Muktsar girl breaks into male bastion

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, July 7

At a time when debt-ridden Punjab farmers are committing suicide, 25-year-old Harjinder Kaur from Jagat Singhwala village has proved her mettle, overcoming obstacles with sheer grit and will power. She owns a little over five acres of agricultural land. With an aged mother at home, she started farming nine years ago after she lost her three brothers and father.

“ I am the man of the house now. Be it driving a tractor, tilling land, making culverts, irrigating fields, purchasing seeds and fertilisers, spraying pesticides, harvesting and selling crops, I have been doing it all,” she says with pride. To fend her family, Harjinder had to abandon her studies as well as her dream to join the police force. But she has no regrets.  “As we had sold off our agricultural implements because of a money crunch, some villagers gave us theirs. Now, I grow two crops — wheat and paddy — on my five acres of land.”

Harjinder’s aged mother Mukhtiar Kaur is a heart patient.  She is all praise for her younger daughter. “She has been a son to me. She did not give the family land on lease but tilled it herself. She has had no trouble repaying a bank loan.”

Harjinder has been an inspiration to other youngsters in the village. “She has been amazing, working in the fields like a man, ensuring a life of dignity for her family. All village residents are proud of her,” says Gurpreet Singh, the village sarpanch.