This is what Bachittar Kaur and other women from her village in the north Indian state of Punjab said they felt when they first started protesting.
He was among thousands of farmers who demonstrated at the borders of the capital Delhi against the agricultural reforms passed by the government in 2020. The protesters stood on the city’s edge for more than a year and remained there in the face of all odds: Summer, bitter winter and even the second deadly wave of covid.
“I had told my friends and relatives that I would die protesting but won’t let these farm laws be implemented,” Ms Kaur says.
A retired school teacher says it wasn’t easy to leave her comfortable home and live on the streets in a tractor-trolley. “But we had no choice – these farm laws were death warrants for us.”
For months, the government insisted the laws were good for farmers and that there was no question of withdrawing them – several rounds of talks between officials and agriculture leaders failed to end the impasse. Many farmers died and were arrested because of the government’s ban on demonstrations.
But the tide turned on November 19 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced repeal of the laws in a historic U-turn. A bill was officially passed in Parliament on November 30.
The farmers did not give up immediately – they said they would continue the protest until the government agreed to their other demands, including guaranteed prices for key crops.
A few days later, the government accepted this as well, ending the year-long protests. Ms Kaur remembers it as an “extraordinary” moment in her life.
But even seven months after the farmers returned home, the government has not fulfilled their demands.
Farmer leaders have now called a meeting on July 3 to decide the further course of action. The conference will be held in Ghaziabad near Delhi and will be attended by prominent agriculture leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, who led the protests.
The protests began in November 2020, when hundreds of farmers marched to Delhi after the government introduced three laws that loosened rules for the sale, price fixation and storage of agricultural produce, which have given them free markets for decades. kept safe from
One of the biggest concerns of the protesters was that the new laws would allow farmers to sell their produce directly at market price to private players, agribusinesses, supermarket chains and online grocers. Most Indian farmers sell their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis at assured minimum prices (also known as minimum support prices or MSPs).
The government argued that the laws would make farming more profitable, but farmers disagreed. He said the rules would leave him at the mercy of the big corporations who would decide the prices.
When the government finally announced that it would withdraw the laws, it promised to form a committee, including representatives from federal and state governments, agricultural scientists, and farmer groups, to look into the matter for MSP.
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar had said in the Lok Sabha two months ago that the government was setting up a panel.
But federal government sources told the BBC that this did not happen. He said the government had asked agriculture leaders to name their members for the panel, but the farmers refused, adding that the government’s “intention is unclear”.