Is This Really Right: The Farmer’s Protest In India
By: Akshat Bansal
Tags: Farmers, India, Media, News, Protest

“My grandfather used to say that once in your life you will need a lawyer, a doctor, a preacher, and a policeman but every day, three times a day, you will need a farmer”. These lines by Brenda Schopp so elegantly portray the role farmers play in sustaining this wheel of human life. Farmers are the backbone of our country. Any country that has, that is, and that ever will flourish, has had the knowledge of the importance of farming and farmers of their country.

India is the largest exporter of rice, cotton, cereals, and spices globally. Our agricultural produce has broken global records on multiple occasions and has made the economic boost possible. We rely highly on the farmers of our country to put food on our table, and that is the reason farmers have been given such impetus in our tradition.

Farmers have had the most important role in shaping this nation’s structure. But the dire state of farmers is hidden from none. For decades farmers have succumbed to adversities. Barren lands, absence of rain, no modern technology, and no actual help from the government. For years and years, farmers of the country have been excruciated for personal gains and have been overlooked for petty profits.

Heartbreaking stories have surfaced in successive intervals, portraying the dire state our farmers are in, just shatters the soul. The one feeding us all fails to put food in his own children’s plate because the entire money he earned with the last crop, went to pay his debts. Farmers of our country are indebted to their chests and have been shut down from any help. The negligence being shown towards the entire section is highly condemnable. Farmers put their savings into reaping fields, making the land fertile, and even lend parts of their land to sustain and produce crops for the harvest. But despite all that gut-wrenching efforts, numerous farmers are subjected to cruelty and apathy.

The recent times have been none different. With the new farm laws being implemented, the entire nation has been in disarray. At the moment I’m writing this, there are lakhs of farmers protesting on the borders of Punjab, Delhi, and Harayana, waiting to be heard and listened to. But their unending wait continues as the government isn’t ready to listen. To disrupt their march towards the nation’s capital, the authorities deployed policemen, who tried very hard to stop the farmers at various borders and entry points into Delhi. The farmers faced water cannons, tear gas shells, and violence on their way to–and even in–Delhi.

They try to subject farmers to the atrocities of this modern world. At times I feel pity for the naivety of the government who believes that they’d scare them with water guns or tear gas. The farmer that battles with hunger, poverty, drought, and pain would be scared by these fancy toys. They’re farmers, they take on fate in a duel on a regular basis, you can never scare them. They are and will stand at the borders until their voices wouldn’t be heard.

Take a moment and just admire the pride and beauty in this, that even when they are hundreds of miles away from their homes, away from their lives, they still aren’t pleading or requesting, they are standing demanding for their right. That is the beauty of this nation. The sense of pride that they have clearly portrays their honesty and justifies their standpoint, which sadly, isn’t being heard by the people responsible.

Our land is our mother, and the son that caters to her and serves her, has been bound in shackles, shackles of greed, and thirst, and selfish motives. But the mighty that sits high must never forget that the ones who put him there have the power to throw him out, and they will, it’s all a matter of time. My countrymen sleep, dreaming about a world that has no faults, that is perfect in every sense with a gatekeeper that is all but perfect, and I stand here waiting for them to wake up, just once, just to show them that my beautiful nation is burning…