NEW DELHI: Balvinder Kaur, an 81-year-old woman farmer from Sangrur in Punjab, gets little irritated as her mobile phone rings again. She is not used to getting so frequent calls when she is at home.
Kaur, perhaps the oldest woman protester to join the farmers at the Singhu border in New Delhi to protest against the new farm laws, has been getting a call in every one hour from her worried family members in Sangrur.
Kaur reached the Delhi-Haryana border with a group of farmers from her village. But she is not the only woman here. Hundreds of women farmers have marched to the national capital along with their men counterparts.
“My entire family is in Punjab. As I set off for Delhi, everyone back home tried to stop me, but I wanted to support my brothers and sisters protesting here. This is free India, and I will not allow PM Narendra Modi to bring back the zamindari and British system,” Kaur says.
As the farmers protest entered the eighth day, Delhi-Haryana and Delhi-UP borders saw an increase in the number of woman supporters with wives, daughters and mothers of the agitating farmers joining in.
“Why I am here with a six-month-old baby, despite cold, pollution and the Covid-19 threat? Because the farmers have had faced enough atrocity of the government. This fight is for our children, to support my husband and protect him and my kisan brothers from committing suicides,” says Mamta, a 37-year-old woman from Faizanpur, Uttar Pradesh, at the protest site.
Similarly, Radha from Rampur in UP arrived at the Singhu Border on Friday morning with her three children.
“I don’t want to become a widow. My children need their father. When a father is fighting for his children and family, how could we stay at home peacefully? We also wanted to be a part of this protest,” says Radha. Radha adds that when he had left for New Delhi, she knew it would be a tough road ahead for her.
“Being a woman and a mother, it is hard to stay on a highway amid the dipping mercury, without bathroom, toilet and other basic facilities.
But, what is a battle without a struggle? We are not going to move an inch until the government repeals the three new farm laws,” Radha says.
Kaur says the locals, shops and hotels have extended their support to the farmers and allowed them to use their washrooms and toilets.