Iron Nails Vs Flowers! Farmers Plant Flowers Near Spikes Installed By Police To Stop Them
In a great show of symbolism and contrasts, the farmers at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border planted flower saplings along a road stretch, saying it was their response to "iron nails" fixed in the area by the police.?
On Friday, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait said, "The police had fixed iron nails for farmers but we have decided to plant flowers for them."
Rows of marigold flowers have come up near the barricading only in a "symbolic gesture" but a relatively bigger plantation drive was underway on a road stretch nearby, BKU media incharge Dharmendra Malik said.
Flower garden
"A flower garden is being created on the Delhi-Dabur Tiraha road. This will cover the dirt lying on road stretches, and also emanate fragrance and improve the environment around," Malik said.?
Farmers, who are getting the flower saplings from nearby nurseries, said they were on the path of "peaceful" demonstration.
Stringent security measures like multi-layered barricading, concertina wires, had come up along with iron nails cemented on roads around the protest site in the wake of the January 26 violence in Delhi.?
The installation of the iron spikes and nails had come under heavy criticism from the farmers and opposition parties who said the government should have put such measures in place at the border with China to stop its army from intruding and occupying Indian land.
"The protest sites are looking like international borders. It is as if we have come from Pakistan. On one hand, they (the government) want us to talk, and on the other hand they are doing everything to de-link us (from the city)," farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu had said.?
On Thursday, the iron nails, which were studded on roads around the protest site, were briefly removed, a move drawing jibes by protestors against the stringent security measures, even as Delhi Police officials said the spikes were just being "repositioned".
