Though the spirit of the protest­ing farm­ers is sky high, the ground zero sit­u­a­tion is bad, de­spite her­culean ef­forts by the farm­ers to keep the en­vi­rons of their protest clean and live­able. With aid sup­port com­ing from DS­GMC, Lud­hi­ana pro­fes­sion­als, the Hemkunt Foun­da­tion and many oth­ers like Khalsa Aid, United Sikhs and oth­ers who de­sire to stay anony­mous al­ready at the protest site, there is still need for the Delhi gov­ern­ment to pos­i­tively in­ter­vene and send emer­gency sup­port and med­ical health care. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh writes an Open Let­ter to Delhi Chief Min­is­ter Arvind Ke­jri­wal ap­peal­ing for im­me­di­ate aid at the Farm­ers Mor­cha.

DEAR ARVIND KE­JRI­WAL: Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh! The tear­ing of the farm bills on the floor of the House of the Delhi As­sem­bly en­deared you and your gov­ern­ment to the protest­ing farm­ers in Delhi. Yet so far too lit­tle has been done of­fi­cially by the Delhi gov­ern­ment and the AAP party cadres to al­le­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing of the farm­ers liv­ing in icy cold con­di­tions with min­i­mal re­sources of pro­tec­tion on the bor­ders of Delhi.

It is 45 days and the farm­ers from Pun­jab, Haryana, West­ern Ut­tar Pradesh, Ra­jasthan and from even West­ern In­dia -Gu­jarat and Ma­ha­rash­tra have shown ex­em­plary dis­ci­pline, pa­tience and peace­ful demon­stra­tion stick­ing to their de­mand for the re­peal of un­ac­cept­able Farm laws.

In the last 48 hours, it has been rain­ing in­ces­santly and wa­ter­log­ging near the trol­leys and makeshift tent ac­com­mo­da­tion has made life dif­fi­cult for the men, women and chil­dren, the young and the el­derly, camp­ing on the five bor­ders en­cir­cling Delhi. Bed­dings have been soaked in wa­ter, a lot of tents have been ren­dered un­us­able.

Let it be said that the sit­u­a­tion has been wors­ened due to bad con­struc­tion of roads and the re­sul­tant wa­ter­log­ging and wa­ter flow on the slopes of the badly laid roads and vir­tu­ally zero san­i­ta­tion fa­cil­i­ties.

You have vis­ited the Singhu Bor­der twice in the last month and you had openly chal­lenged the BJP Union gov­ern­ment for a de­bate with the farm­ers on what is good for them and what is not.

Let me say that the farm­ers have de­bated enough over seven meet­ings and even though an­other meet­ing is sched­uled in two days, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has shown its mind that it is not go­ing to budge from its stand and that the dis­puted bills would stay on the statute. They are also un­will­ing will­ing to make a le­gal com­mit­ment on Min­i­mum Sup­port Price for 23 farm prod­ucts and to with­draw an or­di­nance on Elec­tric­ity charges and shelve a plan to im­pose heavy penal­ties for stub­ble burn­ing.

To­day, Mr Chief Min­is­ter, it is time for ac­tion.

When the farm­ers reached Delhi on 25 No­vem­ber, the gov­ern­ment within days went into top gear and set up large tents at Bu­rari for the farm­ers and also put up tem­po­rary san­i­ta­tion and toi­let fa­cil­i­ties for the protest­ing farm­ers there. Though they were put up by the Union gov­ern­ment, this step would not have been done with­out a nod from the Delhi gov­ern­ment.

My ques­tion is sim­ple: It is the duty of the state to pro­tect the rights, safety and health of its cit­i­zens. If the gov­ern­ment of Haryana is in­hu­mane and the gov­ern­ment of In­dia is un­con­cerned, the AAP party gov­ern­ment must spare no ef­fort from now on­wards to make the con­di­tions live­able for the protest­ing farm­ers who have come from afar and are de­ter­mined to take the farm­ers’ strug­gle reaches its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.

The Delhi gov­ern­ment must press into ac­tion and make avail­able all emer­gency and dis­as­ter man­age­ment re­sources un­der its con­trol on a war foot­ing to en­able the farm­ers to tide over the in­clement weather. There is all like­li­hood of a break­out of a health cat­a­stro­phe if im­me­di­ate and ur­gent ac­tion is not taken.

Due to heavy rains from the last three days, there is wa­ter­log­ging and filth on the Na­tional High­ways and the roads and streets ap­proach­ing the Singhu, Tikri and Gazipur bor­ders and a large part of the ar­eas has been turned into grounds of waste and dirty small ponds. Ro­htak Road lead­ing to Tikri is com­pletely blocked at Tikri Kalan Metro Sta­tion where even a cow can­not pass by leav­ing alone hu­man be­ings.

No one, in­clud­ing you, is rais­ing any voice of protest. The other roads lead­ing to farm­ers are be­ing dug by Delhi Po­lice so that ac­tivists and se­wadars can­not reach with needs and aid ma­te­r­ial. Will you please raise a con­cern?

The pa­thetic con­di­tion is not just a cre­ation of the rains. The whole en­vi­ron­ment is a sad re­flec­tion on the work­ing of the Na­tional High­way Au­thor­ity of In­dia, which col­lects mil­lions of ru­pees as toll tax but does pre­cious lit­tle for proper con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of roads.

The sit­u­a­tion is grim and is invit­ing a pan­demic out­break be­cause of the de­cay­ing filth. Though vol­un­teers are do­ing their best, the lo­gis­tics are against them.

A row of fully-equipped Am­bu­lances with doc­tors on board should be de­ployed on all bor­ders.

A row of fully-equipped Am­bu­lances with doc­tors on board should be de­ployed on all bor­ders. On the five main bor­ders where farm­ers are protest­ing and at Bu­rari, at least two am­bu­lances each should be made avail­able for round the clock needs. Farm­ers are dy­ing and the num­ber is close to 55. If noth­ing is done now these num­bers will in­crease.

The Rainn-Baseras -tem­po­rary shel­ters for the home­less in Delhi have been ap­pre­ci­ated. It is time to ex­tend this ser­vice for the protest­ing farm­ers as it is clear to every­one that this is go­ing to be a long ag­i­ta­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Modi will con­tinue to stick to his wrong stand and this haugh­ti­ness will cost lives. You and your gov­ern­ment can at least save lives, while the farm­ers wage their strug­gle with the In­dian gov­ern­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Modi will con­tinue to stick to his wrong stand and this haugh­ti­ness will cost lives. You and your gov­ern­ment can at least save lives, while the farm­ers wage their strug­gle with the In­dian gov­ern­ment.

Dur­ing the ini­tial COVID19 lock­down pe­ri­ods, the Delhi gov­ern­ment con­verted buses into makeshift hos­pi­tals. Can we not do the same now for the protest­ing farm­ers as non-gov­ern­men­tal and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions from Delhi and Pun­jab have al­ready started to make avail­able buses as tem­po­rary abodes.

I fail to un­der­stand as to why a hearse van has not been made avail­able, at least on hu­man­i­tar­ian grounds, in view of the fact there are reg­u­lar 1-2 deaths on the Delhi bor­ders.

His­tory is record­ing every­thing and this time on a vi­sual me­dia. All acts of com­mis­sion and of course omis­sion of the lead­er­ship of the coun­try, in­clud­ing those who os­ten­si­bly sup­port them is be­ing noted and recorded for pos­ter­ity. 

Mo­bile toi­lets with proper san­i­ta­tion and clean­ing must be avail­able through­out the stretch of the lengthy high­ways where the pro­tes­tors are camp­ing. We do not ex­pect the Swach Ab­hiyan from the Union gov­ern­ment, but the farm­ers are look­ing for­ward to the mag­na­nim­ity of the AAP gov­ern­ment.

In the past, the cab­i­net and team of AAP have been at a protest in the Raj Bha­van against the Cen­tre’s de­lay and au­to­cratic be­hav­iour. Why can’t you do it now?

His­tory is record­ing every­thing and this time on a vi­sual me­dia. All acts of com­mis­sion and of course omis­sion of the lead­er­ship of the coun­try, in­clud­ing those who os­ten­si­bly sup­port them is be­ing noted and recorded for pos­ter­ity. You owe it to his­tory and to your im­age and mis­sion to stand with the op­pressed and re­pressed.

In the past, the cab­i­net and team of AAP have been at a protest in the Raj Bha­van against the Cen­tre’s de­lay and au­to­cratic be­hav­iour. Why can’t you do it now?

As you tore the farm bills in the Delhi As­sem­bly, kindly do not wait for an­other cat­a­stro­phe to hap­pen be­fore you tear down all hin­drances -ad­min­is­tra­tive and po­lit­i­cal to save the sit­u­a­tion on your bor­ders. and pro­tect the lives of the An­na­data -the provider of grains for the hun­gry of the world!

Await­ing your next step.

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News

 

Photo cred­its: Arvind Ke­jri­wal photo: Scroll.in
Farm­ers Mor­cha Pho­tos and Videos: Gurmeet Singh of WSN Delhi Desk