DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: Not only have the powers that be made the Punjab-Haryana border un-crossable for protesting farmers trying to reach Delhi, they have also made it well-nigh impossible for ordinary citizens to visit the Shambhu toll plaza and express solidarity with their annadatas camped there.
Those approaching Shambhu border from Haryana will find approach roads blocked and guarded by the police. They will also likely find Google Maps not working as internet access has been restricted across huge swathes of the state.
After a nearly 50-km detour through rural Punjab, my taxi driver managed to get us to the tail end of the caravan of tractors, trolleys and tents stretching for 10 km from the Shambhu border.
A group of farmers sitting on a mattress beneath the shade of their tractor brought back to memory the very first group of protesting farmers I ever met, at Delhi’s Ghazipur border on a cold, smoggy December evening in 2020. They too had been sitting on a mattress by the side of the Meerut Express Highway. I still remember the very first question those Sikh farmers had asked me as I had approached them. “Have you had something to eat?” Certainly not the kind of question ‘terrorists’ ask.
I asked this current group of farmers to explain their protest in terms simple enough for a non-farmer to understand. Amrit Singh, who farms a three-acre plot of land outside Amritsar, obliged.
“The issue of minimum support price is not just the farmers’ issue, it is something that concerns everyone in India, because everyone needs to eat! MSP simply means a fair price below which we should not have to sell our produce. While there is MSP for wheat and rice, there is no MSP for tomatoes, onions and other fruit and vegetables. That’s why we end up selling our produce for two or three rupees a kilo, but you end up buying it for 80, 100, or even 150 rupees a kilo!”
He went on to explain, “The manufacturer who made the shirt I am wearing fixed a price he wanted to sell it at. But we farmers get to have no say in how much we will sell our crops for! We are simply asking for what the government has already been promised to us, and we are being called khalistanis by the media! Please take your camera, walk around, and see for yourself if there are any terrorists present! Do we look like terrorists to you?”
Amit Singh continued, “If there is a problem at home, don’t we take our problems to the head of the house? Similarly, shouldn’t we be able to go to the highest authorities in the land if we have a problem? But what happens when we do? We end up getting beaten, teargassed, and shot, and then we end up being called the enemy! More and more we are being made to feel like outsiders in our own country. To tell you the truth, our hearts are crying.”An elderly farmer who had been overhearing the conversation interrupted. “Look at all these farmers here! None of them are rich. Some own two acres of land, some three.
Many of them barely manage to grow enough to feed even their own families! And yet, these are the people who are being bombed and shot! Modi should be ashamed of himself! Instead of interviewing us, why don’t you interview Modi and ask him what he is doing?!”
The anger in his voice rising, the elderly man pointed to the other elderly farmers sitting there. “My knees are damaged, this farmer’s legs hurt, this other farmer here can barely walk! None of us are sitting here because we are happy to, you know?”
