Deep Sidhu, an actor and activist. He has been in the news quite too much in the past couple of days. Deep Sidhu was accused of hoisting the Khalsa Flag on the Red Fort with his followers yesterday.
Despite being avoided by farmer unions at various stages of the ongoing protest, Deep Sidhu has been trying to take a leadership role in the movement for the past several months.
Pushed to the border of the distress, Deep Sidhu revived back just one day ahead of the decided tractor march of Tuesday the 26th January. Allegedly he was seen campaigning for the rally on the Outer Ring Road. The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee was in favour of staying on the original plan of holding the march on the Outer Ring Road with another body Bharti Kisan Union (Krantikari), which is basically part of the 32 farmer organisations, apparently gave Deep Sidhu the opportunity by which he forced upon not to pursue the new route agreed upon.
Further, on Monday evening, Deep took over the stage at Singhu border, and along with former gangster and currently a social activist Lakha Sidhana, announced that the march will be held “inside Delhi”.
Reportedly, Deep and Lakha had support from undefined extreme Leftist elements between the 32 organisations in the plan for not following the agreed upon route. They made a plan all set by Tuesday morning. At first, they started marching on their own way before the time of the official march of the farmer unions, and positioned their ‘followers”’ in large numbers at a road that turned towards central Delhi. From there they instructed other tractors towards the Red Fort instead of the agreed route. It is also reported that the volunteers of farmer unions tried to intervene in this, but they were not able to as the supporters/followers of Deep Sidhu and Lakha Sidhana group were more in numbers.
This kind of scene possibility was already foreseen by farmer unions a long time back. About a month ago, in a meeting of the 32 farmer unions, one of the leaders titled Deep Sidhu and Lakha Sidhana as “enemies of this struggle”.
The concern among the 32 organisations from the start of this protest was seen that these two were pushing the “struggle of farmers” in the wrong direction, towards a communal path.
Deep Sidhu, an actor in Punjabi industry, who has acted in a few films, last year questioned the leadership of the farmer union which took everyone by surprise and later launched his own ‘morcha’ at Shambu.
In the last Lok Sabha election, Deep Sidhu was campaigning from the BJP’s side, and had even posed pictures with our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was the election agent of the BJP’s Gurdaspur candidate Sunny Deol. Not only this but Deep Sidhu was also accused of being an “RSS agent” by farmer unions in Punjab.
His ‘Shambu morcha’, as is called by him and his supporters, started “live streaming” and this streaming got him support from some pro-Khalistan channels. He would quite frequently attack the ‘Leftist’ leadership of the unions. He would give examples of Jews and motivated people to fight for a “Sikh homeland”.
Of all this, a question that is being raised now is his sudden shift in support from “Hindu Right” to “Sikh Right wing”. He by himself has given an explanation that only after reading the book on Sikh history, written by Naxalite-turned-Khalistan proponent Ajmer Singh changed his perception. Though farmer unions have openly claimed that Deep Sidhu is the face of Ajmer Singh.
Deep Sidhu in an interview asked people to go back as the communist wanted to use their kids as cannon fodder. This happened after the November 26-27 protest wherein he wasn’t given any space by the unions. He was however seen tracking back his statement very shortly.
About two weeks before, he sent a letter to the unions expressing his desire to get associated with their platform. Though the request was denied.
In a facebook video that Deep Sindhu posted on his wall, he was seen saying “We only hoisted the Nishan Sahib at the Red Fort while exercising our democratic right to protest.”
He further said that such protest ignites anger in people and you can’t blame any one person as a cause of such an incident.
Going to the Red fort was a symbolic protest and the Indian flag wasn’t removed but hoisted the Nishan Sahib as a sign of “unity in diversity”.
He also added that this incident should not be seen in seperation of the ongoing protest as the protest has been going on for the past few months.
He mentioned that the protesters didn’t go to Delhi to cause harm to anyone or to damage government property and therefore should not be called communal elements or hardliners.
He was of the saying that the protest accordingly was peaceful protest and was symbolic and the emotions of the protestors should be taken into consideration and no one person should be blamed for what has happened.
Deep Sidhu had campaigned for BJP’s Sunny Deol during the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Two agitators hoisted their own flags after climbing the flagstaff at the Red Fort where thousands of protesters stormed, creating a major law and order issue.
