I wrote this late last night
Maybe I’m getting too emotional but I can say that everyone we meet here is feeling this way. I’ve never met so many beautiful souls together at one place. Sometimes, it seems like I’m in a dream. I had planned to come for a week but it’s my 14th day here, 21 days of shooting and I’m finding it difficult to tear myself away. There’s always a surprise waiting at the next trolley.
Day 43 Farmers Protests
If you are depressed, dismayed and have lost all hope then join the farmers’ protests. At this point, it’s not about whether or when the farm laws will be repealed, it’s about how they will be repealed. It’s about what we’ll tell our children when they ask where were you when farmers were protesting.
Sprawling for more than 50 kilometres outside 3 Delhi borders, the farmers’ trolleyhomes are now home to approx 300,000 people from Punjab Haryana, UP and Rajasthan.
Not everyone is a farmer here. There are people from all walks of life including students, doctors, filmmakers, photographers and influencers. There’s no shortage of food or items of daily necessities. They appear as soon as the need arises.
The protest camps are slowly becoming a home for all those who are against the government’s anti-people policies. It’s not about farm laws alone and the decision of the government on this issue is a matter of formality. The moral battle was won long ago.
It’s no longer just a protest, it’s a revolution in progress. It’s peaceful, inspirational and transformative. There’s a poet or a budding poet in every other trolley. Nearly everyone is a sardar (leader) or becoming one.
This is a free workshop in leadership, organisation and management. There’s no dearth of what you can do, how you can volunteer. It’s really up to you and your imagination. This is a miracle created and managed by people and it embraces human precariousness.
Every home offers you graciousness which comes in the form of food, stories, songs, poetry and hope. Paash and Bhagat Singh are thriving here. Everyone is welcome here except politicians, paid media and profiteers. Your intentions will be sussed out and why not?
So, if you are not too deadened by your comfortable lives, have not lost your capability to dream, and if you can withstand the elements — dust, dirt, germs, cold, sludge, smoke, traffic, noise, and can ignore your bourgeois concerns of appearances and packaging, then do make your way to this Mecca of protests and take along with you the spirit of this place and plant it elsewhere.
Nishtha Jain is a documentary filmmaker. She posted the above piece on Facebook on Saturday. It has been reproduced here with her permission
