Farm suicides: Kin join protest at Tikri border

Tribune News Service

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Sangrur, December 16

Already living in penury, the relatives and widows of indebted farmers who have committed suicides raised their voice against the Central farm laws at the Tikri border on Wednesday. They fear losing their meagre income if new laws are implemented and have announced to protest till the laws are rolled back.

“My husband Tirath Singh committed suicide in 2009 by consuming poison after he failed to repay the debt of Rs 8 lakh taken from an arhtiya. Before the last Assembly elections, CM Capt Amarinder Singh had promised complete debt waiver, but more than three years after the formation of the Congress government, I have not got any waiver. I have less than one acre of land. The new farm laws would kill us. We would die here, but would not allow its implementation,” says Angrej Kaur, a widow from Mehlan chownk village.

Gurmale Kaur alleges her nephew Harbhajan Singh committed suicide four years after he failed to pay the school fee of his son. Harbhajan’s family has not got any waiver while money lenders are asking for Rs 10 lakh.

Protesting women allege after the suicides of their sole breadwinners they have neither any source of income nor any required land to cultivate crops, adding the indifferent attitude of successive governments have multiplied their woes.

“PM Narendra Modi must see the pain of these sisters, wives and mothers, who have lost their family members to debt. Their presence here with the photos of their deceased members is enough to prove that agriculture is already in huge losses. The Central farm laws would make things worse,” says Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president, BKU (Ugrahan).

Slogans like ‘Inquilab Jindabad, Kale kanun vaapis karake jawange’ rent the air during the protest while songs like “Jind chhoti si, paige bhari dukh kure and hudkushiya de rah te turge peo te putt kude” moist the eyes of all.

“These all are widows of small farmers and they are not able to repay their debt when ?tMhe SP is already there and government purchase their crops. I want to ask the Central Government that from where they would repay their debt, when the government would stop the purchase and private players offer them little price,” says Ugrahan.