Jind: One struggle ends in win, another begins for kin of farmers who died

By: Sagarika Kissu
JIND: A garlanded framed photo of a smiling Karamveer Bhanwala greets every visitor at his modest home in Jind’s Singhwal. His family has placed a portrait of Bhagat Singh near it, drawing parallels between the revolutionary freedom fighter and the farmer who died during the yearlong agitation against the Centre’s three agriculture laws that have now been scrapped.
The owner of less than 2 acres of farmland, Karamveer (50) was found hanging on February 7 at Tikri, one of the main protest sites on the Delhi border. A handwritten note found near his body read, “Sarkar tareekh pe tareekh de rahi hai, pata nahi kale kanoon kab radh honge (the government is only giving us dates, but we don’t know when they will take back the three black laws).” The note also urged compatriots not to head back home till their demands were met.
Karamveer is one of the five farmers who died by suicide – as claimed by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha – at the Tikri border. Unions claim 114 farmers from Haryana died at protest sites around Delhi’s borders – many of them during the winter months when the mercury hovered between 3 and 5°C. Jind, according to these numbers, reported the highest number of deaths – 17.
The repeal of the laws was a historic moment for thousands of farmers from the state who contributed to the agitation but the victory extracted a harsh cost from Karamveer’s family. They wish he was there to see the struggle end, to celebrate with other protesters when the agitation was called off after the government accepted the farmers’ demands. Emotions get the batter of Bohti (80) every time her son’s name is mentioned. “I never thought I would be alive to see this day. I wish I had died instead of him,” she says.
Karamveer’s wife Santosh (45) recounts she would often tell her husband to come back home and help her with the field work. “But he mostly stayed put (at the protest site). When he did come, he followed news of the protest on TV all the time,” she says. The couple’s only son died 13 years ago from an ailment. They have three daughters, who study in a private school. “Just like these walls, our lives have also become colourless,” says Santosh, pointing to a brick wall that desperately needs a fresh coat of paint. “I am worried about my daughters now.”
Karamveer’s district, Jind, was the backbone of the Haryana farmers’ protest all through the agitation. So involved were the farmers here that they did not let deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala enter his own constituency, Uchana Kalan, and announced a boycott of BJP and JJP functionaries.
Off the Jind-Patiala-Delhi highway, farmers from the district were among the first to respond to Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait’s teary-eyed appeal to revive the agitation when it was on the verge of collapse after the Republic Day violence in Delhi. The Jind farmers had blocked all highways leading to Chandigarh, Delhi, Hisar and Karnal and flocked to the Ghazipur border to meet Tikait soon after his appeal.
Apart from Jind, the other districts that reported farmer deaths included Jhajjar (12), Hisar (12), Kaithal (11), Sonipat (9), Fatehabad (9), Karnal (7), Sirsa (6), Bhiwani (6), Panipat (4) and Kurukshetra (3). The numbers are from the list submitted to the government by the farmers’ union.
In Uchana, just 7km from Singhwal where Karamveer lived, it was a double setback for the family of Randhir Singh (55). The owner of 2 acres, Randhir suffered a cardiac arrest in the biting winter cold at Tikri. His wife Nirmala Devi (51) had a paralytic attack after hearing the news.
Randhir was given a “martyr’s farewell” in his village Mohangarh Chapra in Uchana – a cavalcade of BKU members carrying banners and the Tricolour accompanying his body to the cremation ground. After his death, Randhir’s two sons – Sandeep (25) and Deepak (23) – took the responsibility of renovating their house. A plaque outside now reads “Shaheed Kisan Randhir Singh”. “For any marginal farmer, having a house of his own is the prime wish. After my father died, we faced a series of hardships – both emotionally and financially. But we had to renovate the house at any cost,” says Sandeep, who now runs a common service centre (CSC) at his home.
Sandeep recalls that his father was so involved in the movement that he had vowed not to cut his hair until the laws were taken back. “He would say, ‘if I die, they will anyway chop my hair during autopsy’,” he says. It hasn’t been a good year for the family. About 90% of their cotton was damaged by the pink worm, but they have yet to hear anything from the government on compensation so far.
Around 200km away, the family of Rajveer in Rewari district is still to come to terms with his death at the Tikri border on May 6. His wife Sumitra, a sanitation worker, has lost “a friend”. “All his life, he worked for the people. And he died fighting for them. For me, he will always be a martyr,” she says.
The farmer unions have given the government a list of those who died during the protest so that their families can be compensated, a support many of them desperately need as they eke out a survival path. “We have given the list of such farmers to the government and are waiting for their response. The government, too, has a record of its own. If they don’t want to compensate us as part of the agreement reached when we vacated the borders, we will resume our movement,” says Azad Singh, the district president of BKU (Charuni) in Jind.
The Haryana government has started verifying the names submitted by the farmers’ union. “The numbers claimed by the farmers are much more. So, we are getting the names of farmers who died during the year-long agitation verified by the respective deputy commissioners,” agriculture minister JP Dalal said.
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