DM Monitoring
MOHALI: Sikh Farmers across Indian Punjab have kept their strike alive against anti-farmers laws imposed by the Modi-led BJP Hindu nationalist government last year. “Sannu Saal Ho Chaleya, Modi Da Pit Syapa Kardey” (‘We’ve been crying against Modi for over a year now but we won’t stop’), exclaimed Gurpreet Kaur, a woman in her late thirties who is the movement in-charge at Baras village in Patiala district. Her two children and her husband accompany her everywhere.
“We have just come back from Delhi. Right now I am at a morcha near my village and our next trip to Delhi will take place after May 30,” she speaks loudly over the phone. A nearby loudspeaker at the protest site she was at kept drowning her voice.
Gurpreet leads a village-level committee for her union, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan). She mobilises over 100 women from the village. Gurpreet is among the many people in Punjab’s rural areas who have become full-timers. She has not taken a break from protesting and says that she is unafraid of the consequences.
There’s a person like Gurpreet in every village of Punjab. The deep sincerity in every protester appears to be the very element that has fuelled the movement into one of the largest protests against an elected government in India.
This one-of-a-kind movement has been reeling under a health crisis, which too is a first. It is natural for a large, prolonged movement to have its low points – especially when the media and public look away from it. But, given the scale of the pandemic and its consequences in India, the movement is also fighting a natural and inevitable setback.
Over 20 villages in Punjab became COVID-19 containment zones earlier this month. Shocking stories of death from rural parts of not just Punjab but Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have alarmed many.
Sandeep Singh, a young activist from Khamano village told Media that people are afraid to go out. “Hun COVID tan hai hi (There is COVID, you know),” he says. “Nothing can be done about it,” he adds in a dispirited tone. “But when there are protest calls by the leadership from Delhi, we do as much as we can.”
He was referring to the event of May 26, the day the farmers’ protest completed six months in Delhi. Almost every village participated in a show of support. Those who couldn’t go out of their houses tied black flags to their terraces and balconies.
Last year, when the protest was gaining momentum in Punjab, many in rural Punjab had been least worried about the coronavirus. There was hesitancy towards testing, health teams were boycotted or driven away and masks were made fun of. But this year, several villages themselves imposed lockdown-like restrictions and villagers are now trying to get vaccinated as quickly as they can.
Avtar Singh of Niamian village told Media that there are not any COVID-19 cases in his village, but over 70% of the people there have inoculated themselves. The aim is to get vaccinated so that the protest against farm laws can get “back on track”.
“See, most of us are back right now. But there’s always one person from this village at the border. There has to be. Yes, there’s COVID but we’re also back because we wanted to sell our wheat and sow our paddy. This is our livelihood. But, you see, after we’ve done the sowing, the numbers at the protest site will increase,” Jagroop Singh, another farmer from Fatehpur says.
But it’s not just about the numbers. This agrarian uprising has made rural communities extremely conscious, especially the youth. Songs and pop culture on social media were major drivers of this last year.
Sandeep Singh of Khamanon accompanied many regional artistes across Punjab during their rallies in the months of December and January.
He told Media that some artists have been busy with their families and work, so they don’t see most of them now. But “Jass Bajwa is among the few,” he says, “who started campaigning once again a week ago. He has also toured a few villages talking to young people, telling them that they shouldn’t lose hope in the movement.”
