Since the last forty-eight hours, the rain gods are cry­ing see­ing the plight of the suf­fer­ing farm­ers at the thresh­old of Delhi. In­ces­sant rain and the tem­per­a­ture plum­met­ing to near zero de­grees has dis­turbed the protest­ing farm­ers at the Singh, Tikri, Gazipur and other bor­ders en­cir­cling Delhi. Gurmeet Singh of the WSN Delhi Desk re­ports.

THE TEM­PO­RARY TENTS HAVE LEAKED, WA­TER HAS SEEPED IN THEM, bed­dings are wet, pro­tes­tors are stand­ing, un­able to sit and sleep. 

Farm­ers and Sikhs are used to ex­treme heat, se­vere cold and heavy rains. The cur­rent rains may have a tem­po­rary ef­fect on their tents, trol­lies, food, ra­tion, clothes, bed­dings, etc how­ever it will add a medal­lion to their kitty of sur­viv­ing hard­ships and mov­ing a step fur­ther to­wards the de­mol­ish­ing the ego­is­tic gov­ern­ments which are hell bound to kill farm­ers and pro­tect crony cap­i­tal­ism. 

The death of 45 farm­ers in so many days has added more de­ter­mi­na­tion and re­solve to the 32 Bharatiya Kisan Union bod­ies from Pun­jab and around 10-12 from neigh­bour­ing states to con­tinue the ag­i­ta­tion for farm­ers rights. Yes­ter­day a farmer com­mit­ted sui­cide at the Gazipur bor­der and left a note that his cre­ma­tion is held at the tem­po­rary 7.5-kilo­me­tre city of the farm­ers. 

Even on hu­man­i­tar­ian grounds, nei­ther the gov­ern­ment of Haryana or Delhi has of­fered or made any as­sis­tance to the farm­ers strug­gling to beat the weather. 

Sig­nif­i­cantly, in the never-say-die spirit, the Lan­gars con­tinue and the Lan­gar vol­un­teers -the ubiq­ui­tous Se­wadars con­tinue their Sewa in the open with make-shift rain­coats. 

Speak­ing to ac­tivists serv­ing at Tikri, WSN learnt that the Delhi Po­lice has dug up roads, wa­ter sup­ply from Delhi Jal Board is cut off, they have to cover long dis­tance and counter jam for an hour to reach the Mor­cha at Tikri. WSN has also learnt that those who are not pro­tes­tors are not al­lowed to cross over the bar­ri­cades at Tikri bor­der as it is com­pletely sealed. 

Mor­chas are part of Sikh his­tory and leg­end. A mor­cha is a demon­stra­tion of the spirit of co­op­er­a­tion and co­or­di­na­tion of the farm­ers. The Gu­ru’s spirit of “Dukh vich Sukh manai” is vis­i­ble. 

Those in the BJP call­ing the protest a pic­nic must be ashamed to­day. How­ever, the pow­ers that be are un­shaken and un­fazed.  

“For the last six weeks, we have with­stood the bit­ing cold win­ter, a few droplets of wa­ter will not stop us from con­tin­u­ing our strug­gle.”

Farm­ers all across the five bor­ders vir­tu­ally cut­ting off Delhi from the rest of the coun­try are de­ter­mined to con­tinue their fight.  Rain or shine, heat or cold or very cold can only test the pa­tience of farm­ers, but not de­ter them from con­tin­u­ing their his­toric strug­gle for farm rights be­gin­ning with the an­nul­ment of the re­peal of the three anti-farmer, anti-peo­ple farm laws. 

With the back­ing of his­tor­i­cal folk­lore when their fore­fa­thers bore worse hard­ships than in­clement weather, the farm­ers from Pun­jab are speak­ing to any sec­tion of the in­de­pen­dent me­dia that has man­aged to reach there that “we have seen worse bru­tal­i­ties and tor­ture. These rains are a mes­sage that even God is hurt by the stub­born­ness of the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment.”

Across Pun­jab and Haryana, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rashtriya Swayam­se­vak Sangh (RSS) and their var­i­ous al­liances are at the re­ceiv­ing end of peo­ples’ ire. The po­lit­i­cal boy­cott is even lead­ing to pro­fes­sional and so­cial boy­cott. 

“For the last six weeks, we have with­stood the bit­ing cold win­ter, a few droplets of wa­ter will not stop us from con­tin­u­ing our strug­gle.”

Across Pun­jab and Haryana, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rashtriya Swayam­se­vak Sangh (RSS) and their var­i­ous al­liances are at the re­ceiv­ing end of peo­ples’ ire. The po­lit­i­cal boy­cott is even lead­ing to pro­fes­sional and so­cial boy­cott. 

Speak­ing to farm­ers at the three gate­ways of Singh Garh, WSN learns that one of the ma­jor hin­drances is the slope of the roads whereby wa­ter seeps into the tents mak­ing habi­ta­tion dif­fi­cult in the makeshift tents. 

The above sit­u­a­tion also shows the in­ad­e­quacy and fail­ure of our gov­ern­ments and NHAI to have a proper drainage sys­tem to cater to the need of rain wa­ters. Fail­ure, dis­as­ter, non-per­for­mance and mis­man­age­ment are hall­marks of the pre­sent BJP gov­ern­ment in Haryana and the In­dian Union. 

While more aid, es­pe­cially wa­ter­proof tar­pau­lins have started to pour in from Pun­jab and Haryana, the Sikh com­mu­nity in Delhi should put to­gether more im­me­di­ate emer­gency aid.

It is com­fort­ing to note that the Hemkunt Foun­da­tion has rushed hun­dreds of wa­ter­proof tents for the farm­ers. 

It is com­fort­ing to note that the Hemkunt Foun­da­tion has rushed hun­dreds of wa­ter­proof tents for the farm­ers. All ac­tivists may co­or­di­nate and col­lab­o­rate to avoid du­pli­ca­tion and smoothen the aid dis­tri­b­u­tion process to help the par­tic­i­pants at the protest roads. 

“The wa­ter of the gods will lead to the Wa­ter­loo of the Modi-Shah fas­cist regime”, said an Eng­lish speak­ing ac­tivist farmer at the Singhu bor­der. 

Pho­tos Cour­tesy: Free­lance Video Jour­nal­ist Ajit An­jum, who is do­ing ex­em­plary cov­er­age since the start of the Farm­ers Mor­cha and who was one of the first video­g­ra­phers to reach the Delhi bor­der early to­day morn­ing.