IT started with a small motorcycle rally that ran through the streets of the village. That was on June 7, 2020. The entire country was under lockdown to control the pandemic, but in Duggan, a village in Punjab’s Sangrur district, it was something else that got the villagers agitated: A few days ago, three agricultural ordinances were promulgated by the President of India and some villagers One of them, over 1,000 retired government employees, thought it was important to educate small farmers in the village about the “dangers” in the proposed laws.
“We understood the ordinances, and realized quickly that we were not ready for this 360-degree change in farming. The village has more than 3,700 acres of agricultural land and about 60 percent of the farmers have less than 5 acres of land. We knew that these new laws would kill the small farmer. Some of us sat together on June 5 last year to discuss the ordinances, when some even noticed them,” says 63-year-old Kuldeep Joshi, who retired as an inspector from the Punjab Police’s Vigilance Bureau .
And thus, a spark was kindled, and the movement soon spread across the state and later to the neighboring states and the national capital.
“A little over 17 months have passed and we are still going strong. Dilli Chalo (when the farmers marched towards Delhi) happened on 26 November, when 35 tractor-trolleys from our village went to Delhi. But we villages in Punjab stood up long before that,” says Joshi.
“After the Republic Day violence many villages slowed down or stopped movement for some time, but Duggan village persisted. They have been the most consistent villages,” says Jagmohan Singh Patiala, state general secretary of BKU Dakonda.
Joshi says that 52 farmers represented Duggan village of Muzaffarnagar Mahapanchayat. In addition, every Sunday, a bus will take 40-45 villagers to singhu or tikri and bring back a batch of people who were already protesting. “This is our own struggle. We did everything on our own, using our own personal expenses. We never stopped,” he says.
This village with a population of 10,000 has 52 acres of Nazul land, which is given on annual lease.
70,000 per acre. “We usually use this fund for development works in the village. But since the morcha has started, we are using the money to sustain the movement,” says Joshi, adding that the village spends around Rs 25,000 on the agitation every week.
Another villager, 65-year-old Gurcharan Singh, says, “We collect rations from time to time and deposit it at the village gurudwara. So whenever a batch leaves for Delhi, they take some stock out of that deposited ration. We send 100-200 liters of milk every week for which every household contributes, even if it is a glass.
Another villager, 33-year-old Satnam Singh, who owns 15 acres, says, “I spent about six months in Singhu and Tikri. In my absence my neighbor took care of my crops and when he went to Delhi I did the same. People used to call us ‘rich farmers’. But the fact is that we were successful only because we helped each other and had the heart to donate. It took more than a year for the central government to understand everything.”
Gurmel Kaur, 60, president of the women’s wing of the farm union in the village, says, “The women of the village regularly went to the local fronts, toll plazas etc. of Delhi and Sangrur city. We not only did the langar service but also did the management. Front. We can manage a protest site as well as we can our homes. ,
Gurmel says that Gurdwara Langar in the village regularly supplies sweet rice and dal-roti to the protest site at Sangrur railway station.
At present, the villagers are preparing for Singhu’s visit on the next Sunday (November 21). 65-year-old Roop Kaur will be a part of this batch of 40.
On Saturday, as she packs for the trip, she says, “We will continue our protest till the laws are repealed in Parliament. But this time we’re going happily: we won.
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