Farmers Movement Archive

On their day, women farmers helm the stir at all sites on Delhi borders

Thousands of women farmers joined the ongoing farmer agitation at Delhi’s borders on Monday to celebrate International Women’s Day and took to the stage to address concerns of women farmers, part from marking occasion with cultural programmes.Women farmers from Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh arrived in droves at the three major protest sites in Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur to mark women’s day. Throughout the day, women protesters organised marches at the sites while wearing yellow and green scarves and holding the flags of various farmer union groups.Kavita Kurugunti, member of Samyukta Kisan Morcha – an umbrella body comprising 40 farmer groups – said the protests on Monday were entirely managed by women. “Women arrived at the borders in tractors, cars, jeeps, tempo, buses and trains, waving mazdoor kisan flags, to protest against the three agricultural laws,” she said.From manning the stage to addressing the crowd, arrangements related to the agitation were carried out by women of all ages and professions at Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur.Harpreet Kaur, 35, a farmer from Doaba in Punjab, said, “So many women have lost their family members during this three-month agitation. We have all come here so that the government takes note of our losses and scraps the new farm laws.”At Tikri, women farmers dubbed the three laws “death warrants”. “Women farmers termed the Modi government anti-women and said demands of women farmers have been completely ignored by the government,” Kurugunti said, adding that women farmers constitute a major part of the agricultural workforce in the country.“The government feels that the movement will weaken over time, but the resolve of farmers is getting stronger by the day,” farmer leader Harinder Bindu said, reiterating that farmers won’t leave Delhi’s borders unless the three farm laws are repealed.

Hindustan Times

09-03-2021

India