How cultural initiatives nurture collective activity at the farmersâ protests
Trolley Times has become the chronicler of the farmersâ protests. Shahid Tantray for the Caravan
Produced by the movement and available for free at the Shahid Bhagat Singh Library at Tikri,
Trolley Times has become the chronicler of the farmersâ protests. Shahid Tantray for the Caravan
It was early morning in Tikri, but the bustling roads were full of life. The aroma of brewing tea rose up in makeshift kitchens. Farmers from Punjab and Haryana, who were braving the January cold to protest the governmentâs neoliberal agricultural reforms at Delhiâs borders, slowly made their way out of their trolleys. Like most of us, they began their day reading the newspaper over a cup of tea, but their publication of choice was
Day of Clashes With BJP-Sponsored Goons Bolsters Farmers Resolve
Sarwan Singh Pandher, the chief of the KMSC, told The Wire âOur fight is with the government, not amongst ourselves.â
Swaraj India President Yogendra Yadav addresses during the ongoing farmers agitation against Centre s farm reform laws, at Ghazipur in New Delhi, Friday, Jan. 29, 2021. Photo: PTI
Rights30/Jan/2021
Mohali: A day after the Uttar Pradesh government tried to forcibly remove protesting farmers and their allies from the Ghazipur border, the Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force showed up at the Singhu and the Tikri Border in large numbers as well. According to protesters at the site, the police were joined by people they called âgoons sponsored by BJP and RSSâ. These people were determined to provoke people on religious grounds and disrupt the harmony of the movement, protesters said.
The truth will out. If ignored on television, it will arrive in a trolley. That’s how
Trolley Times, the voice of the farmers’ movement, came into being.
Disturbed by claims in the mainstream media, particularly news channels, about Khalistani and Maoist hands in the farmers’ protest, a group of young men had decided to set up an independent platform that could emerge as the voice of the movement.
As the farmers’ tractor trolleys had become a symbol of the protest, they instantly named their newspaper the
Trolley Times.
“The farmers were fighting the corporate-backed propaganda machinery. What complicated matters was that BJP leaders and supporters jumped in to malign the movement,” Ajaypal Natt, a member of the core team of the newspaper, told The Telegraph.
Schools of thought sprout at farm protest sites Lecture series, publications and libraries mark the intellectual resistance against the new farm laws
The serpentine blockade of NH44 by farmers at Dakha Singhu on Delhi’s border with Haryana has been the cynosure of the movement against the new farm laws.
However, the blockade of NH9 at Tikri Kalan further southwest on the border has spurred an intellectual resistance to the new laws with the first library and newspaper of the movement emerging from here.
Organisers have now started a lecture series too, and they have inspired several such publications and libraries across protest sites of farmers.
BATHINDA: The Punjabi version of an 85-year-old book on farmers,written originally by Sir Chhotu Ram, has reached the protest on Singhu border and is being distributed among even before hitting the market.
‘Vichara Kisan’ originated from the writings of Sir Chhotu Ram in his publication ‘Jaat Gazette’. The originalbook,written in Urdu,was released in 1935 as ‘Vichara Zamidar’ and was translated into Hindi nearly two decades ago. The Punjabi version, translated now, on Tuesday reached a makeshiftlibrary at the protest site.
Varinder Diwana and Ajaypal Natt, who run the library, told TOI they had got 200 copies of the book and had started distributing it among farmers. Sir Chhotu Ram’s writtings had become instrumentalin influencing theformulation of APMC Act.