Joginder Singh Ugrahan

Joginder Singh Ugrahan is the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan), a Punjab farm union that The Quint calls the largest among the unions of the farmers' protest of 2020 and 2021. He was born in 1945 at Sunam in Sangrur district (Wikipedia). The Tribune reports that he served in the army for about a year and a half, joined the Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1979, and in 1984 joined the BKU led by Bhupinder Singh Mann; after a split in 1989 he moved to BKU (Lakhowal) and later BKU (Sidhupur). In 2002 he founded his own union, which ThePrint says has strong support among small and marginal farmers in the Malwa region.

The morcha, 2020 to 2021. Parliament passed the three farm laws on 20 September 2020. BKU Ugrahan began a sit-in that month outside Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's residence in Patiala and carried out rail blockades and other actions in Punjab, ThePrint reports. It was not one of the 31 organisations leading the main coalition, but it kept up the protest (The Quint). The sit-ins at the Delhi borders began on 26 November 2020, and Wikipedia says his union sent the largest contingent. On 19 November 2021 Prime Minister Modi announced that the laws would be repealed. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha decided on 9 December 2021 to suspend the protest after a letter from the Centre promising a committee on the minimum support price, withdrawal of cases against farmers and compensation for the families of those who died, and the farmers were due to leave the borders on 11 December (Down To Earth). For his union that was about fifteen months from the first Patiala sit-in, and just over a year at the Delhi borders. In a December 2021 interview with The Caravan, Ugrahan said nearly seven hundred farmers had died.

His own words. In that interview he welcomed the repeal but called the way Modi announced it undemocratic, since it was not discussed in cabinet or in public, and he said opposition to the BJP's other policies would continue. He also said the government had tried to suppress the protest, including by alleging a 26 January conspiracy that labelled protesters as separatist Sikhs. The Quint reports that television channels compared his union to Naxals and that he rejected the charge.

Key moments

• 2002: founds BKU (Ekta Ugrahan).
• September 2020: sit-in outside the Chief Minister's residence in Patiala.
• 26 November 2020: the Delhi border sit-ins begin.
• 11 December 2021: the date set for the farmers to leave the borders.
• February 2024: The Tribune lists him among the faces of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha group in a month of two separate protests.

What he is known for. He is known as a veteran farm-union organiser from the Malwa and as one of the faces of the 2020 to 2021 morcha.