Updated: December 17, 2020 7:46:11 am
The group arrived in Tikri on Wednesday. Prem Nath Pandey
Relatives of farmers who committed suicide in Punjab over the years joined the ongoing protest at the Tikri border in Delhi on Wednesday, with some widows and mothers of the deceased farmers saying they intend to remain in the site for the duration of the protest.
About 2,000 women, related to farmers who had committed suicide, from various districts left for the border from the Malwa region of Punjab on Tuesday in 17 buses and 10 tractor-trailers organized by the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan). They arrived at the Ugrahan group’s transit camp, some 7 km from the Tikri border, where they held a demonstration with photographs of their deceased relatives.
The women who joined the protest are mostly from smallholder farming families with limited holdings, including four relatives of deceased farmers from Jakhpal village in Sangrur district.
Among them is Gurmeher Kaur (34), who had lost her husband Jugraj Singh at a young age in 2007 and has lived alone in the village ever since. “He had 1.5 acres of land and was very stressed out from financial problems and debt. When he died, I was very young and had two children. I gave my youngest son to my sister because I couldn’t take care of him, and my oldest son lives with my parents in their village, 10 kilometers away. They are helping him study. After the death of my husband, I leased our land for agriculture and have been doing a daily wage job, earning around Rs 1,800-2,000 a month. My oldest son is now 18 years old and when he finishes studying, he will take over the farm work, ”he said.
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She said she receives help from older women in the village, such as Baljeet Kaur (52), who lost her husband Gurcharan Singh in 1999. “We have three acres of land. We can get very little out of so much land. He had a debt of 5 lakh rupees and needed to marry off his younger sister … When my children were young, I gave him the land on lease, but now my youngest son takes care of agriculture. We are here to join this protest because small farmers like us are the most vulnerable and we will lose what little we have, ”said the 52-year-old man.
While the two women said they will remain at the protest site “until the black laws are repealed”, others, including another Baljeet Kaur (50) from Ugrahan village, will leave Thursday morning.
“We have two acres of land where my husband grows rice and wheat. Our youngest son, Sarbjit, drove a truck to supplement our meager farm income, but committed suicide at age 26 after the financial pressures of the shutdown, ”he said.
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