Punjab Kisan Protests: Legacy of Heroic Non-Violent Struggle, 1907–47

As I speak, the kisans of Punjab, as well as of other parts of India, are engaged in what they see as a life and death struggle with the Government of India. For them, it is a struggle not only for MSP (minimum support price) or mandis, but to save their very identity as kisans. What they anticipate, and fear, is the loss of a whole way of life, of their world, which is inextricably tied up with their land and the labour they and their forefathers have put into it. The ‘rosy’ prospect offered to them by government of becoming contract farmers of big private companies on their own land, taking orders about what to grow, how to grow, which fertilisers and which insecticides to use, and selling to them at dictated prices, does not allure them.