“When I return for Lohri, we will all celebrate together,” Resham Singh, 53, had promised his mother, Manjeet Kaur, before leaving for Shambhu border, where farmers have been protesting for a year. The celebration never happened. Instead, the news of her son’s death reached her a week later. Singh left home from his village in Pahu Wind, Tarn Taran district, Punjab, on January 3. He broke his promise on January 9, when he consumed ‘Sulphas’—a cheap pesticide—at the border and took his life. He could not bear the distress his fellow farmers were going through.
Singh is one of the three farmers who have died by suicide since the protests began last year at Khanauri and Shambhu, where farmers were violently stopped by Haryana Police. Despite being a prosperous agrarian state, Punjab has seen a rise in farmer suicides. A Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) study recorded 9,291 farmer suicides across six districts between 2000 and 2018. 88 per cent of these cases were linked to farm debts.
Gurmeet Singh, 53, a landless farmer from Punjab’s Mansa district, joined the protests on February 13, 2024, when Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal gave the 'Delhi Chalo' call. He worked as an electrician at the Khanauri border protest site. “My husband was passionate about Dallewal and his cause. He loved the jatthabandi (protest) more than he loved me, so he worked for free,” says his wife, Paramjeet Kaur.
On September 25, she received a call about Singh’s death. Struggling with mounting debt and unable to pay his electricity bill, Singh hung himself from the roof of the trailer attached to his tractor, which he used as a makeshift tent.
Reporter: Apeksha Priyadarshini and Rakhi Bose
Camera: Suresh Pandey and Vikram Sharma
Editor: Ehraz Zaman
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Singh is one of the three farmers who have died by suicide since the protests began last year at Khanauri and Shambhu, where farmers were violently stopped by Haryana Police. Despite being a prosperous agrarian state, Punjab has seen a rise in farmer suicides. A Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) study recorded 9,291 farmer suicides across six districts between 2000 and 2018. 88 per cent of these cases were linked to farm debts.
Gurmeet Singh, 53, a landless farmer from Punjab’s Mansa district, joined the protests on February 13, 2024, when Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal gave the 'Delhi Chalo' call. He worked as an electrician at the Khanauri border protest site. “My husband was passionate about Dallewal and his cause. He loved the jatthabandi (protest) more than he loved me, so he worked for free,” says his wife, Paramjeet Kaur.
On September 25, she received a call about Singh’s death. Struggling with mounting debt and unable to pay his electricity bill, Singh hung himself from the roof of the trailer attached to his tractor, which he used as a makeshift tent.
Reporter: Apeksha Priyadarshini and Rakhi Bose
Camera: Suresh Pandey and Vikram Sharma
Editor: Ehraz Zaman
Follow us:
Website: https://www.outlookindia.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Outlookindia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outlookindia/
X: https://twitter.com/Outlookindia
Whatsapp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaNrF3v0AgWLA6OnJH0R
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@OutlookMagazine
Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/outlookindia
#FarmersProtest #PunjabFarmers #AgrarianCrisis #FarmerSuicides #DebtCrisis #MSPDemand #KhanauriBorder #ShambhuBorder #FarmersRights #ProtestStories #AgrarianDistress #SamyuktaKisanMorcha
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NewsTranscript
00:00What kind of medicine do you take?
00:04I take medicines from the government.
00:08What?
00:09I take medicines from the government.
00:11From the government?
00:12Yes.
00:13Okay.
00:31When I woke up on the 9th morning,
00:35I got a call at 10 o'clock in the morning.
00:39I told him that I was on duty and asked him to come home.
00:44He told me that my father had died.
00:47I didn't talk much because I was not in a condition to talk.
00:51My uncle told me that he had gone to the Shambhu border on the 30th.
00:57On the 30th, he told me that Jagjit Singh Dalewal was sitting on the border.
01:06He was very emotional about what was happening there.
01:12That's why he took this step.
01:27I am Resham Singh.
01:35I am from the district of Talwadad.
01:40I am a member of the Farmer's Workers' Union.
01:43I believe that the Modi government and the Binyal government need to be awakened.
01:48That's why I try to sacrifice my life first.
01:54I will not leave this committee for as long as I live.
01:59I couldn't bear to see Mr. Dalewal's death.
02:03My uncle is very sad.
02:06Mr. Dalewal has a salute from himself.
02:11Resham Singh.
02:13Whenever he used to talk, he used to say that the farmers of Inderjeet are in a very bad condition.
02:21It would be great if all the laws are abolished here.
02:27For us, the farmers.
02:29When we went there, I asked him why he did this.
02:32He said that he was saddened by the government.
02:34Because he was sitting on the roads for a long time.
02:37The children are sitting, the women are sitting, the mothers are sitting, the elders are sitting.
02:40Mr. Dalewal is sitting on his deathbed.
02:42The government is listening to him.
02:44The government is saddened by this.
02:45Meera and Kishan have nothing to say.
02:47Only the government is saddened by this.
02:48The work done by Sardar Resham Singh,
02:51it is a very important matter.
02:53We don't want to talk about it.
02:55But the wrong policies of the government,
02:58one, the farmers, the workers are committing suicide.
03:01And those who are going to be cut off,
03:04are increasing their earnings day by day.
03:18The farmers are being cut off from their livelihood.
03:26When I went to Jathebandi,
03:28my brother, Stambar, Peepli,
03:32she was not at home.
03:34She was not at home there,
03:36so I was saddened.
03:38Mr. Dalewal was saying the same thing,
03:41that we should not sell our land in Jathebandi.
03:44Because they had already planted it there.
03:47They said that the land was not going to be sold.
03:49It was going to be cut off at night.
03:50It was going to be planted in the morning.
03:52They had to do the electricity fittings there.
03:55They had to do the electricity.
03:57If there was a power outage,
03:59they had to do it.
04:00They had to do the milk service.
04:02They didn't love us as much as they loved Jathebandi.
04:06After Peepli, on 22nd September,
04:10they were saddened.
04:11They said, why aren't we getting Mangapuris there?
04:14They called us and told us about this.
04:17They said, we are Peepli's leaders,
04:21we are not getting anything there.
04:26After that, on 25th September, she died.
04:44The incident of Sudha Resham Singh,
04:49we cannot bring her back.
04:54We also feel that when a friend dies,
04:57what will happen to the family?
04:59But we are not going to let her die.
05:02We will not let her die.
05:04We will not let her die.
05:06We will not let her die.
05:08We will not let her die.
05:10We will not let her die.
05:13But, as a family, as Jathebandi,
05:18we will stand by Resham Singh's family 24 hours a day.
05:24And wherever this family needs us,
05:27we are ready to do anything for this family.
05:33The government is responsible.
05:35You know that when a person dies,
05:39she can't even speak properly.
05:45She has diabetes.
05:47She has depression.
05:49She says that the government is responsible.
05:52The government says that we will do a lot for the farmers.
05:56But the farmers die.
05:58We can't ask them.
05:59How can we ask them?
06:01The government should give Rs. 25 lakhs to that family.
06:04And the government and the non-government should forgive them.
06:08And one person should be given a government job.
06:11We have asked this government to do a lot for us.
06:16We are with this family.
06:18We don't have to work all day.
06:20We don't have to go out anywhere.
06:22We are ready to do anything.
06:24Because the family that is with us, we are with the family.
06:27We will always be with the family.
06:29We will always be with the family.
06:31We will get rid of this government.
06:38For more information, visit www.fema.gov.uk