Mainstream
Mainstream, VOL LIX No 6, New Delhi, January 23, 2021
The Wonder That’s The Indian Farmer | TJS George
IMPRESSIONS The farmers’ agitation has become something of an Indian phenomenon. There is no dominant leader or party at the helm. Yet they carry on with sustained fervour, clear about who they are and what they deserve. They are true sons of toil working on tons of soil. (A New York newspaper reported a mining disaster in 1941 with the heading “Sons of toil under tons of soil.” Around the same time Bombay’s Free Press Journal used the same headline, written by journalist Stalin Srinivasan. His real first name was Kuppuswamy, but the moustache he nurtured with great care and greater pride was a photocopy of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s thick mop. So he became known as Stalin. Not even friends knew that his real name was Kuppuswamy.)