ashish Mishra, the minister's son, whom farmers accused of being in — even driving — the vehicle that mowed them down. Once again, the accounts clashed head-on:
| The accused's / BJP side | The farmers' side |
|---|---|
| The driver lost control, or the vehicle was attacked by a mob; Ashish Mishra was not present, and BJP workers were themselves killed. | A minister's son deliberately drove into peaceful, retreating protesters — a cold act of political revenge for the black flags. |
Under public fury and Supreme Court pressure, Ashish Mishra was arrested on 9 October 2021.1010Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni, was arrested on 9 Oct 2021. The SIT later called the incident "well-planned" and sought attempt-to-murder charges; charges were framed against him and others. He has since moved through bail, its cancellation, and interim bail. The Tribune; Deccan Herald; India TV. The investigating team later called the killing "well-planned" and sought the most serious charges; a court framed charges against him and a dozen others. His long back-and-forth through bail, cancelled bail, and re-arrest continued for years.
Lakhimpur Kheri gave the movement its most painful rallying cry. The four farmers became martyrs, mourned across the country. And the fact that a Union minister's son stood accused turned a farming dispute into a raw question of power, justice, and impunity — one that hardened the farmers' resolve just as the government was quietly reconsidering its whole position.
9What these flashpoints did to the movement
Step back, and you can see three hammer-blows that reshaped everything:
Republic Day (26 Jan) nearly destroyed the movement from the outside — and handed its enemies their sharpest weapon: the "Khalistan" and "toolkit" narratives (all of Part 8).
Tikait's tears (28 Jan) saved it from the inside — and broadened it far beyond Punjab.
Lakhimpur Kheri (3 Oct) hardened it into something no amount of pressure could now shake — a movement with martyrs.
By the end of 2021, the farmers had endured cold, disease, a public-relations disaster, a near-eviction, a crackdown, and the deaths of their own. They were still there. And that stubborn, grieving endurance was about to force one of the most stunning reversals in modern Indian politics.
10Where we go next
Two roads open from here. One leads into the ugliest fight of all — the war of narratives that exploded after the Red Fort: Khalistan, the "toolkit," Greta and Rihanna, foreign hands, and the left-versus-right blame game. That is Part 8. The other leads to the astonishing morning in November 2021 when the Prime Minister appeared on television and gave up. That is Part 9.
Part 7 — the seven things to carry forward
- Talks had collapsed by January 2021; the SC stayed the laws and formed a committee the farmers boycotted.
- The 26 January tractor parade spiralled: broken routes, clashes, and the Red Fort flag incident.
- The flag was the Nishan Sahib (a religious, not separatist, symbol); whether the tricolour was "displaced" is exactly what the two sides dispute.
- Navreet Singh died at ITO (police say accident, family says firing); 300+ police were reported injured.
- A harsh crackdown followed — internet shutdowns, fortress barricades, FIRs — and the movement nearly collapsed.
- Rakesh Tikait's tears (28 Jan) revived it overnight and pulled in western UP's Hindu Jat farmers.
- Lakhimpur Kheri (3 Oct): eight dead (four farmers, a journalist, three others); minister's son Ashish Mishra arrested on 9 Oct.
Sources & further reading — Part 7
- Wikipedia — "2021 Indian farmers' Republic Day protest" and "2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence" (timelines, casualties, charges).
- CNN / NBC News — contemporaneous coverage of the Red Fort tractor rally, 26 Jan 2021.
- The Caravan / Scroll.in — the death of Navreet Singh and the dispute over its cause.
- Deccan Herald / The Tribune — police injury figures; Deep Sidhu's arrest (9 Feb 2021); charges in the Red Fort case.
- National Herald / Hindustan Times — the Ghazipur near-eviction and Rakesh Tikait's emotional turn (28 Jan 2021) and the western-UP mahapanchayats.
- India TV / Deccan Herald — the SIT's "well-planned" finding, charges framed against Ashish Mishra, and his arrest and bail history.
These events remain legally and politically contested. Where accounts conflict — the Red Fort flag, Navreet Singh's death, and Lakhimpur Kheri — I have set both versions side by side and noted what investigators and courts have found, rather than declaring a single winner. The Khalistan and "toolkit" narratives that erupted from Republic Day are examined in full in Part 8.