Farmers Movement Archive

News in the winter of dissent

Amritsar, January 5The Majha House organised an online discussion with the founders of the newspaper — Trolley Times — that emerged during the agitation of farmers.The discussion had eminent journalist and author P Sainath as one of the speakers, apart from the founders of Trolley Times — Surmeet Maavi, Navkiran Naat, Gurdeep Singh Dhaliwal and Jassi Sangha. The bi-weekly newsletter was launched in support of farmers’ agitation.Talking about the newspaper, Surmeet, who has a journalism background, said since the true news of the peasant movement was not reaching out to people through the mainstream media, he came up with the idea of Trolley Times. “It is an attempt to bridge the communication gap created by the mainstream media between those sitting in protest and the leaders and also clears the confusion regarding the issue for the rest of the country,” said Maavi. The bi-weekly newsletter published in Punjabi and Hindi has soon become popular for the very ideals it stands for — the significance of free, unbiased news.“There are requests from various provinces of India to start their versions as well. There are proposals to print it not only from India, but from Australia and UK as well,” Maavi said.Educator and poet Prof SS Bahl, who was in conversation with the pannelists, agreed that even in difficult times, people have chosen to put their trust in the medium of newspaper.“Leaders such as Gandhi, Patel and Nehru conveyed the right news to people from the newspaper itself. It has also been seen in this movement that gender-determined roles in society are also changing, where women are at Singhu border with men, who are also seen engaged in kitchen works, while young men are making rotis and cooking,” he said.P Sainath, while speaking about the issue and the ripples it has created, said even earlier movements like the Green Revolution or Globalisation adversely affected the farmers. “But because they did not have access to information and means of proper communication at that time, they could not stand together and activate a movement. It’s not like this today because we have the support of social media, but this four-page newsletter is bringing awareness among people,” he said.

The Tribune

2021-01-06