farmers’ union

Samyukt Kisan Morcha to Observe May 26 as ‘Black Day’ Marking Six Months of Farmers’ Protest

SKM spokesperson and farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal appealed to supporters and others to raise black flags at their houses, vehicles and shops on May 26.

New Delhi: Even as the Union government is facing widespread criticism over its poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of over 40 farmers’ unions, has now turned up the heat on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To mark six months of their protests at the Delhi borders against the three controversial farm laws, the SKM, along with the central trade unions, will observe May 26 as “black day”.

Modi had first taken oath as the prime minister on May 26, 2014. In the last six months, the SKM has kept its ante up, and has claimed that it will not stop protesting unless the government repeals the farm laws. The central trade unions have also pitched in to support SKM’s call as they had also observed an all India strike on May 26 last year.

Announcing its decision, SKM spokesperson and farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal appealed to supporters and others to raise black flags at their houses, vehicles and shops on May 26.

“We will also burn effigies of (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi as a form of protest,” he said. Some observers think that the May 26 protest is yet another effort by the SKM to push the government to begin talks with the farmers. Until now, all negotiations have ended in an impasse, with the government maintaining that the laws are pro-farmer in nature, while the SKM wants them to be repealed.

Also read: The Protesting Farmer Is Caught Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Joining the SKM’s call, the central trade unions said in a statement, “The call to observe that day as a ‘Black Day’ is because the Modi government that has been in office continuously for the past seven years has not only failed to deliver on the tall promises made while assuming office, but is actually acting against the wishes of the toiling people with impunity.”

“It has simply disowned its responsibility in tackling the Corona pandemic and asked the states to provide medical help to the bewildered population: shortages of vaccine doses, oxygen, hospital beds, even cremation facilities are alarming, with irresponsible announcements of vaccinating the 18-44 age group, only to be withdrawn subsequently, shows that the government is completely in the dark about what needs to be done in this hour of grave crisis,” it added.

The unions said that the government has used the pandemic to “to push through legislations that are tailored only for the benefit of the corporates, be it the three farm laws or the four labour Codes or privatisation of everything in the government or public sector.”

They said that the government should mobilise resources for the migrant workers, unemployed and frontline workers to save them from further penury and vulnerability.

“While the government has no funds to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, it is shamelessly going ahead with the “Central Vista Project”, costing Rs 20,000 crore, supposedly to rebuild a new parliament building, floating non-transparent funds such as PM-CARES, electoral bonds, while in practice behaving in the most undemocratic way – for example, arresting anyone for criticising the government, refusing to hold tripartite consultations, blatantly using constitutional agencies to frighten and browbeat any opposition, as seen from the use of the CBI, ED, NIA, Supreme Court, RBI, Election Commission, state governors against political opponents, engineering defections and undermining elected state governments with the use of money power and use of these agencies,” the central trade unions’ statement said.

As a measure of solidarity, the central trade unions also said that it will ask their supporters to put up black flags in their houses and vehicles.

Farmers Resolve to Oppose ‘Threats’ as Delhi Police Erects Posters Warning Protesters at Tikri

“The Delhi police has placed some posters at the Tikri border protest site where farmers have been warned that they will have to vacate the area,” the SKM said in the statement.

New Delhi: Agitating farmer union on Tuesday objected to Delhi police putting posters that allegedly warned off protesters at the Tikri border site, even as the force claimed these were not new and only informed the protesters that they would not be allowed to enter the national capital.

In a statement, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer unions that is spearheading the ongoing agitation against the three agriculture laws, said that it is opposed to the police’s move as the protesters were exercising their constitutional right and appealed to the farmers to continue their sit-in peacefully.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at three Delhi border points – Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur – for nearly 90 days, demanding a complete repeal of the three laws and a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

“The Delhi police has placed some posters at the Tikri border protest site where farmers have been warned that they will have to vacate the area. Such posters are irrelevant as farmers have been staging a peaceful protest by exercising their constitutional rights….

“We will oppose the conspiracy to end the protest with these kinds of threats and warnings,” the SKM said in the statement.

In the posters, the police have not given any deadline to the protesting farmers to vacate the area.

On its part, the Delhi police said it is a “routine” process.

“The posters were pasted at the border area after the protest started. It is a routine exercise. Police have conveyed to them through posters that they are sitting in the jurisdiction of Haryana and they are not allowed to enter the national capital unlawfully,” a senior police officer said.

Thousands of protesters had clashed with the police during a tractor parade called by the agitating farmer unions on January 26.

After police permitted the rally, many protesters deviated from the agreed route and reached the Red Fort on tractors. They entered the monument and some of them even hoisted religious flags at the ramparts.

The government has projected the three farm laws as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.

However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehensions that these laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of the MSP and scrap the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

The Centre has maintained that the MSP and mandi systems will continue and will also be strengthened.

After Bank Seeks Details of Foreign Donations, Farmers’ Union Accuses Govt of ‘Intimidation’

Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) said that the notice and IT raids are part of the Centre’s plan to snuff out the farmers’ protest.

Mohali: The foreign exchange department under the Punjab & Sind Bank has sought details of foreign donations made to the general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, who has been agitating against the government’s farm laws for over four months now.

BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) is one of the largest farm unions agitating against the government, with more than one lakh people gathered at the Tikri border under its banner.

“On December 18, the bank manager of Punjab & Sind Bank in Kokri Kalan village told me that he has received an email saying that the donations received in my account have not been received under the rules mandated by the government,” Kokrikalan told The Wire.

The rules mandated by the Reserve Bank of India say that accounts which receive money from donors who are not Indian citizens must have a Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976 (FCRA) license. The bank manager of the Punjab & Sind Bank confirmed to The Wire that the account holder, Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, doesn’t have the required license. However, no license is required if the donors abroad are Indian citizens, i.e. NRIs.

But according to Kokrikalan, the government is trying to “intimidate” the protesting farmers. “Earlier also we were getting donations from abroad but we were not scrutinised, only now they have asked us to provide details,” Kokrikalan said.

“As our expenditure has risen because of the movement, and as we have been asking for donations through our social media – we’re seeing a rise in donations,” he added.

A bank official, who wished to remain anonymous, also said that in the past, donations made to the account in question were not scrutinised.

Kokrikalan said that he, along with other members of his union, will consult their lawyer and chartered accountant and reply to the email received from the bank.

Income Tax raids on Commission Agents

Arhtiyas (middlemen) working across Punjab have alleged that investigators from the income tax department reached the homes and offices of at least seven of them on December 19 and another seven on December 20 in order to “intimidate” them. All arhtiyas of Punjab have been supporting the farmers in the agitation against the government’s Central farm laws for over four months now.

Reportedly, the properties of those people were raided who are at the forefront of providing their support to the movement.

Harjeet Singh, vice president of the Arhtiya Association, Punjab told The Wire that a bus full – bearing an Uttar Pradesh registration number – of I-T investigators and CRPF officials had come to the home of one one of their members in Patiala.

“Almost all properties, including homes, shops, even hotels were raided on two nights. Such an action has never been taken before. They only took away some of our account books and nothing else,” he said.

Speaking to The Wire, Mulk Raj Gupta, president of the Patiala Arhtiya Association said, “The raids were done only to inform us that we must not support the farmers or take a step against the government. That’s it. They just mildly checked our logbooks and told us to back off from the protests.”

In defence of the I-T raids on arthiyas, the agitating farm union leaders have said that if ‘such intimidation by the government continues’ then farmers will gherao income tax offices across Punjab.

According to the Indian Express, the income tax department in Chandigarh was contacted but they remained tight-lipped about the raids.

Starting December 21, all arhtiyas of Punjab have called for a five-day mandi strike. All APMC market yards will remain shut to protest the government action on the arhtiyas.

A Century-Old Punjabi Song of Defiance Resurfaces in the Farmers Protests

‘Pagri sambhal jatta’ invokes the fighting spirit of the Punjabi farmer and also asserts the dignity of the small tiller.

At the Hari Singh Nalwa chowk in Raikot, district Ludhiana, thousands of protesters gathered on September 25. A small tent sheltered a portion of the gathering, while the rest stood under the burning sun. People from nearby villages parked their tractor-trolleys in a kilometre-long line along the four roads that culminate at the chowk where the tent is set-up.

“Do you remember Chacha Ajit Singh who gave us the legacy of Pagri Sambhal Jatta Lehar?” Manjit Singh Dhaner, senior vice president of the Bharti Kisan Union, wearing a green turban, asked the protesters. They responded by raising the green flags – which represents young crops – of various jathebandis.

The song he referenced, ‘Pagri Sambhal Jatta, Pagri Sambhal Oye’ (take care of the turban, o peasant, take care of it) has a long history, rooted in defiance and an assertion of rights. It was written by Banke Dyal, and sung for the first time at the 1907 rally organised in Lyallpur by Ajit Singh, Kishan Singh, Ghasita Ram and Sufi Amba Prasad. Kishan Singh was Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s father and Ajit Singh was his uncle. They, along with Sufi Amba Prasad and Ghasita Ram, had founded an underground organization called Mehboobane Watan in 1906, and their aim was to re-orchestrate 1857 on its 50th anniversary in 1907.

Also read: Bharat Bandh Against Farm Bills: All You Need to Know

They led the peasants, who were on the boil because of the Colonisation Act and Bari Doab Act, against the British Raj. The movement came to be known as Pagri Sambhal Jatta Lehar and it was the Pagri that became a symbol to consolidate the peasants beyond the divisive lines of religion and caste.

Pagri or pagg, as is commonly called in Punjab, represents the dignity of the common person. During the medieval period, only the nobility was allowed to wear a turban. But during the Sikh revolution in the 17th century, Guru Gobind Singh made it into a symbol of defiance, as he ordained that every Sikh should wear the turban, thus subverting its exclusivity, and giving common people a way to claim and assert their own self-esteem.

Pagg has a place; it adorns the head, and in Punjab, it signifies an identity that is deeply entrenched in dissent. After establishing Khalsa Panth, Guru Gobind Singh’s family was decimated; he lost his four sons; but he didn’t accept it as God’s will, which is a theological practice that runs hand in hand with the political tenets of Sikhism.

Farmer protest at the Hari Singh Nalwa chowk in Raikot, Ludhiana on September 25. Photo: Author Provided

Oppression and injustice are not accepted as God’s will. Guru Gobind Singh asked Baba Banda Singh Bahadur to carry forward the fight for justice. In 1710, after capturing the area between the Yamuna to Satluj, Banda Bahadur abolished the zamindari system and gave land rights to the tillers.

In other words, felling of the turban on the ground signifies the acceptance of tyranny of political injustice. In 1907, Pagri Sambhal Jatta was a call to not let the Pagg fall, literally and metaphorically.

“Manndee naa galla saad’ee, ih bhairee sarakaar vo
Asee kyon manniye veero, esdee kaar vo
Hoike kat’t’they veero, maaro lalakar vo
Taree do hathar vajanee, chhainian nal vo
Pagri Sambhal Jat’t’a

(The damned government does not pay heed to our demands
Why should be accept its acts
Let’s get together and challenge its might
With both hands, the clap will be resounding

Take care of the turban, o peasant)”

Also read: Farm Bills Will Create a Vacuum That May Result in Utter Chaos: P. Sainath

In the 1900s, with agricultural incomes deteriorating, Punjabis had started to migrate abroad. “The Pagri Sambhal Jatta movement fired up the Punjabi diaspora who formed the Ghadar Lehar in the US in 1913, and returned to India to overthrow the British rule. Baba Jwala Singh Thathian was a Ghadar movement worker, who drew inspiration from the Lehar, and founded the Kisan Sabha in Lahore in March 1937,” says Chiranji Lal Kangniwaal, a historian of peoples movement.

Post-independence, the anti-betterment levy struggle galvanised the masses of Punjab in 1958. Kisan Sabha leaders brought the Pagri Sambhal Jatta Lehar into focus again. The song and its symbolism became a state-level heritage. However, it was the Hindi movie Shaheed, released in 1965, that brought back the national attention to the historic lyrics.

The filming of the song depicts Ajit Singh rising up for the rights of a peasant who willingly offers his turban to be placed on a zamindar’s feet. Four decades later, in 2002, the song went mainstream again because of the movie The Legend of Bhagat Singh, but this time the lyrics have been appropriated and the turbaned Punjabi farmer is caricatured to the stereotypical ‘balle balle’ rhythm.

Farmer protest at the Hari Singh Nalwa chowk in Raikot, Ludhiana on September 25. Photo: Author Provided

In the last few decades, especially in post-militancy Punjab, the word ‘Jatt’ had drawn a rigid line among Punjabis. There are jatts and there are rest.

Historically, jatts were muzare, the tenant farmers and khudkashtiye, the land tillers. It was an equivalent term used for the peasant or kisan.

In recent times, however, prosperity among some big farmers has created the notion that only high caste Sikhs are jatts—it has also been conflated with wealth. The colloquial use of the word ‘jatt’ and its parallel portrayal in mainstream Punjabi songs has amplified the perception and created a wedge between a marginal farmer and the big one, and between the farmers of different castes and religions, a trend being called ‘jattwaad’, or ‘jatt-ism’.

The ground reality kept pace with these shifts. Between 1990-2011, the number of marginal and smallholdings, owning less than 2 hectares, fell from 0.50 million to 0.36 million, while the semi-medium, medium and big farm landholdings (2-4Ha, 4-10 Ha and above 10 Ha respectively) grew from 0.62 million to 0.69 million. This was against the national trend where the marginal and small land holdings grew from 83.5 to 117.6 million during the same time period. The agrarian crisis of Punjab, became a burden on only the marginal and small farmer.

Also read: Farm Reforms: Is This the 1991 Moment for India’s Agri-Business Sector?

They unionised themselves and owned the resistance and hence the lyrics pagri sambhal jatta in its original sense.

Jamhoori Kisan Sabha is one of the 31 kisan jathebandis in Punjab. Their logo displays the picture of Ajit Singh, and Pagri Sambhal Jatta is printed along on the insides of the round edge. Their press secretary Pargat Singh Jamarai sheds more light on the invocation of this historic symbol of farmer agitation. “It is not only the farm bills that should be rolled back, it is the entire political system and economic model that needs a seismic shift. Back in the day, the Pagri Sambhal Jatta movement had a bigger vision – to overthrow Raj. Similarly, the contemporary movement aims to bring a political shift because it is not only the farmer whose dignity is at stake, democracy itself is in peril” he said.

In the Raikot protest, the farm union leaders also addressed the bigger challenge confronting the nation – the imprisonment of scholars, students and activists – in their speeches. The farmers are making a point that they know when their own and the rights of others are being infringed.

Farmer protest at the Hari Singh Nalwa chowk in Raikot, Ludhiana on September 25. Photo: Author Provided

The current farmer protests under the leadership of 31 farmer organisations have broadened the participation in the agitation. The September 25 call for strike was a call for the students, the unemployed youth, ad-hoc teachers, unpaid medical practitioners as well. Self-organized youth blocked the highways at multiple places. The Shambu rally on the Punjab-Haryana border was one such protest. Punjabi singers, who had once been the proponents of jattwaad and had kept away from subjects like unemployment and the agrarian crisis, finally woke up from their slumber. Their jatt too was not going to survive the three bills. They looked up to the kisan unions for solid leadership. Union veterans have invited the singers to sing, and television channels and radio stations to play the song Pagri Sambhal Jatta again so that it can occupy a much-deserved space in the consciousness of the masses once again.

Being an overwhelmingly Sikh state, most Punjabis are not sold to the BJP-led Hindu Rashtra project, and neither to the Punjabi radical Sikh-led Khalistan project. The protest leaders and speakers have vociferously rejected the idea Khalistan, throughout the current agitation. To effectively protect the movement from any divisive narrative, the unions also denied their platform to every political parties.

Punjabi youth have made it loudly clear that they want to be led by mature, pro-people and pro-democracy leaders. Not surprisingly then, it was the activists of Bharat Kisan Union Ugrahan from Punjab who were the first to participate in the Shaheen Bagh protests and to protest the revocation of Article 370.

To lose farming or to lose land is not just the loss of livelihood but also of the essential Punjabi identity that Guru Nanak adopted when he turned to farming. Why did Ajit Singh rise to channelise the farmers more than a hundred years ago, and leave us his legacy in the form of Pagri Sambhal Jatta? To not agitate is to not follow the core teachings of Guru Gobind Singh ji and to accept the three farm laws, and also the political state of affairs as God’s will.

The lines from the original Punjabi text by Banke Dial have been translated by Jasdeep Singh.

Original Punjabi text by Banke Dial from punjabi-kavita.com (incomplete).

Sangeet Toor is a cybersecurity analyst and writer based in Chandigarh. She writes on cinema and culture and is currently documenting the history of land rights and peasant struggles in Punjab.

Farmers in Chhattisgarh, Punjab Allege ‘Anti-Democratic’ Police Crackdown on Protests

Several farmers and union leaders were arrested or detained ahead of a planned farmers’ protest in Chhattisgarh and Section 144 was imposed in three districts.

Farmers dump potatoes on a road in Mohali on Tuesday during a protest demanding a remunerative price for their crop. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh police on Tuesday took action against farmers who were planning to launch a three-day rally heading towards chief minister Raman Singh’s house in Raipur. Several farmers and farmers’ leaders were arrested or detained, and Section 144 was imposed in Balod, Kabirdham and Rajnandgaon districts.

According to the Indian Express, government officials said they “had inputs” that the protest would turn into a law and order issue. The protestors, however, have said that democratic rights are being curtailed and demanded the immediate release of those taken to prison.

The three-day ‘Sankalp Yatra’, organised by the Chhattisgarh Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh and Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, was to begin on Tuesday from Rajnandgaon. The farmers’ demands include implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations, increasing the minimum support price for paddy and giving farmers the bonus they promised, among others, The Hindu reported.

“We were to begin the rally from Rajnandgaon, and reach Raipur by September 21 to demonstrate there. We had even spoken to the administration about the route. But late on Monday night, they began picking up our farmer leaders. Police spread out to prevent farmers from reaching Rajnandgaon. This is completely anti-democratic,” Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan leader Alok Shukla told the Indian Express.

The police told the Indian Express that 26 people were arrested preventively and 36 others were sent to jail for the violation of Section 144. “We had inputs that there could be a law and order problem along highways and that they could act aggressively in Raipur as well,” Dipanshu Kabra, IG, Durg Range, told the newspaper.

However, Sanket Thakur, convener of the Chhattisgarh Kisan Majdoor Sangh, told The Hindu that close to 500 leaders and farmers had been taken into custody. “The police told us that they had intelligence inputs that the protest could turn violent. The fact is the State government delayed its decision to provide a bonus to paddy farmers and failed to curb the farmers’ unrest. They are scared of our protest and are making every effort to stop our rallies,” Thakur added.

Farmers’ protests erupt in Punjab

Meanwhile, close to 50 farmers’ organisations who had gathered in Chandigarh for a two-day meeting have announced a Kisan Jagriti Yatra across the state to create awareness about the Centre’s “anti-farmer policies”, Indian Express reported.

Farmers in Lakhowal, who had started an indefinite strike on Monday because the state government had not released the payment of sugarcane, said they were forced to end the strike on Tuesday because the police detained them. The farmers planned to protest in front of chief minister Amarinder Singh’s house on Tuesday, News18 reported, but were stopped from entering the city by the police at the Chandigarh-Mohali border. Farmers threw their potato crop onto a Mohali road, demanding a remunerative price for the crop, and were also seen wearing garlands of potatoes, the channel continued. “There are no buyers of potatoes in Punjab which is leading to economic crisis. Hence, the farmers are left with no option except dumping the potatoes on the roads,” Harinder Singh Lakhowal, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary, told News 18.

“We’ll not end the protest unless our demands are met. We have informed farmers in all the villages of Punjab. They’ll start gathering in a large number tomorrow at Mohali,” he added.

Farmers in the Longowal region also clashed with the police on Tuesday. Police reportedly resorted to a lathi charge to disperse protestors, who responded by pelting stones. Five farmers, including two women, and two police officers were injured in the clashes, Indian Express reported. According to the farmers, the protests were triggered by the police conducting checks for making preventive arrests ahead of a five-day dharna of farmers in Patiala.

“The police were harassing us and unnecessary entering houses of villagers, who objected. However, the area SHO ordered a lathi-charge,” Jaswinder Singh, a leader of the Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan), told Indian Express. The special superintendent of police, however, denied that any ‘raids’ were carried out in the village ahead of the farmers’ dharna. He said the farmers attacked a police patrol car, fearing that their leaders would be arrested. According to the newspaper, the police have already arrested over 300 farmer union leaders ahead of a planned dharna from September 22-26 in Patiala.