FOR the first time in 33 years, Jana Natya Manch (Janam) did not perform a play on January 1.

It was on that day in 1989 that Janam was attacked while performing a street play, Halla Bol, on the outskirts of Delhi, in Jhandapur village of Sahibabad, in support of CITU. Two people were killed in the attack – Ram Bahadur, a young Nepali migrant worker who had recently become a father, was shot dead, and Safdar Hashmi, Janam’s charismatic leader was bludgeoned on the head and left for dead. He died in hospital the following day. He was 34.

Less than 48 hours after Safdar’s death, Janam went back to the same spot on the morning of January 4, 1989, and performed the interrupted play. The group was led by Moloyashree, a long-time actor and activist, to who Safdar had been married. It was a landmark performance and galvanised protests across the country. Safdar became a symbol of resistance to authoritarianism and continues to inspire young people across the country. It is telling that in recent years, Safdar’s image and his writings have been used in campus protests, as well as the anti-CAA-NRC protests in locations such as Shaheen Bagh.

Since 1989, Janam and CITU have returned to Jhandapur every year on January 1 to mark the anniversary of the attack and to reiterate the unity of working people and artists. Every year, Janam performs one or two plays, sings songs, and also hosts other artists who sing and perform. CITU organises a public meeting to address a large number of workers and their families who come to the event. Over the years, the January 1 memorial for Safdar Hashmi and Ram Bahadur has acquired a bit of a mela-like character, with families soaking in the winter sun, and children, in particular, enjoying the day out. Literally, thousands of people would come to Jhandapur to be part of the event.

January 1, 2022, however, was different. Like last year, there were Covid restrictions in place, and the venue was admitting only a limited number of people. Also, unlike previous years, there were no durries (mats) to sit on – to ensure physical distancing, everybody was sitting on chairs. The audience was also being reminded to keep themselves masked at all times.

But what made the day really different was that in the three days leading up to the event, a total of ten Janam members had contracted Covid. As a result, none of them could be part of the event in Jhandapur, and this meant that, despite contemplating various permutations and combinations, Janam could not put together the requisite cast for the two plays that were to be performed that day.

So Janam did perform, but only a few songs, and that too with a much-depleted chorus. Fortunately, two other groups were also performing songs – Dastak, a Delhi University group close to the SFI, and Jana Sanskriti, a group of Malayalis based in Delhi – so the audience was not deprived of music and revolutionary songs altogether!

In the event though, the speech by D P Singh, leader of AIKS, was very inspiring. Janam and CITU had unanimously settled on Singh’s name as the main speaker of the public meeting because he is from western Uttar Pradesh and had spent months at the Ghazipur border near Jhandapur as part of the farmers’ protests. What better way to remember Safdar than celebrating the unity of farmers-workers-artists! And Singh did not disappoint. He spoke passionately and eloquently and had the audience listening to him in rapt attention. He also riled up the enemy – but more of that later.

Singh began by paying tribute to Safdar Hashmi. He said that the killers had thought that they had silenced a voice, but did not know that their heinous act had inspired thousands of others to raise their voices. He then went on to speak of the long and historic struggle of the farmers against the three pro-corporate laws of the Modi government. Even though the three laws were the central target of the struggle, it was by no means limited to them, he said. He explained in simple terms how, for instance, charging farmers for electricity to operate their bore wells would spell doom for an overwhelming majority of them.

Singh went on to explain the importance of the minimum support price mechanism not just for farmers, but also for urban workers and the poor in general. He explained how it is impossible for farmers to predict future fluctuations in world prices when they decide to sow a particular crop. In any case, what crops farmers sow is never just an individual decision, but is based on several factors, most of which are outside the individual farmer’s control, such as access to particular inputs and markets. What the MSP mechanism is supposed to do is to protect the farmers from precipitous falls in the prices of their crops. It is when the MSP mechanism doesn’t work as it is supposed to and farmers are left more and more to the mercy of the markets that they start losing their livelihoods, their lands, and sometimes also their lives.

By guaranteeing a minimum price to farmers, the State also in effect makes a promise to buy their produce – which is then sold at subsidised rates to workers and urban and rural poor via the public distribution network of fair price shops (colloquially called ‘ration’ shops). This is meant to ensure that nobody goes hungry. If India has had some success in fighting starvation, the interconnected mechanisms of MSP and PDS should be given some of the credit.

Over the years, Singh said, both these mechanisms have been weakened and hamstrung by successive governments, particularly after the early 1990s. Progressively, the interests of big capital have become the centre of government policy. With the advent of the Modi government in 2014 and its re-election in 2019, the pro-corporate policy shift has become blatant and shameless. “Do you remember what Modi said when he announced the withdrawal of the laws?” Singh asked the audience. “He said he was sorry. But he didn’t say who he was apologising to. People thought he was apologising to farmers. No. He was apologising to the corporates, for whom these laws brought in.”

It is telling, Singh reminded the audience, that they passed the legislation without a proper vote, and by suspending protesting members of parliament. And now, even in withdrawing the laws, they’ve yet again suspended members of parliament who were demanding a discussion on the issue. The BJP doesn’t want an open discussion on any issue, because it doesn’t believe in democracy. And that is because of the history of its own parent organisation, the RSS, which stood in opposition to the freedom struggle, acted as stooges of the British, and consistently worked only to divide the people into communal lines and weaken the common struggle. What the farmers’ struggle has done is not just to fight for the sectional demands of farmers, but to fight for democracy itself.

With elections around the corner in Uttar Pradesh (Jhandapur is in UP), Singh said, it is absolutely essential to teach the BJP and its parent organisation, the RSS, a lesson. He launched a frontal attack on the politics of hate propagated by the Hindutva forces. These forces of hatred are against the poor and the marginalised. To choose them is to choose hunger for your children.

Singh also came down heavily on the corporate media, particularly the electronic media. In a striking metaphor, he likened them to tantriks who “kidnap the minds of parents to such an extent that they are prepared to kill their own children. Don’t let the media kidnap your minds and brains,” he cautioned. He concluded his speech by thanking all the sections, including workers, intellectuals, artists, professionals, and others, who stood by and supported the farmers in their struggle.

The effect of D P Singh’s speech was so electric that someone – most likely a local BJP person – called the police and complained that “anti-national slogans” were being raised at the meeting. The local police arrived with the intention of halting the event, but in Hindi film style – after everything was over!

On January 2, which is Safdar’s death anniversary, Janam organises an intimate meeting to remember the fallen comrade. The programme this year was supposed to be a conversation between Moloyashree and Safdar’s brother Sohail, who used to be a CPI(M) activist when Safdar was active in Janam. However, with both being unwell, that had to be postponed. Instead, Janam members got together on zoom and remembered Safdar by reading out his poems and songs. Similarly, on January 3, Janam had organised a poetry reading session on the theme ‘kisan’, which also had to be done online, so that all Janam members could participate.

Around the time of Safdar’s 33rd death anniversary, arrived other glad news. Sudhanva Deshpande’s book Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi, published by LeftWord in English, Vaam Prakashan in Hindi, Kriya Madhyama in Kannada and Bharathi Puthakalayam in Tamil, is now slated for release in three additional languages: in Malayalam (translated by theatre and film director Pramod Payyannur); in Telugu (translated by litterateur K Satyaranjan); and in Marathi (translated by theatre scholar and novelist Shanta Gokhale). These editions will be published in the next two three months.