Dear Friends,
A few days back Sharanya Deepak interviewed me on the farmers protests. Please read her piece that mentions PANJAB, my quotes and much more in this prominent Left-wing American journal. This is an in-depth piece on the protests – explaining the Laws and the resistance, weaving in a plethora of voices.
Let the voice of farmers reach all corners of the world. See more here …
Thank you Sharanya.
Sayantan Bera from Mint looks up the faces who are negotiating with the government in the farmers protests. he mentions PANJAB and quotes me as well.
“Unless you get the cow-belt to protest, the goals of the movement could prove to be elusive,” said Sandhu.
Do see more here … Faces of Protests_Mint_07012021
Tags: Chaduni, Darshanpal, Kuruganti, Rajewal, Tikait, Ugrahan, Yadav
Facebook January 7, 2021
Day 43
Dhuni
Water and fire are both cleansing elements – embodiment of energies. Water’s property is having cleaned, it carries all the dirt in it and itself needs to be cleaned for use later. Fire, on the other hand, burns all and is always pristine clean.
The Fire practice is ancient, it is about survival, it predates organised religion. One of the earliest signs of civilization: in jungles when hunter gatherers used it to prevent attack from wild life, to cook food, to keep warm in the open. In the sub-continent, the Dhuni, the Havan, the Homa – whatever you may call a burning fire – has been part of Vedic religions and later Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism.
While Havan and Homa are for particular religious events – oblations; Dhuni is an unbroken tradition of fire to honour Shakti – the primordial cosmic energy. In that sense, kisani, farming, too pre-dates religion, is about civilisation.
This Dhuni under the Ghazipur Flyover started on November 27th when farmers from west UP just arrived to protest the Farm Laws. It remains a constant fire, embers in day hours, flames in night.
Veteran farmer leader Ranbir Singh, extreme left says, ‘This dhuni will continue until we are here, until the government repeals the Laws’.
Ranbir ji knows, he was in Delhi with Baba Mahendra Singh Tikait in 1988. ‘Even that time the Rajiv sarkar had to concede to our demands. What is this government? See the Tractor March on Thursday, then see it on January 26, you will know.’
Tags: Dhuni, Fire, Ghazipur Flyover, Havan, Homa, western Uttar Pradesh
Dear Friends,
it is always a pleasure when a book of its times is read in the current times and is found relevant. Sukhjit Singh reads PANJAB: Journeys Through Fault Lines in the context of the farmers protests.
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From the first words, ‘Je ho ji tu samjhe mahiya, Oho ji main hain nahin’ ‘What you know of me, my dear, I am not that’, as the epigram to the last words 553 pages later, ‘However, like all communities painted into a corner, Panjab is a lot about not accepting how anyone understands it,’ Amandeep Sandhu’s ‘PANJAB – Journeys Through Fault Lines’ is an attempt, not the first, nor hopefully the last, but a sincere, detailed, timely and a significant one, at understanding the enigma that is Panjab. …
Should Sandhu have undertaken his journeys and made this call of his Panjab much earlier? Because it appears that Panjab has heard him. It has risen.
The fault lines are being challenged.
For more see here …
Facebook 31/12/2020
Dear Friends,
I am sure over the years you would have noticed my posts have been political, they call out wrongs by government or political parties, but they never promote any political party. This is because for a very long time now I have believed political parties in India, whatever be their compulsions, do not represent the general will of people in the country.
I know most of us look at our society in terms of political parties but I feel that is because we are accustomed to the ritual of electoral democracy, not because any political party actually serves anything more than their own needs. I confess, I do not know what is the solution, but I find my own time best fulfilled if I spend it listening to people instead of politicians.
That is why this post is an exception.
Yesterday, my MLA Sowmya Reddy from Bengaluru joined me at the #FarmersProtest at Singhu border. It was clear between us that she is coming like an ordinary citizen, coming to experience how farmers have mounted and are sustaining the biggest uprising against the Hindutva government propaganda machinery.
Sowmya was quite moved upon looking at the trolleys, the people, the food and medical stalls, the posters, she remarked: ‘I thought people in a protest would be angry, edgy. This is a Mela – a fair!’
I said, ‘assan nachh ke yaar manavange’ – we shall dance our way to repealing the Black Laws.
‘I swear, the whole of India should see this, the whole of India must rise,’ she said as she delayed her flight, spent more than three hours, partook langar, enjoyed herself and was intensely moved. ‘I have never seen something like this in my life!’
Last night, the defence minister’s statement, the government agreeing that Electricity and Pollution Ordinances will be scrapped, shows us we are all standing on the correct side of time.
We will succeed!
Tags: Jayanagar South, Sowmya Reddy