Sikar: In newly-elected Member of Parliament Amra Ram’s home, an alcove across his bed holds discarded mementoes and gifts — idols of various gods, framed photos of Ambedkar, a miniature tractor, and his 2011 ‘Best MLA’ award. Across the alcove is a wall adorned with photos of Bhagat Singh and bright red Communist symbols.
Amra Ram is no ordinary politician. He’s the only communist MP elected from North India, representing Sikar in Rajasthan. His party the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Sikar is like a red island in Rajasthan’s sea of saffron, and Amra Ram is the showman captain of a surprisingly sturdy CPI(M) ship.
He protested on the borders of Delhi for 13 months along with the farmers against the Farm Laws in 2020-21— a memory that has shaped his election to the lower House. In a symbolic gesture of solidarity to the same farmers who were kept from protesting in Delhi, he rode in a tractor all the way to Parliament to be sworn in this June.
The BSc-BEd-MCom holder is a dedicated grassroots politician, rising through the political ranks from being a government teacher to becoming a sarpanch to taking his place in Rajasthan’s legislative assembly four times, before finally graduating to Parliament in 2024. And he’s also well versed with the spectacle of politics, going viral multiple times — like when he sat on a bulldozer to stop it from demolishing Dalit homes on a highway.
From the pavement to Parliament, Ram’s path was paved by working class struggles: he platformed farmer’s rights and uproar over the Agniveer recruitment process, while highlighting the high rate of unemployment and inflation to the high costs of electricity.
He’s fought the campaign six times before, and he finally unseated the two-time incumbent BJP MP Sumedhanand Saraswati.
“This is the land of struggle. This entire belt of Rajasthan is home to the farmers who have built our country, they are no strangers to struggle,” said Amra Ram, handing out sweets at Jaipur’s CPI(M) office, right after returning to Rajasthan from the opening session of Parliament. He sits below photos of Lenin, Marx, and Bhagat Singh, while young SFI-affiliated students read books at the other end of the long table.
“This is not an overnight victory. This has been twenty years in the making. We have been successful with all the issues we’ve taken up — no matter how much time it has taken,” the 68-year-old MP told ThePrint. “I want to be the common link between the people and the government. I have protested in the state Vidhan Sabha — now I’ll protest in the Sansad.”
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The party vs its face
Amra Ram is not resting on his laurels. The day after returning to Rajasthan from New Delhi, he set off on a thank-you-tour of his constituency — visiting nineteen villages in Sikar in a span of thirteen hours, taking a brief 20-minute lunch break at a constituent’s house.
The size of the village translated into this size of his reception. But it didn’t alter Ram’s speech or the amount of time his entourage would spend – each village got equal treatment. And they knew the district like the back of their hands. In larger villages, he took his place on a dais or stage and addressed people loudly. In smaller villages, he would sit down next to familiar village elders and smoke their pipes under large trees. After around fifteen minutes in each village, he was off to the next — unrelenting in the heat.
“This is your victory!” he said, village after village, thanking the people who’d come to meet him. “Every person has worked with their tan, man, dhan (body, mind, wealth) for this. I’ve worked for you for twenty years in the Vidhan Sabha, now I will work for you in Parliament,” he would repeat, diligently making a note of all locals’ complaints. “Jai bhim, jai kisan, jai jawan.”
While shuttling between villages in his white SUV, he sorted through the complaints, filing away the more serious ones before assigning people to take care of more local problems.
“He’d give his life for us. We made him popular and sent him to Delhi now!” said 27-year-old Lalu Prasad Chowdhary in the village of Sihot Bari.
The talk quickly turned to how often they see him, versus how often they saw their previous MP.
“The previous MP came twice to our village. And nothing has happened in the last ten years. But Amra Ram has lived among us as people,” said Chowdhary.
In Bhunwala, housewife Suman is one of the few women present to greet Amra Ram, hanging back from the formal gathering under her red Shekhawati dupatta.
“It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses or not, or if he’s sitting in the Vidhan Sabha or Parliament. It doesn’t matter whether he actually holds an official position or not. He stands with us,” she said. “He listens to us.”
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Shekhawati pride and Communist sympathy
Vikram Singh Kaviya, a resident of Sihot Bari and a lifelong RSS member, said Ram’s communist membership is what held him back thus far.
But Ram traces this communist tradition to Rajasthan’s feudal past — something the MP is well aware of.
Ram was general secretary of the CPI(M)’s farmer body, the All India Kisan Sabha — a movement that also finds its momentum in Rajasthan’s Jat population.
The Shekhawati belt of Rajasthan — comprising largely of Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Chomu and nearby areas — has a history of peasant movements under the British Raj. These movement were mobilised under the banner of Jat pride, as most land-owing farmers in the region are Jats — just like Amra Ram.
The All India Jat Mahasabha was formed in 1932, and was so strong against local jagirdars — landlords — that farmers’ land rights were acknowledged in 1945.
The CPI(M) became active in Rajasthan in the 1960s, organising protests against the redistribution of lands irrigated by the Indira Gandhi Canal. Its student wing, the SFI, became a strong force in the region, winning student elections multiple times at Sikar’s SK Government College. It remains a major student body contender even today. In 1980, Sikar elected its first CPI(M) MLA, Trilok Singh.
By the early 2000s, Amra Ram was active in politics and organising protests by the All India Kisan Sabha against hikes in electricity tariffs and reductions in water allowance to farmers. The party began to suffer a setback in the region with the advent of the BJP in 2013 — which swept assembly elections.
In 2017, Amra Ram was at the forefront of CPI(M)-led protests against electricity tariffs, forcing the Rajasthan government to rollback the hike 17 days after it was introduced. The CPI(M) was back to being a force in Sikar.
“There is not a single village in Sikar today without the presence of the Kisan Sabha,” said Nathulal, a farmer in Tatanva village. “Every farmer here will answer Amra Ram’s call if he makes one. Because he always answers ours.”
This time, Ram was the official candidate of the INDI Alliance and had the support of the Congress, which had lost ground to the BJP in Sikar. Ram was accompanied on his tour by the local Congress zilla president Sunita Gathala — and avoided the usual Lal Salaam, even as bright red communist flags fluttered in the wind around him.
The question of why he wasn’t voted into Parliament earlier hangs in the air. There was the Modi wave, one person ventures, while another concedes that the CPI(M) doesn’t always have the money to reach the large swathes of urban voters in Sikar.
“Amra Ram is a great person, and the best candidate for this region because he works hard for the people. But his party is badmash,” said RSS-member Kaviya, adding that he voted for the BJP even though he thinks highly of Ram.
“Now he has to learn from the BJP on how to take care of dharma and society.”
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Jat mobilisation
Amra Ram’s maiden parliamentary victory raises the question of whether Sikar voted for him, or for the party.
Ram is convinced it’s both — the CPI(M) has always had a strong foothold in Sikar, partly thanks to him and other leaders like Pema Ram. And while the voter might not yet be convinced that the CPI(M) as a party is the answer to their strife, they seem to have placed their faith in Ram for now.
“People are not yet convinced that the CPM CPI(M) is the right party, there’s a lot of propaganda,” said Ram’s son, Mahaveer Ram — himself a former sarpanch, his wife a CPI(M) leader on a Panchayati Samiti. “But Sikar is known as a mini-Bengal in the north, because our farmers have always gathered under the Kisan Sabha banner. And slowly, all their problems were addressed by Amra Ram.”
But he is not concerned about keeping the BJP or the RSS’ influence at bay. The last few elections were won because of the Modi wave, according to him, and the 2024 election is proof that the people of Sikar are refocusing on the problems that affect them.
The BJP and the RSS only talk of caste and communalism, they can’t fight the people’s fight. But the CPI(M) does, as we always have. Through conversations, convincing, and organised struggle, people have come around the CPI(M)
— Amra Ram, Sikar MP
And the BJP’s candidate for Sikar, two-time MP Sumedhanand Saraswati, angered Jat voters this time around. During his election campaign, Saraswati referenced troublesome Sikar students — especially Jat students — by saying that Jat boarding hostels have become hubs of hooliganism. It was a veiled threat against both Amra Ram’s political activity and his Jat followers.
“The BJP and the RSS only talk of caste and communalism, they can’t fight the people’s fight. But the CPI(M) does, as we always have. Through conversations, convincing, and organised struggle, people have come around the CPI(M),” said Amra Ram.
To him, the chronology is clear. In the 2019 elections, the BJP won all 25 of Rajasthan’s parliamentary seats. This time, the INDI Alliance won 11. He points out that the BJP’s tally of seats have dropped in all the states where the farmers’ protests had the most gravity — a signal of how deeply the farm laws affected farmers across India.
“Just look at the places where the farmers’ protests had the most gravity — the numbers of BJP MPs from all these states have dropped,” said Ram. “Anger and frustration with the government is a natural reaction. But ours was also an organised struggle. Anyone can react — change happens when the same person steps out of their home to act.”
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The politics of Bijli, paani
Under a large banyan tree — a red CPI(M) flag visible against its red fruit — Amra Ram accepts a traditional panchrangi turban from a village elder and addresses the crowd.
“You know I have always been with you. For 13 months I sat with our farmer brothers to raise our voices against the black laws. Now for the next five years I will sit in Parliament to raise my voice for us,” he said.
A village elder taps him on the shoulder and passes him a pipe to smoke.
“My whole family has voted for Amra Ram, everyone speaks highly of him. I am from a farming family, so I will always appreciate what he does for us,” said 24-year-old Devendra Jangir, who has just completed his BA in political science. “Everyone has different thoughts and ideologies. But I don’t think anyone except him can take care of our interests — it doesn’t matter what the RSS said or does, what they are highlighting are issues that don’t affect me here in Bhunwala village.”
Jangir references the farm loan waivers, a fight that Ram was at the forefront of. As of 2024, the Rajasthan government has waived the loans of nearly 60,000 farmers — a grand total of Rs 409 crore.
“Rajasthan was the first state where loans were forgiven. It was a long and hard battle — around 700 comrades and farmers were put in jail,” said Ram told ThePrint. “I see myself as the link between people’s problems and the state, and that is why it is so important for me to protest myself.”
Ram is now focused on addressing the issues that his constituency faces — whether its electricity tariffs or the quality of water.
“Such things affect both the lives and livelihoods of the farmers of Sikar — unlike problems that other parties highlight. For example, there is a huge shortage of drinking water. And the water that we do get is fluoride heavy, leading to problems like knee pain and liver issues,” said Ram. “These things also need to be addressed for us all to develop.”
At the CPI(M) office in Jaipur, 84-year-old Comrade Vasudev, former professor of political science at the University of Rajasthan, is confident that Ram is the right person for Sikar.
“Just look at the state of Sikar. It is not yet developed, it has so much potential. Ram has to prioritise the overall development of the district now,” he said.
Vasudev paused, and then reminded some students — SFI members staying at the CPI(M) quarter — sitting around him that all the people who have represented Sikar so far have not yet been from Sikar.
And there have also been a series of political leaders who trace their roots to Sikar, he said, a twinkle in his eye.
“Balram Jakhar, Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Vice President of India. Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat, husband of President of India Pratibha Patil. Devi Lal, Deputy Prime Minister of India,” Vasudev lists, rattling off the names. “All are from Sikar. You know which post is missing? Only the Prime Minister’s post is left for Sikar to conquer!”
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)