We are recreating history, say women at farm stir

New Delhi: Women are central to agriculture in India, and many – farmers as well as non-farmers, young and old, across class and caste lines – are present and resolute at the farmers’ protest sites around Delhi

Vishavjot Grewal, a woman protesting at Singhu on the Haryana-Delhi border, says they want the reversal of the three farm laws.

“We are very attached to our land and we cannot tolerate anyone taking it away from us,” says the 23-year-old from a family of farmers, who has helped organize protests in Pamal, her village in the Ludhiana district of Punjab, since the three laws were passed in Parliament in September 2020.

The women in her family, like at least 65 percent of women in rural India (notes Census 2011), are engaged directly or indirectly in farming activities. Not many of them own land, but they are central to farming, where they do most of the work – sowing, transplantation, harvesting, threshing, crop transportation from field to home, food processing, dairying, and more.

Still, on January 11, when the Supreme Court of India passed an order putting the three farm laws on hold, the Chief Justice also reportedly said that women and the elderly must be ‘persuaded’ to go back from the protest sites. But the fallout of these laws concerns and impacts women (and the elderly) too.

The laws the farmers are protesting against are the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. The laws have also been criticized as affecting every Indian as they disable the right to legal recourse of all citizens, undermining Article 32 of the Constitution of India.

The laws were first passed as ordinances on June 5, 2020, then introduced as farm bills in Parliament on September 14 and rushed through as Acts on the 20th of that month. The farmers see this legislation as devastating for their livelihoods by expanding the space for large corporate to exercise even greater power over farming. They also undermine the main forms of support to the cultivator, including the minimum support price (MSP), the agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs), state procurement and more.

“Women are going to be the worst sufferers of the new farm laws. Though very much involved in agriculture, they do not have decision-making powers. The changes in the Essential Commodities Act [for example] will create a lack of food and women will face the brunt of it,” says Mariam Dhawale, general secretary, All India Democratic Women’s Association.

And many of these women – young and old – are present and resolute at the farmers protest sites in and around Delhi, while many others who are not farmers, have been coming there to register their support. And many are also there to sell some items, earn a day’s wages, or just eat the plentiful meals offered at the langars.

Bimla Devi, 62, reached the Singhu border on December 20 to tell the media that her brothers and sons protesting there are not terrorists. Her family cultivates wheat, jowar and sugarcane on the family’s two acres in Sehri village in Kharkhoda block of Haryana’s Sonipat district.

“We heard on TV our sons being called goons. They are farmers not terrorists. I started crying seeing how the media was talking about my sons. You will not find more big-hearted people than farmers,” says Bimla Devi, whose 60-year-old sister, Savitri is with her at Singhu.

Aalamjeet Kaur, 14 years old and a Class 9 student, says she came the Delhi border to fight for her rights, for her future. She is at the Singhu protest site with her younger sister, grandmother and her parents. They have all come from Pipli village in Punjab’s Faridkot block, where her mother works as a nurse and her father as a school teacher. The family also cultivates wheat and paddy on their seven-acre farmland.

“I have been helping my parents with farming since I was very little,” says Aalamjeet. “They educated me on the rights of us farmers and we will not go back until we get our rights back. This time we farmers will win.”

Vishavjot Grewal’s family owns 30 acres of land in Pamal village of Ludhiana district, where they mainly cultivate wheat, paddy and potatoes. “We want the reversal of these [farm] laws,” says the 23-year-old, who came with relatives to Singhu in a mini-van on December 22. “We are very attached to our land and we cannot tolerate anyone taking it away from us. In our Constitution it is written that we have the right to protest. This is a very peaceful protest. From langar to medical aid, everything is provided here.”

Mani Gill, 28, from Kot Kapura village in Faridkot tehsil of Punjab’s Faridkot district, says she has come support her farmers. “But these laws will harm each and every person, though people think that the laws will affect only farmers,” says the woman who has an MBA degree and works in the corporate sector.

“I am sure we will win,” she adds. “It’s beautiful to see that a mini-Punjab has been created in Delhi. You will find people from all the villages of Punjab here.” Mani is a volunteer with a youth-run platform that helps create awareness about farmers’ issues on social media. “Apart from the three new farm laws, we also try to talk about other major problems of farmers and what could be the solutions. We try to bring forward issues that farmers face every day,” she says.

Mani’s parents could not come to Singhu, but, she says, “I feel they too are equally doing important tasks. Because we are here, they are left doing double work [back in the village], taking care of our animals and our farmland.”

Harsh Kaur has come to the Singhu border from Punjab’s Ludhiana’s city, some 300 km away. The 20-year-old had contacted a youth organization to volunteer at their free medical camp at the protest site, along with her sister. The medical aid tent has trained nurses who advise the volunteers on distributing medicines.

Harsh, a student of BA in Journalism, says, “The government is pretending that these laws are good for farmers, but they are not. The farmers are the ones who sow, they know what is good for them. The laws only favour the corporates. The government is exploiting us, if not, they would have given us an assurance of MSP [minimum support price] in writing. We cannot trust our government.”

To read the full article, ruralindiaonline.org ….

(Shraddha Agarwal is a reporter and content editor at the People’s Archive of Rural India.)