History shows Punjab has always taken on tyrants. Modi is no different.

Oponion by Rupi Kaur | WASHINGTON TIMES |

My people laugh at tyrants.

Punjabis today say, “When Alexander the Great attempted to invade, Punjab sent him packing. What’s a Modi to an Alexander the Great?”

For Sikhs, dissent against oppression is nothing new. We resisted the Mughals for 300 years. We birthed a global resistance against colonial British rule, including one that stretched from the fields of Northern California to the villages of Punjab, called the Ghadar Movement. My parents’ generation survived the 1984 Sikh genocide and the decade of state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings that followed.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi now joins the long historical list of tyrants Punjab has taken on.

In September, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hastily passed three farm bills, with the stated intent of liberalizing the country’s agrarian sector. Farmers see these bills as a ploy to hand over the sector to Modi’s billionaire supporters, such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. On Nov. 25, tens of thousands of Punjabi farmers and farmworkers began marching towards the country’s capital, New Delhi. As they peacefully crossed into neighboring Haryana, they were met with tear gas, water cannons, police batons and road barriers. Now, as winter sets in, not even a bitter, bone-chewing cold has stopped a million protesters from planting their feet at Delhi’s borders.

My aunt, like most members of my family in Punjab, is a small-scale farmer. More than half of India’s workforce is in farming, with 85 percent of farmers owning less than five acres. “They can try to take everything we have, they’ve tried before,” my aunt told us over the phone weeks ago; She had just returned from a protest in her village, “But our spirit will never extinguish.”

Punjab’s tradition of resilient defiance is on full display, and it is a sight to behold.

Protesters have traveled hundreds of miles by bicycle and tractor, many saying they’re prepared to stay for at least six months if they have to. The resistance is intersectional; Mazdoors, landless farm laborers, and members of the Dalit community who have long faced systemic caste-based discrimination are present. Women are leading the way. Farmers from neighboring states such as Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have joined. Protesters from ages 7 to 90 rise from their makeshift beds as the morning cold continues to bite; some protesters are dying of the cold. Those marching are singing spiritual kirtan. Menstrual products are being freely distributed, and efforts to feed the poor in surrounding areas are currently underway.People gather to cut vegetables for langar (the Sikh practice of making and serving free meals). The community has set up blood donation clinics, gyms and book distributions. Through music and poetic verse, protesters call out the Modi government and India’s corporate billionaires.

This protest is beginning to look more and more like a revolution.

[Rupi Kaur is a poet and the author of “home body.” She lives in Toronto. Read the full article (Washington Times, 16 Dec 2020), here]