‘This farm struggle would only be half as strong, half as vibrant if you had not joined the movement’, said senior farm union leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan. He was addressing a massive rally of women farmers and labourers on 8 March 2021 at the Bibi Gulab Kaur protest stage, Tikri border, where farmers had been camping since 26 November 2020, seeking the repeal of ‘Farm Laws’. It was perhaps the biggest International Women’s Day rally, over 50,000 strong according to estimates, on planet earth that day. ‘I bow my head before your resolve, this movement will be remembered because of you,’ he added. Women welcomed his words with thunderous applause and raised fists. This was a notable change from the usual messages they had been hearing from the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) protest stage, where most farm union leaders began their speeches, ‘Brother farmers…’, even as hundreds of women farmers occupied the front rows in the pandals (temporary pavilion).
Families, communities and even state representatives seldom recognise women as farmers. Ignored and invisible, women work in the fields, sowing, harvesting and even ploughing. Many women are full-time farmers and their numbers have been increasing – as men increasingly migrate in search of work to cities or construction sites. Yet women have never been considered an important part of the agricultural economy, and the popular notion has been that farming is a job for men.
Something changed this time. On 26 November 2020, when farmers with their tractor trolleys and trucks – thousands of them, extending for several miles – made their way into the capital city of Delhi, women joined the convoy. The farmers were seeking repeal of the three farm laws that the central government had passed undemocratically. They came waving their union flags and braving the police barricades, water cannons and tear gas attacks. Delhi watched with awe and befuddlement as the farmers settled on the borders of the capital right where they were stopped by the police from entering the city. In no time women set up brick and earthen stoves on the road side and started cooking and feeding the protesters and the visitors. ‘We are here to seek the repeal of three laws, how could we have stayed behind when our land and livelihoods were under threat,’ they replied confidently to media questions. For cooking in the camps, there was a very clear division of labour, women made chapatis and men were responsible for cooking dal and sabzi, lentils and vegetables, and washing the dishes.
Women knew very well what they were protesting against. When the draft of the farm bills was first released by the government in June 2020, the unions began discussions on the impact of the proposed changes among the farming communities. Village meetings were organised and separate meetings were held with women; many farm unions have active women’s wings. The farmers were convinced that the changes proposed would make small farming unsustainable, forcing them to sell their lands and become casual labour in unwelcoming cities.
To pressure the government, the unions initiated local protests, and asked the government to withdraw the proposals. They held tractor marches, rail roko (stop the trains), and arthee phook (burn the effigies of political leaders) protests . Women were present in all these actions, chanting slogans, singing songs, and even performing siyapa, the ritual of collective cursing. These actions continued throughout the months of September, October and November. When their demands were overlooked, the unions called for a march to Delhi to knock on the government’s door on 25 November 2020. Women left their household responsibilities and mobilised. During the day, groups of women went door-to-door with the message of protest and collecting food rations. At night they organised jago (wake up) – a folk wedding tradition in which women go around the village at night, singing, calling the friends and relatives of the bride and groom to stay awake all night in celebrations. Only this time the jago was spreading the message of protest. Videos of these jagos went viral, and support began to pour in. The jagos conjured inspiring memories of the anti-colonial struggle in the 1940s, when jago was used by freedom fighters to awaken people to rise up against colonial rule.
Once at the protest camps, women took over responsibilities quickly. They were collecting food and funds, talked to the press, organising the camps. They were cooking and feeding everyone who came to the protest and took part in cultural events using all the resources at their command – social, political or cultural. They devoted their talents to expressions of protest, and soon thousands of yellow and green dupattas (scarves) became the omnipresent symbol of the women’s stirring presence. When asked, did they not fear the state, women would proudly point to their union button and say, ‘When you are together and unionised, the fear disappears.’
On 18 January 2021, Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) dedicated one full day to celebrate women farmers’ contributions to the movement. This was the first women farmers’ day at the border, although many more were to follow in the following months. Women speakers took the stage to talk about the farm crisis and the suicides of farmers who were unable to make ends meet. They discussed the onerous process of transferring land or even family houses to the names of farmers’ wives after a husbands’ suicide. On these stages women also started talking about patriarchy, discrimination, and how these obstacles impact their everyday lives. Why are families not happy when a daughter is born; why do we prefer sons over daughters? Why do we have domestic violence in our families? Why are farm wages unequal for men and women?
Most of the women at the protest were from small and marginal farming households. In India roughly 85 per cent of the farm holdings are very small, less than two hectares, with 70 percent less than one hectare and the average household landholding only 0.5 hectares.
As the movement became protracted, women’s roles and responsibilities expanded. The state was trying to wear them down, police barricades increased and the roads surrounding the camp sites were sealed completely. This severely restricted the mobility of local communities and the farmers feared that they would ask for the forcible removal of the camps. The women farmers took upon themselves the task of talking to the affected people. They started a door-to-door campaign, explaining to the local residents how the farm laws threatened the food security of the urban poor communities also. They were so convincing that in most of the camp areas, the local residents joined the farmers. In solidarity with the farmers, they opened their homes, toilets and made their kitchens available to young women with babies who needed to sterilise children’s milk bottles or nurse in private. Women won crucial allies in the struggle.
Women’s presence was a unique aspect of this joyous, sustained, non-violent movement. Their participation gave the movement a whole new dimension. Women brought with them their varied experiences of being landless labourers, having lost husbands, fathers, or sons to suicide and forced to pick up the responsibilities of farming, repaying debts, demanding state compensation, and preventing forcible evictions from land. With women joining, the movement’s claims on the government expanded. The movement was no longer concerned only about government protection through the Minimum Support Price. The experiences of women added to the demands of the farmers – they were seeking land for the landless, guaranteed minimum wages for farm jobs, and equal wages for women in farm operations. Beyond disseminating awareness of their hardships, women’s stories became woven into wider critiques not only of the development paradigm but of national policymakers’ failures, and of state’s belligerent refusal to address the farm crisis.
Only days before the farmers protest completed one year at the borders of Delhi, 19 November 2021, the Prime Minister of India announced the repeal of the three contentious laws that the Parliament of India enacted in September 2020, at the height of the pandemic. The Prime Minister said in his televised address to the nation that he was sorry that he was not able to convince a ‘section of the farmers’ that the laws were in their favour. Following this announcement, on 29 November 2021, the first day of the winter session of the Parliament, the three laws were repealed.
It was a historic victory. The farmers’ struggle was called a beacon of hope for the world in the dark times. The largest and longest sustained non-violent movement in recent history had won and the unions announced that the farmers could return to their villages.
On the morning of 10 December 2021, as she was bundling her belongings in the small tent that was her home for the last one year, Surjit Kaur held a clothes iron in her hand, ‘I got this clothes iron a few months ago, see. When we initially came to the camps we [women] were only part of the crowds, but later we began to sit in the meetings with the union leaders, and I thought we must iron our clothes and look professional. They won’t take us seriously if we didn’t look neatly dressed,’ the woman leader chuckled as she wrapped the iron in a bag.
As farmers prepared to return to their villages, amid celebrations, women were hugging each other, tears of joy rolling down their cheeks, ‘It is a moment of joy beyond joy, like we feel when a son is born in the family,’ an elderly woman said, as she boarded the village-bound truck. It was covered by a banner reading jitt, Victory.
