On Wednesday afternoon, Vikram Singh, who was among the first batches of farmers to make their way to the Capital’s borders seeking to march to the Ramlila Maidan against the recent farm laws, was back at his village, Chiri. After travelling to and from the frontlines of the protest to provide whatever assistance he could for three weeks, he was at a meeting organising resources, both men and material, for “our people” at the Tikri border protest.
“The village elders and those engaged in farming were sitting at a similar meeting on November 26 when we heard that our brothers from Punjab were marching on Delhi and decided to join them,” said Mr Singh.
As two men from his village led the protesters to occupy the border access point on a tractor, Mr. Singh followed with provisions in his car. Chiri in Haryana is inhabited mostly by farmers with small holdings and a few families of agricultural labourers.
Together in trouble
Back in the village he points to a house. “This is Kaptan Singh’s house; he and his neighbour Surinder Dalal were on his tractor right at the front when we were stopped and clashed with security personnel that day,” he said.
Seated on straw next to a green wall, Kaptan Singh’s sister-in-law Kamlesh watches as her neice Deepika tends to an injured cow in the courtyard. A cloth covers the farmer’s seeder which stands forlorn.
“He left on Novermber 26, leaving a lot of work for us from six in the morning to seven in the evening every day,” Ms. Kamlesh said with a wry smile. “From cleaning animal dung and milking cattle to watering the field, manuring and tending to growing crops, there is a lot that is involved in farming which he used to make look effortless,” she said.
Ms Kamlesh and Deepika are not the only women now on the fields. Surinder Dalal’s wife has also had to take farming matters into her own hands since the men left to join the protests three weeks ago.
However, while the women juggle household chores with the new challenges of tending to crops and the men brave the biting cold of an unrelenting December, the pride of being part of “a larger struggle”, keeps them going.
So far used to only assisting her father tending to the family fields, Deepika, with an MA in Hindi from Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, now does everything he did.
Her reward at the end of most days, she said, are videos Mr Singh shares on WhatsApp of cooking, raising slogans or entertaining fellow protesters at the Tikri site.
“We talk over the phone every other day but he keeps sending me videos of what he is up to which we show everyone; it looks like he has become quite a favourite there,” she said.
“I asked him if he had any idea about when he could return; he said only after there was a solution to the problem with the laws. We will do everything we can to support him,” she added.
Next door, Mr. Dalal’s wife Kavita is about to finish washing his clothes that were sent back from Tikri.
“We can only speak for a few minutes in 7 to 8 days but he sends laundry every week without fail!” Ms. Kavita chuckled. “I’ve been waking up and sleeping two hours earlier because of the extra work.”
“Our wheat crop is drying up because we don’t know how to water it properly. We may be able to save some part of this harvest but I don’t think we will be able to even plant the next,” she said adding that the family was now heavily reliant on dairy and dairy products from its meagre livestock.
Still determined
At Tikri Border, Mr. Dalal’s face lights up below his green turban at the mention of his wife and her complaint about his absence.
“The question is not when but with what face I will go home if the laws are not repealed despite our struggle over so many days,” he said. By his side, even at the agitation, Mr. Singh adds, “I would rather die here trying to get them reversed than slowly every day.”
Farmers, Mr. Dalal said, were “optimistic creatures” by default; when they could confront and tide over loss of harvests due to inclement weather they could do the same in the face of unjust laws.
“Let this harvest go (to waste), let the next one go and even the one after that. We will keep sowing and keep ploughing,” Mr. Dalal declared.
“So many harvests are sacrificed at the altar of mother nature sometimes; whatever we lose till these laws are repealed will be our sacrifice for the cause of farming altogether,” he asserted.