In far off As­sam, Odisha, Kolkata and other parts of east­ern and west­ern In­dia, the habi­tat of the Sikhs, from the times of the Gu­rus, were re­ferred to as Singh­gaons -vil­lages of the Singhs. Many such big and small vil­lages have sprung up within the last two months on the pe­riph­ery of Delhi. They are the blessed cen­tres of faith, com­mit­ment, broth­er­hood, love, com­pas­sion, equal­ity of re­li­gions, re­gions, gen­der, age and more. The man­ner in which young­sters and chil­dren have been touched by the de­vel­op­ments in the Farm­ers Mor­cha is not only a trib­ute to the ex­panse of the Mor­cha but also a re­it­er­a­tion of the love for Pun­jab and the farm­ers in gen­eral by the gen­er­a­tion next. Poet-artist Gurleen Kaur spends a few hours in the “vil­lage of protest” and ex­pe­ri­ences bond­ing and spir­i­tu­al­ity as if the Supreme Power is bless­ing you.

AT THE TIKRI BOR­DER, on en­ter­ing the vil­lage which is 18 kilo­me­tres long, with many small “Pat­tis” -small vil­lage cen­tres, an­gels of God -peo­ple who talk, share as the blessed re­ceive you with love and re­spect as if you are the very im­por­tant guests vis­it­ing their home. We en­tered one tent, and there, they kept ask­ing us, “Would you like to have tea or milk?”

I kept won­der­ing whether I am home or at the Mor­cha!

Ex­perts say that such a protest in­volv­ing farm­ers is per­haps unique in his­tory and we are blessed that it is hap­pen­ing in our times. The more the gov­ern­ment of In­dia de­lays the re­peal of laws, the more joy­ous and faith-abid­ing the sit­u­a­tion is be­com­ing, even with more than 130 deaths so far.

Un­like other vil­lages, this is a mod­ern vil­lage with no short­ages. God has put his good samar­i­tans to vol­un­teer to feed the hun­gry, to pro­vide warmth in thou­sands of tents and the best of win­ter wear and bed­dings, the mar­vel­lous Lan­gars of sim­ple food, snacks ga­lore.

Lo­cal shop­keep­ers who would oth­er­wise protest at the loss of cus­tomers are so happy with the peo­ple and the man­ner in which a new colony of good peo­ple has sprung up around their sur­round­ings. They have lost some work, but farm­ers are pa­tro­n­is­ing them and they are vir­tu­ally en­joy­ing their pres­ence.

This vil­lage holds peo­ple from dif­fer­ent re­li­gions and cul­tures but all bound through the one string of fight­ing for one’s rights. They share in chaste Pun­jabi and Hindi that sav­ing their farm­ing, sav­ing their moth­er­land and oc­cu­pa­tion is not sav­ing only a source of liveli­hood but es­tab­lish­ing a con­nec­tion with Na­ture and the Uni­ver­sal­ity of God.

 

It is re­li­giously fol­low­ing the path shown by Guru Nanak, pro­tect­ing the lands be­stowed on to them through the ahead of the times 1710 procla­ma­tion of Baba Banda Singh Ba­hadur -the land be­longs to the tiller. The vil­lagers I spoke to said, “We are fight­ing the bat­tle as war­riors in the army of the Guru and age, gen­der, pro­fes­sion and sta­tus of health is no bar.

All par­tic­i­pants of the Mor­cha have taken on du­ties of cook­ing, clean­ing and the works. In a re­mark­able mil­i­tary rou­tine, they gather in the morn­ings to pray, lis­ten to mo­ti­va­tional speeches, speeches from the stages, dis­cus­sion in makeshift Saths -vil­lage round­abouts, war cries, songs and more. Many can be seen read­ing the Kisani Vichar and Trol­ley Times. Some even read books lent from the few li­braries that are do­ing re­mark­able ser­vice.

They re­turn to their tents in the evening and the an­nounce­ments from the stage kept go­ing on to warn them and guide them on cer­tain is­sues also to make their stay more or­gan­ised, in­form­ing them to uti­lize the re­sources sus­tain­ably. While march­ing back from the stage area, they look like the sol­diers mark­ing back af­ter train­ing.

From tod­dlers to vet­er­ans, the mo­ti­va­tion in the eyes of the pro­tes­tors was stop­ping me from go­ing to the air­port on my way to Canada for pur­su­ing higher stud­ies. I re­call and breathe every mo­ment spent there and the mem­o­ries of those hours will be suf­fi­cient for me to par­tic­i­pate in thought and deed.