In Delhi, since last November, millions of farmers have been peacefully protesting for justice. They fear that the three new agricultural laws that the government want to put in place will favour the giant corporations and destroy their livelihoods.
More than 60 per cent of India’s working population is part of the agriculture sector – and 15 per cent of India’s GDP comes from agriculture.
My dad, Rajinder Singh, is 74 and lives in Harlington. He’s also a potato farmer and activist – he’s become famous as the UK’s first, and only, “skipping Sikh” – and is doing all he can to raise awareness of the gravity of the farmers’ plight. So why isn’t the British government doing the same?
It’s too late to argue that nobody knows about what’s going on, though that may have been the case, at first. Since the protests began, Narendra Modi’s far-right government has violently tried to suppress them, by censoring social media pages of anyone who speaks out or shares information on the real truth of what is going on.
The borders of Delhi have been surrounded by barricades and barbed wire. The internet has been shut down, water and food supplies cut off, and many farmers have gone missing. There are claims that at least one woman activist was arrested and sexually assaulted.
Yet now the eyes of the world are on India, following a number of tweets https://twitter.com/rihanna/status/1356625889602199552?s=20
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1356694884615340037?s=20
https://twitter.com/meenaharris/status/1357376550803369986?s=20
https://twitter.com/nayanikaaa/status/1357195066259898369?s=20
by high-profile celebrities such as Rihanna, Greta Thunberg, Amir Khan and Meena Harris. And now it’s time for the British government to step up and fight for justice – just like my father.
He was born in Punjabi in 1947, a farmer and a landowner. His family are currently at the protests, fighting for justice. My dad is completely devastated and shocked to see videos of protestor’s being dragged across the floor, beaten, tear gas being fired – and people dying. This is cruelty, not how a government should behave. When the Black Lives Matter protests took place, the world was rightly outraged. So why isn’t the UK condemning these atrocious acts of violence?
Dad has found himself in a most unwarranted – and, frankly, unwelcome – spotlight. He never envisioned that he would be speaking out in public about the fiery protests in his homeland, and how they affect more than 80 per cent of British-Asians like him.
This isn’t the first-time he has seen injustice, either. In 1985, his father was strangled and killed. He never found out who killed him, and to this day my family has never seen justice.
My great-grandparents went through the 1947 partition and were left homeless. Dad saw thousands of lives taken in the Sikh genocide of 1984, at Sri Harminder Sahib – the Golden Temple – in Amritsar, his home town.
He never expected to see what he is seeing today: another attack on his homeland, which will lead to more deaths – and, potentially, suicide – if there is no resolution between the farmers and the Indian government.
On the ground in Britain, the Indian diasporas are doing what they can – they’ve held rallies, and one family even decided to camp in a tent in their garden, to show their support.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP for Slough has written a letter to Dominic Raab which has been signed by over 100 MPs asking the UK government to intervene.
But there has been little movement, since. This isn’t the case online: last week, a tweet went viral from Rihanna, who asked, “Why aren’t we talking about this?” off the back of a news report about the issue. Other celebrities, such as Greta Thunberg, Amir Khan, Meena Harris, film star Salman Khan – and many more – have shown solidarity to the farmers.
We’ve since seen footage of counter-protesters in Delhi burning effigies of Thunberg after she tweeted her support.
Farmer suicide has risen from 16,000 in 2015 to over 20,000, according to researchers at Saving Punjab.– this is only going to increase if we see these new laws pass.
In PMQ’s last year, Dhesi asked Boris Johnson to intervene and protect the safety of farmers. The PM’s reply was that this was an issue “between India and Pakistan” – which left many stunned. If the PM doesn’t know what’s going on, how can we expect anyone else to know?
Yet one thing is clear: if these protests continue, it’s going to be devastating. There will be ramifications for many – even those beyond India’s border.
Thanks to growing social media activism in favour of the Indian farmer strike, the British government have now themselves served with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people – which means it will now be debated.
Grassroots UK organisations like Khalsa Aid, Sikh Assembly, Midland Langar Sewa hit the ground running, months ago, to support those families in India who have lost loved ones, with an outpouring of donations totalling just under £400,000 from vocal Asian celebrities Jazzy B, Diljit Dosanjh, Harbhajan Mann and many more.
American footballer Juju Smith has donated more than £100,000 for medical assistance for protestors.
But it stings for British Asians, like me and my dad, to see that while farmers in India have the support of celebrities – our own government is staying silent. He feels, as do I, and many others like us, that Johnson has a fundamental duty to stand up against what this clearly is – a human rights violation.
