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Journalism of Courage
On other days, advocate Mahaveer Singh, local politician Jayant Kichar, and retired Army medical officer Dr Hari Singh may not have shared a cot, let alone an ideology. But on the afternoon of September 12, 2017, at a picket in Sikar’s Ramu ka Bas village, the three sat next to each other under a tree, surrounded by scores of farmers. Like the thousands of agitating farmers who had brought Sikar to a standstill, they seemed indistinguishable from the rest.
Except, Singh was affiliated with the CPI(M), Kichar with the Congress, and Hari with the BJP. Beyond the picket, the Bahujan Samaj Party, Aam Aadmi Party, Janata Dal (Secular), and Independent MLAs, too, supported the agitation.
The man who brought them together was Amra Ram, then the national president of CPI(M)’s farmer wing All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS). A former MLA and now the Sikar MP, Ram was inducted into the CPI(M) Politburo, the party’s executive authority, on Sunday. He is the only representative in the Politburo from North India.
Back then, as it is now, the party had no MLAs in Rajasthan. However, the agitation led by Amra Ram and former CPI(M) MLA Pema Ram was so intense that there were barely any signs of administration or police in Sikar, as people across ideologies, political parties, and professions came together for the 13-day protest for a debt waiver, fair prices, and the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, among other demands.
Ram, 69, started out in student politics, becoming the student union president at Sikar’s Shri Kalyan College in 1978. Six years later, he was elected as the sarpanch of Mundwara Gram Panchayat, his birthplace. Outside politics, he took an interest in kabaddi, representing Rajasthan at the national level.
Over the years, Ram has persevered despite several electoral losses. His Lok Sabha win from Sikar last year came after at least six electoral losses from the seat since the 1990s.
He had better luck in the Assembly, losing in 1990 from Dhod, but winning it in 1993, 1998 and 2003, and then winning from Danta Ramgarh in 2008. However, he has lost from Danta Ramgarh ever since — in 2013, 2018, and 2023. Despite the losses, Ram left a mark in the Assembly and went on to win the Best MLA award in 2011.
One of the reasons for his political relevance is that the Shekhawati region, which includes Sikar, comprises mainly farmers who are mostly Jats, and Ram has led or participated in several farmers’ agitations over the last 40 years, including those beyond Shekhawati.
It was partly because of one such farmers’ movement, this time against a hike in electricity tariffs, that the CPI(M) managed to win three seats in 2008. Over the years, thanks to the CPI(M)’s agitations, Shekhawati was often referred to as the “lal tapu (red island)”.
Ram’s Lok Sabha win came as things neatly fell into place. The Congress, having drawn a blank in the previous two Lok Sabha polls from Rajasthan, left three seats for its allies: Sikar for the CPI(M), Nagaur for Hanuman Beniwal of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, and Banswara for Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party.
Amid an anti-BJP wave among a section of Jats, Shekhawati became its epicentre, and Ram, a Jat himself, and the Congress reaped the benefits. The Congress threw its weight behind Ram, with Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra, also a Jat from Sikar, campaigning for the CPI(M) leader. In the end, the INDIA bloc of Opposition parties won 11 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Ram’s win was especially noteworthy, considering the margins in Sikar in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. His opponent, the BJP’s Sumedhanand Saraswati, received 58% votes while the Congress got 35.7%, and Ram polled just over 31,000 votes for a mere 2.4%. And in the 2023 Assembly elections, Ram polled close to 21,000 votes or 9.5% in Danta Ramgarh. However, last year, he received over 6.59 lakh votes or 50.68% of the vote share.
Pitched yet again against the saffron-clad Saraswati, an Arya Samaj member, Ram told The Indian Express then, “Kewal Bhagwan se pet nahi bharta. (God alone doesn’t fill the stomach). Everyone believes in Ram, my name itself is Amra Ram.”
