Covered in rain-soaked greenery, this small village emerges slowly as a road cuts from the main highway and leads deep into an undulating and slightly hilly terrain on which it is demurely placed.
The first address of Sisauli is that of the brawny Jat leader, late Mahendra Singh Tikait, whose leadership of farmers’ agitations had in the past sent chill down the rulers in Delhi and the State Government. Tikait’s son, Naresh, has taken the mantle now but without the similar aggressiveness and swagger of his father. The middle-aged Naresh is for “peace and talks” with the Government.
A bunch of young and elderly Jats wrapped in ubiquitous shawls are sitting at the heart of the village doing the usual gossip with “Hukka” livening up their lives. But despite the electoral fervour elsewhere in the State, the mood is rather subdued in this village from where Tikait held his undisputed sway over Jat farmers in western UP as the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union.
Tikait’s most memorable show was at Delhi’s Boat Club lawns in 1988 when nearly five lakh farmers from western UP occupied the entire stretch from Vijay Chowk to India Gate forcing the Rajiv Gandhi Government to bow down to his 35-point charter of demands that included higher prices for sugarcane and the waiving of electricity and water charges for farmers. Sisauli seems to have lost that anchoring role for Jats.
Situated about 25 km by road from Shamli that witnessed the infamous riots of 2013 and 35 km from the Kairana where BJP alleged of “mass migration of Hindus”, Sisauli has been “calm”. Sisauli did not experience any communal riots and remained peaceful during the infamous 2013 August-September days of Muzaffarnagar.
With around 14,000 votes, Sisauli is under the Budhana Assembly segment where four candidates — Yograj Balyan (RlD), Umesh Malik (BSP), Shahida Begum (BSP) and Pramod Tyagi (SP) - are in the fray.
There are some Jats who root for the RlD candidate saying he would, at least, “listen to us” and is “not like Nawajish Alam who did not turn up here even once after being elected”. SP’s Alam won the seat in 2012 by defeating RlD candidate Rajpal Singh Balyan (in 1962, the Assembly seat elected CPI’s Vijai Pal Singh !).
The Jats’ difference of opinion apart, views also differ on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s notebandi. A few describe it as “good” while others remind of bank managers’ “dhaandli” and their “dirty role” in converting black money into white. In between the intense “tu-tu-main-main” in a chaupal kind of structure, one Samir Balyan gives a thumbs up to the BJP candidate vis-à-vis his RlD counterpart.
RlD’s Yograj Balyan’s reported accusations against Naresh for allegedly having a hand in the murder of his father figures in during the debate on Assembly polls. As discussion warms up here, someone walks us down to the lanes of the “haveli” of Naresh Tikait.
Wrapped in a white shawl, the soft-spoken Naresh opens up saying the Modi Government did not consult him on the farmers’ issue. He does not credit the Government with doing much for farmers and seeks steps to stop “migration of farmers to cities lest the latter get overburdened”.
A beautiful fawn walks in and takes a round of us. Naresh says he found it in the forest and named him RsRajaRs, who, in turn, seemed to have developed a rapport with Johny, a black labrador. Naresh also has a horse and mare in his stable.
On the face of it, the settings here look too good without the ‘usual man- animal conflict’ or a human vs human conflict some distance away. Naresh walks the fawn around his ‘haveli’ for some time and also shows his camaraderie with the white horse and the mare. “Yesterday I took him out in the village but stray dogs scared him,” he says and points to a tree in the middle of his house which is left uncut to have the deer his natural food.
Politics back on the table, Naresh looks inclined towards the SP leader and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The Jat leader cites the emergency services of 100 and 108 for police vehicles and ambulances launched by the Akhilesh Government on the highways”. “Akhilesh and Mulayam are also okay towards farmers,” he says. What about the Jat support for the BJP IJ “It is not like the 2014 wave,” he points out and predicts a “fractured mandate” in UP.
“Give vote to a good candidate. Politics has succeeded in dividing farmers. I am maintaining my silence,” he averred.
As about Muzaffarnagar communal disturbances, Naresh, however, blames the State administration that transferred the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police while riots were underway.
After a fine lunch, Naresh takes us to the first “Kisan Bhawan” in the country, under construction in Sisauli, with statues of former Prime Minister Ch. Charan Singh, home minister Vallabhbhai Patel, Mahendra Singh Tikait, Karnataka’s farmers leader Prof MD Nanjundaswamy and other farmer leaders from across the country standing tall. A two-storey-building being constructed nearby will have national level meetings of farmers, he says. The RsKisan museumRs would be the first of its kind in the country.
Naresh says a farmers’ movement like the one galvanised by his father “is not possible now as the new generation is moving to cities for new jobs”. “In today’s world, a farmers’ movement and violence could harm them more than do good,” he says. He sees “talks as a good way to settle issues”. A rather saner view in a violence-prone Muzaffarnagar!