Joginder Singh Ugrahan, the head of the BKU (EU), addressing the Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Maha rally at Barnala on 21 February. “Modi says he has a 56-inch chest, but we have proven him wrong,” he said. “Modi is already defeated; he has been wrestled down by the Punjabis.”
Joginder Singh Ugrahan, the head of the BKU (EU), addressing the Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Maha rally at Barnala on 21 February. “Modi says he has a 56-inch chest, but we have proven him wrong,” he said. “Modi is already defeated; he has been wrestled down by the Punjabis.”
Women leading the sloganeering at the Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Maha rally. “This government wants to run the country according to the Manusmriti,” Bindu, the most prominent woman farmers’ leader, said. “They want to keep us women under their feet, but we won’t let them.”
In Show of Strength at Barnala Rally, Farmers, Labourers Reiterate Support for Protests
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India s farmers protests are about more than reform — they are resisting the corporate takeover of agriculture
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India
Thursday 11 February 2021, by Himanshi Dahiya
As lakhs of farmers continue their protest against the new farm legislations introduced by the Modi government, a remarkable number of women are not only braving the rough weather by participating in these demonstrations but are also leading from the front.
The agitation which has now entered its third month is being deemed as one of the world’s biggest protests where farmers from several states in the country marched to India’s national capital in late November and early December of 2020.
Sixty-five-year-old Jasbir Kaur Natt has been a farmers’ and labourers’ rights activist for more than 30 years. She is a state committee member of the Punjab Kisaan Union and is identified as a communist. We met her near the main stage at the Tikri Border, where, as the head of the steering committee, she is responsible for handling the speakers and the crowd. “In addition to being a farmer leader, I am also a communist. I have been
A farmer rests during a tractor rally to protest against the newly passed farm bills, on a highway on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, January 7, 2021. © REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
It is by some accounts the world’s biggest protest. Since November, tens of thousands of Indian farmers have driven their tractors towards New Delhi and are now camped out on the highways around its periphery. They refuse to leave until the government overturns a new set of agricultural laws they claim will deregulate crop pricing and devastate their earnings by exposing them to exploitation from large corporations.
Along New Delhi’s borders with the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the protest sites have turned into makeshift villages with their own schools, kitchens and hospitals. But with tractor queues stretching to around 25km, and with the technology-averse elderly making up a sizeable portion of the protestors, union leaders speaking on stages have b