The Last Stand
Updated: Jun 2, 2021
“Instead of dying of suffocation in our homes, we prefer to die by government ordered bullets.” The protesting farmers express an unalterable fact of human existence that tyrants have always ignored to their peril—people prefer dying on their feet to living on their knees. This understanding alone links all resistance movements, past and present, against murderous regimes which refuse to understand that the threat of murder and the realities of everyday oppression will never discourage or demoralize those who are fighting for their freedom. For a life without the freedom to choose one’s destiny is no life at all.
Those saying the farmers will be economically better off under the new farm laws miss the point entirely. Humans require much more to make their lives meaningful than the things money can buy. Money is good to have but it is never enough. This is why the farmers have braved the cold of Delhi and are ready to brave the upcoming heat too. This is a protest to retain the ability to protest in the future. This is a protest to retain the freedoms won by their ancestors. This is a protest to turn away those corporations which want to enslave them and their children. This is a fight for the future—not only their own but also of the generations to come. This is a fight to preserve honour against encroaching shamelessness. This fight will last as long as it has to. The farmers are not going back defeated. They will either go back in body bags or they will return home victors.
Team: Akshat Jain, Kai D., Vibhuti K., Karan Kamble & Saurabh
NO GOVERNMENT DOES ANYTHING FOR THE FARMERS
Umaid Singh, regional head of Bhartiya Kisan Union from Amroha district in Western UP, speaks against the privatization of agriculture and in support of a government-guaranteed minimum support price for farm produce. The farmers do no ask for the world, but merely for justice, a guarantee from the nation for which they produce food that they will be taken care of in bad times and will be able to prosper in good times. How does the government respond? By erecting barricades and digging trenches reminiscent of a war, as if the farmers are not their own people merely asking to be represented faithfully but enemies against whom the capital city must be protected. Does the government really think it can contain the farmers with barricades and water cannons? By its sheer obstinacy, the government is converting a simple demand made by the masses into a civil war that will ultimately destroy the government itself. As Dinkar says, when it is time for destruction, the first thing to die is discretion.
Link to Dinkar’s poem – http://kavitakosh.org/kk/कृष्ण_की_चेत…”दिनकर”
Team: Akshat Jain, Karan Kamble & Saurabh