Shivangi Saxena and Rahul Yadav, Singhu Border, Delhi.

Amarjeet Kaur came to Delhi from Sangrur district in Punjab. “Be it cold or corona, I shall not budge from here without reclaiming our rights from the government,” she said. “We have come here with ration for the next six months and blankets. We are here to cook meals for all,” she said. 

Not unlike Amarjeet Kaur, 32-year-old Nirmal has come to protest from Haryana leaving behind her 14-year-old son back home. “If we do not raise our voice today, our future generations will have to undergo tremendous hardships because the situation will get more grim. If the government holds back our rights, we’d have to wrest it from them by force,” she declared.

“More than 40,000 women have been engaged in the agitation,” Joginder Singh, head of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), informed Gaon Connection.

These women farmers are on the streets fighting for their rights and questioning the government’s motive. They form a significant part of the protest, shoulder to shoulder with their men. Much more than mere spectators or cooks for the men, they are protestors who are well aware of the issues that have made them leave home and come all the way to Delhi.

It has not been easy, particularly for women. They have had to face the problem of lack of washrooms for bathing and defecating. They cannot do so in the open and they are struggling. 

“We have to find a secluded place for open defecation. There is no bathing facility around us. Many of us have not changed our clothes for a week,” Jaswant Kaur, a 75-year-old woman farmer told Gaon Connection. 

Although the protestors are equipped with ration to last them six months, clean toilets are not as easy to arrange. On their journey from Punjab to Delhi, women used washrooms at petrol pumps or requested local people to let them use their toilets.  

“I go to a nearby mall to use the bathroom. So far, they have not disallowed us. Some other women sit in a truck and go looking for secluded places to defecate in,” said another woman farmer. Many of them are accompanied by young children whom they need to care for, and they also have to cook till late at night, for the thousands of farmers agitating at the borders of Delhi. But inconveniences notwithstanding, these women say they will not return to the comfort of their homes till the government repeals the three agricultural laws. Whether it is protesting vociferously alongside their men, looking after their children and elderly family members are well looked after in the harsh Delhi winters, or making thousands of chappatis, the women say they are there to stay.   

“Women are reaching Delhi in batches,” Jasmeet Kaur from Mansa district of Punjab, told Gaon Connection.  “Those who are here will return home for a while and others from the village will replace them at the protest,” she explained. A lot  of the women are back home holding fort while the menfolk fight the battle here in Delhi, she explained.

“Everyone is helping us. Even on our way to Delhi from Punjab, complete strangers have allowed us to use the toilets in their homes. We have not been refused help anywhere,” said Jaspreet Singh one of the protestors.  We are jats and jats are jugadi,” he laughed out loud.

Read the story in Hindi.