[WSMDiscuss] The farmers' strike in India : Ready for jabs, but unwilling to abandon stir, farmers march to Delhi borders from Punjab / Farmers harvest wheat of those still at protest sites, take crop to mandis

[Jai Sen]

Thursday, April 22, 2021

India in movement…, Farmers in movement, Peasants in movement…, Resistance in movement…, Neoliberalism in movement…, History in movement…, Herstory in movement…

Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary, BKU Ugrahan, said: “Our organisation has already decided that the farmers who are sitting in Delhi, their crop will be harvested by the activists of our organisation and in every village of 16 districts where we have units. Our activists as well as farm labourers are getting it done. We have also decided to take care of other important works of our protesting farmers.”

[In a way, this post (with two articles) is just to re-affirm that the farmers’ movement in India has not subsided – and even in the face of the surge of the C-virus in the country, which the government (and pro-reforms lobby - and it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not only the government that is determined to see the reforms enacted) has indeed tried to instrumentalise, against them.  To the contrary, the movement is alive, well, militant, and strong, and continues to be very active and inventive – and very much in strike mode, building and practising mutual aid mechanisms at this moment of dual crisis.

[I should add that it’s also *great to see the continued and sustained, fine-grain reporting on the movement by The Indian Express newspaper, and perhaps especially by the two reporters whose work I’m posting here, Raakhi Jagga and Anju Agnihotri Chaba :

Ready for jabs, but unwilling to abandon stir, farmers march to Delhi borders from Punjab

Claiming that the farmers were fighting both against Covid-19 and the government, farmer leaders said they understood their responsibility during the pandemic, but had no choice but to protest

Raakhi Jagga <https://indianexpress.com/profile/author/raakhi-jagga/>
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ludhiana/ready-for-jabs-but-unwilling-to-abandon-stir-farmers-march-to-delhi-borders-from-punjab-7283921/ <https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ludhiana/ready-for-jabs-but-unwilling-to-abandon-stir-farmers-march-to-delhi-borders-from-punjab-7283921/>


Farmers going to Tikri border under the 'Operation Shakti' call of Samyukta Kisan Morcha, Thursday, April 21 2021. (Express Photo)


Farmers on Wednesday marched in large numbers from three Punjab borders towards Delhi’s Tikri border despite Covid curbs being in place.

Claiming that the farmers were fighting both against Covid-19 <https://indianexpress.com/about/coronavirus/> and the government, farmer leaders said they understood their responsibility during the pandemic <https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/pandemic-explained-who-novel-coronavirus-covid19-what-is-a-pandemic-6309727/>, but had no choice but to protest. They appealed to all attending dharnas to get vaccinated. Farmers also reiterated that the dharnas were not causing any obstruction to emergency services.

Shingara Singh Mann, president of BKU (Ugrahan)’s Bathinda unit and also vice president of the union, led a convoy from Bathinda-Dabwali road along with thousands of farmers.

He said, “I am 61 years old and I have got myself vaccinated. My second dose is due in the second week of May. No doubt corona is a disease, but not as deadly as being projected. However, our union’s entire state committee has got the first jab and we will be getting the second dose next month. Our president had tested positive for Covid last month and we do understand our responsibilities.”

Read |Farmers harvest wheat of those still at protest sites, take crop to mandis <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/farmers-harvest-wheat-of-those-still-at-protest-sites-take-crop-to-mandis-7283908/>
The farmer leader added: “If the Haryana government will organise any vaccination camp in Bahadurgarh area, we will appeal to our members to get themselves vaccinated. The government put us all at risk after passing farm laws in September. Instead of managing Covid, they forced us to come out on roads. Otherwise, villagers were busy giving thikri pehras in villages to get lockdown implemented.”

Jagseer Singh, district committee member of BKU (Ugrahan) from Bathinda, said, “I have also got the first jab and in fact hundreds of us have got the first dose. It is up to a person as to whether to get themselves vaccinated or not. However, we do appeal to people coming to dharna because the government has forced us to sit on roads. So, we should get ourselves vaccinated at least as we cannot avoid dharnas till our demands are met.”

So far, first dose of the vaccine has been administered to Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of BKU (Ugrahan), Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of the union, Roop Singh Chhana, union’ vice president and Jhanda Singh Jethuke, the union’s senior vice president apart from a few other state committee members.

On Wednesday, Ugrahan led farmers on the Khanauri-Jind highway.

‘Op Shakti to courter eviction plans’

Kokrikalan said, ”As an answer to the Union government’s plans of ‘Operation Clean Up’, we organised ‘Operation Shakti’ and went in large numbers to Tikri despite the fact that farmers are busy with harvesting these days. In Punjab, our pakka dharnas are going on at 40 different places. We are facing problems in procurement of wheat as well in Punjab but still, our batches will continue to go to Delhi borders.”

Farmers fighting both govt and corona: SKM

Reacting to some allegations that farmers’ dharnas were obstructing transportation of oxygen cylinders, Dr Darshan Pal, coordinator of Samyukta Kisan Morcha said, “The BJP <https://indianexpress.com/about/bjp/> IT cell is constantly campaigning that the farmers’ dharnas are obstructing the fight against corona. Some propaganda is being spread that farmers have stopped trucks of oxygen and other essentials on the borders of Delhi. Farmers are also being accused of spreading corona. SKM condemns and opposes all these false narratives. Farmers have never intended to sleep on the streets and stay away from their homes and land. The government has inhumanly imposed these laws on the farmers. The farmers are not asking for anything new, they are only fighting to save what they have. In this battle of existence, they are fighting against both corona and the government.”

He added,” The government is running away from its responsibilities at the time of the corona pandemic but is ironically choosing to blame farmers. In fact, on humanitarian grounds, farmers have been more than willing to assist locals and others despite the serious hardships that they find themselves in during the ongoing protests. Protesting farmers had kept service roads open for essential services right from the time they had to squat at the borders. The barricades put up by the police are the biggest obstacle to free vehicular movement. We appeal to the government to remove the obstacles that they have put up to lock in Delhi, so that ordinary citizens do not face difficulties and emergency medical services can run as normal.”



Farmers harvest wheat of those still at protest sites, take crop to mandis

At Jhumba village, the leaders of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Ugrahan have arranged everything including labour, tractor trolley and a combine harvester for harvesting his crop, which began Monday

Anju Agnihotri Chaba <https://indianexpress.com/profile/author/anju-agnihotri-chaba/>
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/farmers-harvest-wheat-of-those-still-at-protest-sites-take-crop-to-mandis-7283908/ <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/farmers-harvest-wheat-of-those-still-at-protest-sites-take-crop-to-mandis-7283908/>

Activists of BKU Ugrahan including leader Jagsir Singh (in yellow turban) at Jhumba village, harvested the crop of farmer Sukhminder Singh, who is protesting at Delhi borders. 


In the ongoing wheat harvesting season when every Punjab farmer’s priority is to harvest crop and take it to the mandi to sell to government agencies at assured Minimum Support Price (MSP), Sukhminder Singh is sitting at the Tikri border without any worry about harvesting the wheat on his five acres at his native village Jhumba in Bathinda district.

“I am focusing on dharna while my fellow farmers are taking care of my harvesting and they will also take it to the mandi too. They are giving every update of my crop on daily basis for the past two weeks,” he said.

At Jhumba village, the leaders of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Ugrahan have arranged everything including labour, tractor trolley and a combine harvester for harvesting his crop, which began Monday.

“Sukhminder alongwith four more farmers of our village is currently sitting on dharna in Delhi. We went to their families recently and asked them to not to worry about harvesting. They also gave us a free hand. We are getting the crops of all five harvested one by one. We will also take it to the mandi for selling,” said BKU Ugrahan leader Jagsir, adding, “We, a group of 10-12 farmers have arranged this harvesting. We will also do the labour work if required during harvesting.”

He further said: “At some places, the wheat crop got flattened due to wind storm recently and such crop could not be carried in the harvester. So here we do labour work, cut flattened crop and put it in the harvester to get the grain. The rent of the harvester and tractor trolley used to carry his crop to mandi will be borne by the farmer while the rest of the services like loading and cutting we are providing like a fraternity member.”

The crop of farmer Amrik Singh of Talwandi Napana village in Ferozepur district is also being harvested by an activist of Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (PKMSC), Baljinder Singh. Amrik has been at the protest site on Delhi border for the past over two weeks.

Farmer Gurdev Singh of Fatehgarh Panjoor village in Moga too has asked PKMSC to manage the harvesting of his crop as he was busy in Delhi dharna.

“When we had come to participate in this protest from Punjab our crops were just getting germinated and today they were harvested and sold in mandis and we are still fighting for our rights,” said Gurdev Singh, adding that he is happy this has created a lot of trust among farmers at village level.

Farmer Khayala Singh has also told BKU leader to take care of his crop. “Some of our fellow farmers have taken this responsibility of harvesting and they have returned to take care of it while we are protesting here as all of us cannot leave the protest at the same time, so we have been doing it in turns,” he said.

“We are getting crop of 5-10 farmers harvested every day. We are also taking the crop to the mandis,” said Baljinder Singh, adding that this system has been helping them keep the protest strong as well by enhancing the feeling of brotherhood among farmers.

Activists of BKU Dakaunda are also managing the harvesting of some farmers sitting at the border. Even in some villages the sarpanches have also offered their services to the protesting farmers.

Sarpanch Kulwinder Singh of Bolina village in Jalandhar said: “Whenever any help is sought from us, we will be at their disposal.”

Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary, BKU Ugrahan, said: “Our organisation has already decided that the farmers who are sitting in Delhi, their crop will be harvested by the activists of our organisation and in every village of 16 districts where we have units. Our activists as well as farm labourers are getting it done. We have also decided to take care of other important works of our protesting farmers.”




____________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net> &  <mailto:jsen at uottawa.ca>jsen at uottawa.ca <mailto:jsen at uottawa.ca>
Now based in Ottawa, Canada, on unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) and in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325)

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