TIKRI BORDER (JHAJJAR): About 380 kilometres away from his hometown, Muktsar in Punjab, Gursewak Singh who cultivates 12 acres of agricultural land, is among the several protesters camping on the Delhi-Haryana border.
Gursewak, 40, refuses to budge from the protest site till the Centre gives a written guarantee of rolling back the three recently enacted agriculture laws which have triggered countrywide protests.
“If a farmer of 12 acres like me is facing back-to-back losses in agriculture, imagine the plight of small farmers who don’t have enough resources at hand. Now, there is also the fear of losing MSP,” he added.
He also accused the Centre of not listening to their demands patiently and of playing politics with them by dubbing them as “terrorists” or “Khalistanis”. “My elder brother was in the Army and he fought the 1999 Kargil war. He sustained bullet injuries for the country and now I am protesting on the roads. How can you call me a Khalistani?” he said. “Our agitation was only for saving our ‘fasal aur nasal’ (crops and future generations),” he added.
Gursewak is not the only one feeling anguished on farmers being called Khalistanis. Echoing similar sentiments, 60-year-old Baljeet Kaur from Mansa district said had their intentions been any different than the repeal of three agri laws, they would not have come with their women and children.
“Six women have come from my village and we are camping in one trolley. For elderly women like me, even climbing up and down a trolley is a herculean task. Our joints are paining. The toilets are a problem, but we are here for making a last attempt to save agriculture from dying,” she said.
Banners and posters hanging on trollies of farmers queued up from Bahadurgarh to Tikri border stretch say it loud and clear: “We are not terrorists. We are farmers.”
There are no restrictions on anyone entering the protest venue. Jawans of paramilitary forces deployed there and Haryana Police officials are seen mingling easily with protesters and accepting their langars.
‘More important than Covid’
Gurpreet Singh, who came from Bathinda and has been camping on the Tikri border since November 28, said they were not worried about coronavirus. He said eight of them had been staying and sleeping in one trolley all these days. “Before this, we were camping in Punjab for three months and none of us ever had any symptoms of coronavirus,” he said.
Admitting that norms like social distancing and masks cannot be followed in the agitation, he said there are teams of doctors to take care of them. “There is no restriction on any farmer to go back if they start any symptoms of virus, but right now saving agriculture is more important than anything else,” he added.
Hardeep Singh, who has set up medical camp here, said they came from Sunam in Punjab to offer free service to the agitating farmers. “We are receiving patients with complaints of joint pain, blood sugar, acidity, itching in the throat, and they are given medicines at our counter,” he added.