Jagjit Singh Dallewal is ready to die for the cause. This Thursday, January 9, the 68-year-old man entered his 45th day of hunger strike. By rejecting calls from the Narendra Modi government to end his demonstration, he gradually became the symbol of the farmers’ protest movement in India.
In recent days, the health of this man, who also suffers from prostate cancer, has deteriorated. This Saturday, January 4, he lost consciousness during a speech he was giving to other farmers during a demonstration. Doctors have since advised him to enter an intensive care unit. Which he didn’t do. On the contrary, far from showing his desire to escape alive, the activist has already bequeathed his property to his family.
Abhimanyu Kohar, a young farmer who stands beside him, says: “His condition is extremely critical and serious. Doctors requested his transfer to the hospital, but he refused medical help saying that agricultural reforms are more important than his body and his life.”
These reforms, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is also one of the leaders of a coalition of more than forty farmers’ unions (Sanyukt Kisan Morcha), requested them on several occasions from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Among them, the abandonment of loan debts taken out by farmers, compensation for the families of farmers who committed suicide and a law guaranteeing a minimum purchase price for the various provisions harvested.
Years of fighting against agricultural insecurity
In a movement similar to the one that blocked New Delhi for a year in 2021, Indian farmers protested again in February 2024. There were then tens of thousands of them advancing towards the capital to reject a first budgetary offer from the government made to them, deemed “not in the interest of farmers”. They also demanded a doubling of their salary which had been promised to them. in 2016.
According to farm leaders, the government never kept its word. The unions then launched a new social movement which has existed since the end of 2024.
This situation somewhat echoes that which we are currently observing in France. Some demands are similar, the French agricultural unions demanding better remuneration and the same operating mode – joint actions which are frequently renewed, during which farmers converge towards Paristhreatening a blockade of the capital.
Source: www.slate.fr
