Dilli Chalo | Women in Punjab keep the fires burning
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Apart from participating in the stir at Badbar, they’ve been mobilising rations and making ready meals for protesters for over two months.
It’s nightfall and a bunch of ladies, together with the younger and aged, have reached their village — Harigarh in Punjab’s Barnala distict — after staging a protest for hours at a close-by toll plaza in Badbar on the Patiala-Bathinda nationwide freeway.
While the male farmers proceed to take a seat at the ‘pucca-morcha’ (everlasting protest web site) in Badbar, the girls are again not simply to handle their family work, but additionally to make sure that the preparations for ‘langar’ (neighborhood kitchen) for the protesters are put in place.
This has been their schedule for the final two months.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with males in the agitation in opposition to the new agriculture legal guidelines, these girls — who’re all keen to depart for the nationwide capital to hitch the stir as and when the want arises — accumulate grains, greens, milk and so on., from the village day by day and put together meals to be served at the protest web site.
Perturbed over the Centre authorities’s “indifferent” angle in the direction of the farmers’ protest and their calls for, 27-year-old Ramanpreet Kaur, who works at non-public healthcare firm, informed The Puucho on Thursday that she was keen to depart for Delhi as and when its required. “I am the daughter of a farmer and if I don’t support this agitation and farmers, then I feel I’ll be betraying my community,” she mentioned.
Ms. Kaur, who has been rendering her providers since the agitation began over two months in the past, mentioned: “Several committees of women have been set up across the village. Every evening, we get together and move around the village in the areas assigned to us to collect rations, money and other things. We cook food and send it to the protest site, it’s our duty and all of us are performing it,” mentioned Ms. Kaur.
Battling collectively
Sixty-year-old Balbir Kaur, mentioned she was with the protesting farmers and wouldn’t relent at any value until their calls for had been met. “After completing my household work in the morning, I go to the protest site and sit over there for three-four hours daily. Later, in the evening, I, along with other women, stroll around the village for collecting food and other items. We are collecting all necessary things be it clothes, food or medicine as part of the preparations for going to Delhi,” she added.
A gaggle of ladies amassing meals gadgets from a home in village Harigarh, Barnala (Punjab) as part of preparation for ongoing farmers agitation in opposition to Centre’s farm legal guidelines. Vikas Vasudeva
“All of us are together in this battle. Whenever we receive a call from our leaders, we will march to Delhi without hesitating,” mentioned Amarjeet Kaur, 65.
Seventy-year-old Karnail Kaur mentioned: “The women in Punjab are very well capable of taking care of themselves, their households and fight for their rights in the outside world with all the might.”
Expressing doubts over optimistic outcomes rising from the ongoing talks between the Centre authorities and farmers, Parminder Kaur, 54, mentioned “I have lost trust in the government, they [the Centre] have backstabbed us by bringing the new laws, which are not in our interest. I’ll keep fighting even if it costs me my life. Delhi will have to listen to us, we will make them listen,” she mentioned.
Parvinder Singh Makkan, an area farmer chief, mentioned that in the agitation, the cooperation of ladies had been phenomenal. “They have been the backbone of our agitation. In several villages including ours, women committees had been set up, who are assigned different responsibilities from time to time. At the Badbar toll plaza, where day-night dharna is being held, the food for hundreds of participants is prepared and provided with the help of the village women folk,” he mentioned.
“On a daily basis, we make announcements from a loudspeaker in the village about the requirement of food, based on the people present at the protest site. Never had there been a day when there was any shortage of food or other essential items. The involvement of women has been a key factor in strengthening this agitation,” he mentioned. “Now, they [women] are all set to leave for Delhi. They are only waiting for the nod from leaders,” he added.
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