Dear Express reader, Last Sunday, I wrote to you about the incident at Lakhimpur Kheri, where four farmers were mowed down by a convoy of vehicles, one of them owned by Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra. Four others were killed in the retaliatory violence on that day. This Sunday, I write to you a day after the daylight lynching of a Dalit Sikh at Singhu, at the site of the farmers’ protest on the Delhi-Haryana border, allegedly by a group of Nihangs, who accused their victim of sacrilege, and captured the macabre hate crime on video. Two crimes, different victims, same backdrop — of the farmers’ movement against the Centre’s three farm laws. The questions in the aftermath of Lakhimpur Kheri continue to be addressed predominantly to the governments in UP and at the Centre — the former immediately cracked down on political opponents, while taking its time to arrest the minister’s son who was named in the FIR. The latter still hasn't asked MoS Mishra to step down so that the probe can be seen to be free and fair. But the day after the lynching at Singhu, some tough questions have also come the way of the farmers’ movement. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body of farmer unions, that is leading the protest in states, mainly Punjab, Haryana, UP and at Delhi’s borders, has condemned and sought to distance itself from the crime at Singhu, saying that it has no relation with either the victim or the accused. But as we said in our editorial, that is not enough. “The farmers' movement and its leadership must look the crime in the eye, and own up to the serious questions it raises. They are well aware that a mobilisation that lasts this long — the protests against the Centre's three farm laws began in Punjab last year in June, moving to Delhi's borders that November — always carries a risk of being distorted from within, as much as it courts the state's ire. It needs to be constantly alert and vigilant to the dangers of becoming the staging ground for extremists in search of relevance. It must be mindful of the possibilities of being discredited by those who seek to hijack its platform for their own irresponsible, even criminal, ends”, our editorial said. The question of violence has confronted the movement before — mainly the eruption on January 26 when a section of farmers broke away from the planned route of the tractor march to attempt to storm the Red Fort, but also the retaliatory violence that took lives at Lakhimpur Kheri, and there have been smaller incidents elsewhere. Going ahead, the movement that has grown and spread outside of the mainstream political space, helmed by a group of leaders who can be less than coherent and are sometimes at odds with one another on strategies and the end-game, and which seems to wear on its sleeve the pulls and tugs from below, will have to address the issue of violence and also of religion, much more unequivocally than it has so far. What is the moral responsibility of a movement for violence? How can it reinforce the boundedness of its platform, in order to prevent its space being appropriated by other agendas and interests? In fact, that the victim at Singhu was accused of desecration makes this a more complicated predicament for all — movement, political party, government. In Punjab, incidents of beadabi or sacrilege have been known to have a long and uneasy afterlife, stoking religious and caste faultlines. The 2015 Bargari sacrilege case continues to echo in the state’s politics, and has contributed to the rise of Navjot Singh Sidhu and the eclipse of Captain Amarinder Singh. While Sidhu is seen to have pointedly raised the 2015 case in the public domain, underlining the absence of justice or closure, former Chief Minister Singh presided over a government that, in popular perception, countenanced a cover-up. With an election round the corner, difficult and delicate days lie ahead in Punjab. Take care, Vandita PS: I am delighted to welcome on board Menaka Guruswamy, who began her fortnightly column “Opening Argument” on the Ideas Page this Saturday. She joins a distinguished panel of columnists, who make our opinion pages a fiercely free and argumentative space everyday. | 
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