Farmers Movement Archive

Singhu Border: For these angry young men, seva is the only drug

NEW DELHI: Gurbaj Singh, a 32-year-old Indian Army soldier posted in J&K, took the decision to support the farmers’ protest at Singhu border instead of spending time with his family at Gurdaspur. He felt that serving the elders was more important as, at the end of the day, everyone came from a farming background. But his brother, Gurpreet (25), was a bit cynical and said that despite the presence of army officers and their kin, many were ready to malign the protesters with fake news. He was alluding to an incident on Sunday evening when farmers caught a person allegedly looking for “Chitta”, the synthetic drug made from heroin. “There is relentless propaganda online against us, which makes me very angry. We don’t wake up daily at 4am to clean the roads, wash utensils, cook and serve food all day for some random person to accuse us of being drug addicts. There are thousands of young people here assisting the elders and serving people. No one is doing any drugs,” Gurpreet added. Dilbarpreet Singh, a 22-year-old civil engineer from Tarn Taran, and Jasdeep Singh (28) from Jalandhar were seen sitting under the sun reading books on Sikh history taken from a small library set up by the farmers. The library had a poster that said, “Udta Punjab nahin Padhta Punjab”. Both were angry at the “propaganda to smear the names of the protesters”. “You can see with your own eyes the disgusting attempt made against us. We have come from our villages to serve people. I’m a state-level judo player, yet I’m hearing all this,” said Dilbarpreet. His friend, Jasdeep, said, “Most young folks here are busy with protests and seva. Those who have time, either read books or attend classes online.” Iqbal Singh, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, takes out a few hours daily from his busy schedule of cooking for online classes. “Chitta users will never come to such places. This is just propaganda to spread hate so that we lose the support we are getting from across the world,” he said. He added that Sunday’s incident had prompted many youngsters to guard their trolleys and langar tents. Kabaddi player Gurdeep Singh from Madhopur also rebuked “the lies”. The 24-year-old, who has been living at Zessel Grand highway mall along with many other kabaddi players, asked, “Do you think healthy and fit men like us would ever do drugs? We wake up early, do seva the entire day and also practice the sport for the national team.”

The Times of India

2020-12-23

Delhi