Caught in debt and landless, women protesters in Punjab affirm their fight for rights

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The sky was overcast all day in Gharachon village in Sangrur district of Punjab. It was cold and in the evening it started to rain. None of this deterred Gurmail Kaur, as she prepared for the “Chalo Dilirally for the next day – a march “forward to Delhi” called by farmers’ organizations in Punjab, to protest against the three agricultural laws recently enacted by the Narendra Modi government. The plan was to reach the capital on 26 and 27 November. Gurmail was about eighty years old and as she packed a small bag, she smiled and said, “I am ready to die for our land. The bag contained a change of clothes, a yellow chunni, or thrown in the form of a scarf, a towel, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a blanket. She told me that she used to leave the house only for weddings and bereavements, that too with her family. It was her first time joining a movement.

“I used to walk out of the house with a veil. Then veils went out of fashion; I never got rid of my chunni. Now I don’t care about that chunni anymore. I don’t like my house anymore. I don’t belong inside even after winning this fight against Modi,” she said. A picture of her son, in Punjab police uniform, hung on the wall. He died twenty years ago. Over the next two weeks, as protesting farmers blocked Delhi’s borders with Haryana at Singhu and Tikri, Gurmail became a regular sight at the Singhu protest site.

On December 5, the ninth day of the protests, I met a group of women from Kakrala Bhaika village in Patiala district of Punjab at the protest site of Tikri. The women were rolling rotis for dinner and they pointed to the men from their village, who were cooking vegetables and carrot kheer. Mukhtiar Kaur, an octogenarian, told me about her granddaughter. “She is your age. She is well educated but there is no work. There will be no land either. She complained of the cold and the chest pains it caused her. And then she added, “But we will fight. I’m not afraid of dying anymore. Amarjit Kaur, 60, came to the protest with her whole family. “The agrarian condition was not good before either. But now it’s the worst. We chose this government and now we will confront it with such unilateral laws,” she said.

Since summer, farmers in Punjab have been protesting against three bills: Agricultural Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, Price Insurance Agreement and Farmer Agricultural Services (Empowerment and Protection) and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill. . First promulgated as ordinances in June, the bills were passed in Parliament between 20 and 22 September. Several farmers’ groups in the state organized a “rail roko“, or railway blockade, from September 24 to 26, alongside a Punjab Bandaged, or general strike, on September 25. Women and youth in the state joined the protests in large numbers and turned the protests into a Peoples movement.

As of November 26, the protests had spread beyond the farmers of Punjab. At the time of publication, the Delhi border protests had been going on for 18 days and included farmers from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Farmers in several other states have held similar protests in solidarity with their restless compatriots. In addition, on December 8, hundreds of organizations representing multiple sectors such as farm workers, labor, dairy farmers, commissionaires, retailers, women’s rights groups, cultural activists and carriers observed a Bharat Bandh. The bandh and protests focus not only on farm bills, but also on reforms to the current labor Code, which were passed by Parliament on September 25 – the Industrial Relations Code Bill 2020, the Social Security Code Bill 2020 and the Security Code Bill, health and working conditions at work 2020.

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