My dad, ‘the skipping Sikh’, is supporting the farmers in India. Why isn’t Boris Johnson doing the same?

If these protests continue, it's going to be devastating, and the ramifications will reach well beyond India's borders

Rajinder Singh has been making exercise videos for those in his community missing their daily exercise, food and prayer during the Covid-19 pandemic (Minreet Kaur)

In Delhi, since last November, millions of farmers have been peacefully protesting for justice. They fear that the three new agricultural laws the government wants to put in place will favour the giant corporations and destroy their livelihoods.

My dad, Rajinder Singh, is 74 and lives in Harlington. He’s also a potato farmer and activist – he’s become famous as the UK’s first, and only, “skipping Sikh” – and is doing all he can to raise awareness of the gravity of the farmers’ plight. So why isn’t the British government doing the same?

It’s too late to argue that nobody knows about what’s going on, though that may have been the case at first. Critics say Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have used the massive demonstrations to escalate a crackdown on free speech, detaining journalists and freezing Twitter accounts.

The borders of Delhi have been surrounded by barricades and barbed wire. The internet has been shut down, people have had their water and food supplies cut off, and many farmers have gone missing. There are also claims that at least one female activist has been arrested and sexually assaulted.

Yet now the eyes of the world are on India, following a number of tweets by high-profile celebrities, including Rihanna, Greta Thunberg, Amir Khan and Meena Harris. It’s time for the British government to step up and fight for justice – just like my father.

He was born in Punjabi in 1947, the son of a farmer and a landowner. His family are currently at the protests. My dad is completely devastated and shocked to see videos of protestors being dragged across the floor, beaten, tear gas being fired – and people dying.

And he has found himself in the spotlight. He never envisioned that he would be speaking out in public about the fiery protests in his homeland, and how they affect British-Asians like him.

This isn’t the first-time he has seen injustice, either. In 1985, his father was strangled and killed. He never found out who killed him, and to this day my family has never seen justice. My great-grandparents went through the 1947 partition and were left homeless. Dad saw thousands of lives taken in the Sikh genocide of 1984, at Sri Harminder Sahib – the Golden Temple – in Amritsar, his home town.

He never expected to see what he is seeing today: another attack on his homeland, which will lead to more deaths if there is no resolution between the farmers and the Indian government.

On the ground in Britain, the Indian diaspora is doing what it can – we’ve held rallies, and two men even decided to camp in a tent in their garden to show their support for farmers in the cold.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, MP for Slough, has written a letter to Dominic Raab – which has been signed by over 100 MPs – asking the UK government to intervene. But there has been little movement.

When the Black Lives Matter protests took place in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the world was rightly outraged. So why isn’t the UK condemning these atrocious acts of violence?

Farmer suicide has risen from 16,000 in 2015 to over 20,000, according to researchers at Saving Punjab – this is likely only going to increase if we see these new laws pass.

In PMQs last year, Dhesi asked Boris Johnson to intervene and protect the safety of farmers. The PM’s reply was confusing – he appeared to suggest that this was an issue “between India and Pakistan”. If the PM doesn’t know what’s going on, how can we expect anyone else to know?

One thing is clear: if these protests continue, it’s going to be devastating. There will be ramifications for many – even those beyond India’s border.

Thanks to growing social media activism in favour of the Indian farmer strike, the British government have now themselves been served with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people – which means it will now be debated.

Grassroots UK organisations like Khalsa Aid, Sikh Assembly, Midland Langar Sewa hit the ground running, months ago, to support those families in India who have lost loved ones. There's also been an outpouring of donations – American footballer Juju Smith, for example, donated $10,000 towards medical assistance for protestors.

But it still stings for British Asians like me and my dad to see that while our extended family in India have the support of celebrities, our own government is staying silent. He feels, as do I, and many others like us, that Johnson has a fundamental duty to stand up against what this is – a human rights violation.