New Delhi: A tractor rally on India's biggest public event, the Republic Day, should not have been allowed in the first place and the authorities should have anticipated that they will not be able to control a crowd of over 50,000 people as tractors will be used as a weapon, said India's former home secretary GK Pillai.
Pillai, who was in charge of India's internal security during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's tenure, said authorities should not have allowed the protesters to march inside the national capital from their designated protest sites at Delhi border, particularly on Republic Day.
"It was a mistake to have allowed the tractor rally at all. They (authorities) should have anticipated that tractors will be used as a weapon. It should have never been allowed," GK Pillai told the audience in response to a question by ETV Bharat in a programme organised by Mumbai-based fintech firm EPS India.
GK Pillai, who was home secretary from June 2009 to June 2011 and handled the tricky situations like the economic blockade of Manipur by some Naga groups in 2010, says once huge crowd of more than 50,000 people was allowed to assemble then there was no way for the authorities to control them.
"It is much better to tell: 'Look, you stay at your protest site. We will not allow you in on Republic Day under any circumstances'," GK Pillai said.
"There was no way to control them," the veteran civil servant told ETV Bharat.
Farmers protest new agriculture laws
A tractor rally organised by some farmer organisations on the country's Republic Day (January 26) turned violent and more than 300 police personnel were injured in the rally.
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Delhi police registered 22 FIRs in connection with the arson in which a 24-year-old youth from Western Uttar Pradesh died after his tractor overturned while breaching a barricade.
The farmers' unions have been agitating at Delhi's borders for the last two months against the three controversial farm laws passed by the Union government in September last year.
The farm laws allow greater market access to farmers as they will be able to enter into contract farming with private companies, and can also sell their produce across the country outside the Mandi system managed by State governments which requires farmers to sell their produce only at a designated Mandi (local bazar).
However, farmers in some states, particularly in Punjab and Haryana that account for bulk of grain procurement under India's public procurement system, are apprehensive that the new laws will dismantle the assured public procurement system of their produce by the government agencies at a fixed price known as minimum support price (MSP).
Though the country's apex court has suspended the implementation of the new farm laws pending resolution of the issue by appointing an expert committee, the farmers gathered at Delhi's borders have not shown any signs of relenting.
Noted security expert Major General GD Bakshi (retd) said there is a feeling that the violence and arson during the tractor rally was a completely pre-planned affair.
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"They broke the protocols on the roads and routes they were told. They went on to iconic Red Fort. They very rudely flung aside an Indian flag," Bakshi told the audience in response to a question by ETV Bharat.
"They used tractors almost like a tank," Bakshi told ETV Bharat.
He says the protesters created an Indian Capitol Hill kind of moment on India's Republic Day.
Stringent action against arsonists
Bakshi also concurred with the view that authorities should have never allowed a tractor rally on Republic Day.
"When it was allowed, what they (farmer leaders) were hoping for was an overreaction by the police which would have exacerbated the situation," observed the security expert.
The former army officer said that the authorities must now identify the miscreants and deal with them in a stern manner.
"Don't go berserk in your response. Be focused, be controlled," he added.
