When an Indian Hindu hardliner runs your state, what’s it like if you’re Sikh, Muslim or Christian?

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The sun sets over the Taj Mahal in Agra on February 1, 2022. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:00pm, 5 Mar 2022

Jagdeep Singh, a 31-year-old farmer from India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh applied to local authorities for a revolver licence four months ago.

His village of Lakhimpur Kheri, home to 4 million people, is filled with lush green sugar cane and paddy fields.

It was in one such sugar cane field Singh’s father died last year. The son of a federal minister was allegedly part of a convoy comprising a jeep and two SUVs that rammed into the elder Singh and three other farmers.

They were protesting the three contentious agricultural laws introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that farmers felt would hurt their incomes, and were waiting to wave black flags at the minister on that fateful day.

Thousands of Indian farmers gathered and tried to cross sealed New Delhi border points to hold protests against the government’s new farm laws December 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STR

The minister had earlier threatened to “discipline” them and had plans to pass through this route. But he changed his course at the last minute and while the farmers dispersed, the minister’s son’s convoy allegedly hit them from behind. When Singh heard what happened, he went to look for his father, only to find his body four hours later.

To Singh, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are to blame.

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