Jasbeer Singh, 58, listed the names of places in Haryana where he had to circumvent police barriers before finally reaching Singhu’s state border with Delhi as he traveled from his home in Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district, about 250 km away.
Shambhu, between Punjab and Haryana, had been fortified with concrete road dividers. In Karnal, the authorities had parked approximately 150 driverless trucks in the middle of the road. At Panipat and Sonipat, trenches eight feet deep had been dug along the road.
Singh was among the tens of thousands of farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh who were driving their tractors to the capital to demand that three new agricultural laws be repealed. They fear the legislation will wipe out the minimum price support they receive from the government for key crops, leaving them at the mercy of corporations.
But the governments led by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh had tried to prevent farmers from crossing state lines. When the peasants broke through the barricades, they were greeted with police batons, tear gas and water cannons.
“First we broke [Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal] Khattar’s ego and then we broke Modi’s ego, ”said Jasbeer Singh. He finally reached the borders of Delhi on November 27.
Several BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have claimed that the new laws will improve the prices farmers receive by giving them more flexibility. Modi claimed that the opposition parties were fanning rumors to divert farmers.
Some members of the ruling party went further in their attempt to discredit those who spoke it. Haryana’s chief minister, Khattar, claimed that the government had received reports that the ranks of the protesters included a “Khalistani presence,” claiming that separatists who want an independent Sikh homeland had joined the upheaval.
This claim, for which no proof has been offered, has been amplified by many news channels.
It has hurt and outraged protesters.
“The Modi media call us Khalistanis,” said Joga Singh, a 50-year-old farmer from Kapurthala in Punjab. “We have been sitting in peace for two months. Does that make us terrorists? I ask. “Please come with us. If he doesn’t give us a voice, how will Modi know?
‘The national media are not with us’
On Monday, protesters continued to be stationed on the Delhi borders, rejecting the government’s efforts to move them to a plot of land in northwest Delhi. This plot, they said, was simply an “open jail.”
Singhu’s border between Delhi and Haryana remained closed while hundreds of tractors remained parked on the GT Karnal highway. The protest site, surrounded by barricades and barbed wire, now houses a stage, a community kitchen, and several medical kiosks.
The area echoed with chants of “Jai Jawan! Jai Kisan! Long live the soldier, long live the farmer, a slogan popularized in the 1960s by India’s second prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Amid the hubbub, a small group of farmers raised banners criticizing the national media for calling them terrorists.
“Do we have weapons?” asked Prabhjit Singh, 26, a farmer from Ludhiana in Punjab. “In whose name are they saying that we are terrorists? We are farmers, educated farmers ”.
Another man argued that the national media did not report the protests honestly. “The national media is not with us … Aaj Tak, Zee News, ABP,” said Sukhchain Singh, 34, who had come from Ambala in Haryana.
Sukhchain Singh explained why accurate reporting was essential. “The day the stock limit is exceeded, that will be the day the common man dies,” he said. He was referring to the provision in one of the new laws that lifts limits on the quantities of stocks of essential staples such as grains and legumes that traders can have.
“The common man is not yet aware of how this will affect them,” Sukhchain Singh said. “And the national media are not showing it.”
Singh’s trip to Delhi was also marked by water cannons and tear gas in Shahbad, a city between Ambala and Kurukshetra. “My foot slipped under the tractor tire and was injured,” he said, showing his bandaged limb. “The water pressure comes from the canyon.”
Future of agriculture
BJP leaders have claimed that farmers do not understand the laws correctly. Several farmers on the Singhu border rejected this idea. “I am an illiterate man, but I let one person satisfy me as to why this is beneficial,” said Jasbeer Singh.
He said that the entry of private companies into the agricultural sector facilitated by the laws could represent a threat to the minimum price of support.
“The minimum support price is already at its lowest level,” said Jasbeer Singh. “They [government] say what [corporate] buyers will pay more, but there is no one to buy at a higher price. They will buy for two years and then store it. The mandis will be finished and then we will have to sell them [at a lower price] by force. “
Others denied allegations that the protest had been organized by opposition parties.
“Modi says these are members of Congress who are sitting down,” said Satish Kumar, a farmer from Karnal, Haryana. “But Mr. Modi, this is not about a party.”
He added: “Nobody is under the influence of anybody. Our blood is boiling because we know what is going to happen to us ”.
Some farmers said the farm laws were the result of crony capitalism and had been formulated to benefit corporations linked to the ruling party.
“They want to enrich the rich,” said Gurpreet Singh, 35, of Fatehgarh Sahib. “They want to give our land to the capitalists.”
Kumar added that the protests were crucial to the future of agriculture.
“They say they are cutting out the middlemen, but they only keep two middlemen [Mukesh] Ambani and [Gautam] Adani ”, he alleged. “We will have to leave agriculture. There is no guarantee of payment. “
Bhawan Deep Singh, 26, said that it was actually the government that was misleading the people.
“They called us anti-national … when the Delhi protests [against the Citizenship Amendment Act] it happened that they were called anti-nationals, ”said the young man from Ludhiana. “So who is the citizen of the country? Normal citizens don’t create problems. It is always the government that does it. “
Satish Kumar from Karnal, Haryana urges the government to talk to farmers. pic.twitter.com/M2SHQb8j7I
– Vijayta Lalwani (@VijaytaL) November 30, 2020
Preparing for the long term
Several farmers said they had come prepared for a prolonged fight.
As the day in Singhu wore on, the site took on a domestic air. The trucks at the site were full of utensils, clothing, and mattresses. Some people finished the day’s laundry and hung their clothes to dry on a rope stretched between two tractors.
Joga Singh said that when he got on his tractor in Kapurthala, Punjab, on November 2, his luggage included a gas cylinder, six-month rations, a rolling pin, a mattress and five pairs of clothes.
“Even if we have to sacrifice ourselves to get rid of these black laws, then we will,” Joga Singh said Monday afternoon. “We will sit in peace even if we have to sit for six months.”
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