Mumbai to Delhi, why farmers like Mathurabai keep marching

When Mathurabai Barade took autorickshaws, buses and a train for over 36 hours from Sangamner in Maharashtra to New Delhi, and then walked from the railway station to Ramlila grounds, and finally to Sansad Marg on November 30, she was nurturing a hardy hope for the second time.

Pointing to her feet, she showed her dusty chappals. “I got this from an unknown benefactor in Mumbai earlier this year,” she said in Marathi. In March, she had walked 200km barefoot with over 35,000 adivasis from Nashik to Mumbai, demanding titles to land they had cultivated for generations. When they reached Mumbai with tired, bleeding heels, a few middle-class Mumbaikars spontaneously distributed footwear. “A young lawyer came and spoke to me for half an hour — actually I spoke and he listened,” she said.

These gestures energised Mathurabai enough to last a year. Wearing the same chappals, she made another long journey, to spend the night under a torn blanket in an open ground in Delhi and raise her voice loud in song while marching with her bag on her head. The state and central governments had vowed to implement their land rights as adivasi farmers within six months. “That was on March 12. Nothing has happened,” she said. “So I am out again. This time, more have come, look.”


Around her, there were thousands of farmers from across the country. Around 200 farmers’ unions organised under the umbrella of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, but each district had been mobilising on its own since August.

Their concerns were as local as their dialects. Men from Telangana explained how their wives’ suicides due to indebtedness were never counted as farmer suicides. Women farm labourers from Gaya, Bihar, said they were always paid wages in grain and not in cash. Villagers from Mathura, UP, wanted back the 100 acres a politician had seized. Coconut farmers from Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, wanted relief for the crop losses caused by Cyclone Gaja. Hari Devi from Kullu in Himachal wanted to revive polluted mountain streams. Tukubhai from Puri, Odisha, believed that aged farmers should get pensions.

Almost as if they knew the urban mind could boggle and shut down under the sheer array of issues, the farmers had prioritised their concerns. “All our problems are rooted in some core issues: indebtedness, water crisis and bad income,” said rice cultivator Jayaprakash from Kerala. They wanted a 21-day special session of Parliament to discuss the agricultural crisis. They wanted two laws passed, on farm loans and good prices for crops. They wanted dedicated debates on women’s entitlements and landless workers.
Between the turbans, saris, flags and dhotis, were also jeans-and-boots clad Delhiites. A few came with blankets, samosas, medicines, or water. Others came with their curiosity. Some people’s urbanity was visible not only in their dress, but also in their initial struggle to sit on the road; there was a lot of fervent dusting of jeans. But in a few hours, many of them folded their legs on newspapers or thin mats and sat down to have conversations. It is not every day that one gets to listen to six farmers from Patiala breaking down how minimum support prices are calculated, and how costs have escalated farm debt.

Amit, a 21-year old UPSC aspirant came from Old Rajinder Nagar, and found over 2,000 farmers from his home state, Karnataka. He enthusiastically heard the young organic farmers from Chikbalapur trying set up a direct-to-consumer channel to avoid corrupt middlemen. He then ventured to the corner where landless farm workers from UP sat. “The women get paid only Rs 50 per day! For 10 hours of work!”
As a photographer with a man-bun crouched to photograph the fabulously attired Bhil adivasis from Maharashtra, one of them asked him how much his camera cost. The photographer blushed, unable to utter the six-digit figure. “Where is your village?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “The one submerged by the dam, or the one we live in now?” one of the Bhil boys asked. They exchanged numbers, and hoped to meet again.

Aban Raza, a visual artist, is a volunteer with the Nation for Farmers, a solidarity group of middle-class professionals from across India, formed after the Mumbai rally. “We artists have forgotten that farmer struggles are relevant today more than ever,” she said. “Artists can create visibility. But first, we have to get out and meet people.”

Even in deep crisis, when the farmers met each other, they found strength and common cause. For anyone from Delhi who came to the rally, it might have been a chance to see through the haze of relentless political brawling. Perhaps next time, more of us will be there, for our own sake.