On Mahila Kisan Diwas, 3 generations on what brings them together at Singhu
New delhi: The farmer protests have opened a unique kind of revolution with people from all generations joining in to demand what they say is their right. On Monday as the farmers celebrated Mahila Divas, Millennium Post spoke to three generations of women who have joined the protest, each with only one motive —demanding the repeal of three farm laws.
An 11-year-old Gursimat Kaur is very fiercely talking about how the laws will affect her family and every farmer in the country on stage. Standing in front of a huge crowd Kaur, who hails from Punjab's Hoshiarpur has been sitting at the Singhu border in protest since November 26. "I along with my family and other family members had left my home on November 25 and reached the next day fighting the tear gas and dirty water cannon water," she told Millennium Post.
Kaur's 59-year-old father Rajpal Singh stands beside her as she explains how the farms will affect the farmers. Rajpal Singh is a farmer himself. "This government is delaying the process by having meetings and not having a conclusion. They also send unwanted elements in the protest but we have come here for the long haul," she said. Kaur is a class 6th student and also attends online classes every day. The 11-year-old is learning to sustain her dream of being a lawyer while growing up within a revolution.
On the other side of the stage from where Gursimat gave her speech sits Iqbal Kaur, a farmer from Punjab's Jalandhar. The 54-year-old leads a modest life back home but has come to join the protest. Speaking about how the laws will affect women she said, "A women as a farmer is landless and if this law comes they will take away their child's or husband land leaving her with absolutely nothing. A woman farmer if will go to the market won't get the right price. Modi should listen to what the farmers are saying. These are black laws and he should repeal it," she said.
Iqbal's day starts at 4 in the morning back home. "We go to the gurudwara and then to the farm to take out milk from our animals. That milk is used at home and also sent out to the dairy," she added. A mother of two children she said that this law needs to be taken back as so many old people are suffering because of this.
At the back of the main stage, meanwhile, 75-year-old Mukhtiyaar Kaur wants to address the crowd. The farmer from Punjab has been at the protest since November 26. Coming from a farmer family she was married into another farmer family. "At earlier times we could not study so we did farming only, but we are still better than those educated people because they don't have a job and we still have work. We are also married in the same community that is farmers' family chooses farmers itself," she said, adding that she has been farming her whole life.
Speaking about the farm laws she said that the government wants to grab their land, which they cannot allow. "In our farm what we sow if someone eats that we don't have an issue. But if someone wants to grab our land we will not let that happen. Our land does not belong to the government but is the hard work of our ancestors," she further said.
Mukhtiyar, who grows rice and wheat, said that her family's income comes through farming alone. "They have to take back the bills or else we will keep sitting. We don't want this bill and without asking us they implemented this bill," she said.
