It’s been four months since the Indian farmers began camping out at the outskirts of New Delhi. Thousands of farmers, especially from Punjab and Haryana, are camping on the side roads, inside trollies along Delhi’s borders.
“These individuals deserve better because they feed the entire nation, including ours here in America, and even their own family.”
The farmers are demanding that three agricultural laws be repealed and a guarantee on the Minimum Support Price system be retained. Multiple rounds of talks between the central government and the farmers’ union leaders have ended in a stalemate, and the protesting farmers fear that the new laws will leave them at the mercy of big corporations, destroying their livelihood.
Thousands of miles away, across the diaspora, protesters in Canada and the United States are showing their support through car rallies, sleep outs, and on social media.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the Kisaan Sleep Out took place last month to show solidarity and support to the ongoing farmers’ protest in New Delhi. The community came together to raise their voices outside of the General Consulate of India in Vancouver. The idea was to experience one night sleeping cold temperatures exactly as the farmers in India have been experiencing for the past three months.
Charanjeev Singh, who attended the sleep out, says he spoke to many people participating in the protest.
“Some had a little knowledge of what’s going on and some were really into it. Everyone was passionate to support the farmers and the people of their homeland,” Singh says. “The Consulate General of India in Vancouver is the closest thing to the parliament of India that people in Vancouver have.”
Monica Gill, an actress from Massachusetts, tells The Progressive, “The farmers’ protest has made it vividly apparent what it means to be a minority in a pseudo-secular country. From being called terrorists by the media, to trolls bringing up the 1984 Sikh genocide, it’s been a continuous resurfacing of trauma. Looking at the faces of the elderly protesters, we can’t help but see our own grandparents there. It’s become increasingly difficult to detach and focus on anything else.”
One of the solidarity protesters, Inderjot Kaur Hansra, is the daughter of a farmer: “I have family in India. I was raised by hard-working farmers. I have seen the dedication and the amount of labour and time it takes to grow, harvest and sell these crops. It’s a yearly process for some, and these individuals deserve better because they feed the entire nation, including ours here in America, and even their own family.”
Aashmeeta Yogiraj, who lives in New York City, recently returned from India. “The issue with these laws, especially long term, is that they will negatively affect all of India, with the exception of the specific corporate players who are orchestrating the entire thing,” she says. “Anyone who has any family in India, whether they are farmers or not, whether they are from a specific state or not, doesn’t matter. In the long run, everyone in India will face negative implications from these laws if they are not repealed.”
“No matter where across the globe,” Yogiraj says, “if human rights are being violated, it is our duty to spread awareness and put an end to it.”