More than agri laws, treatment of protesters leading corporate, pvt sector workers to join agitating farmers
new delhi: While India has seen what protesting farmers have been going through in their agitation against the Centre's three agri laws and the world has just recently started to take notice - an event management executive, an investment banker, a financial consultant and a cruise line worker explain what provoked them to leave their lucrative occupations and pick up jobs such as cleaning shoes, sweeping roads, cooking langars and serving tea to the agitating agrarians
Hardeep Singh, who grew up in Haryana's Panipat, was an investment banker working in Canada. He had come to visit his parents when he noticed the farmers' protests at the Capital borders and decided to join the movement. "I was an investment banker for two years but I quit and decided to stay back to serve the farmers who are our grain provider," he said. Hardeep now volunteers to sweep roads at the Singhu border protest site.
Amrit Veer Singh worked a lucrative corporate job at a prominent multinational company in the Capital until he started "serving" protesting farmers. Amrit Veer now says he has been helping farmers in whatever capacity he can. "I have been cleaning people's shoes and slippers since the day I came here," he said.
While some of these formerly high-paid employees, who now help protesting farmers by offering whatever they can, staunchly believe that the agri laws at the Centre of the agitation are bad for the farmers, most others have said that their decision to help the movement was also heavily influenced by the way protesters were being treated by the authorities and the establishment and the government's reaction to the protests.
On the eve of December 31, Ajit Pal Singh decided that he would begin the 3rd decade of the century differently. He left his event management company in Chandigarh at the hands of his manager and came to the Singhu border site to help the farmers.
A 30-year-old Upender, who till recently worked in the hospitality section of a cruise liner in the United States of America said, "I did not feel like going back after seeing the protest and the suffering of the farmers. Even though I am not a farmer, I am willing to do anything in my capacity to help them. How can the government be so cruel-hearted," he questioned.
Till November last year, 40-year-old Jasminder earned his living by advising those with wealth on how to stay wealthy and multiply their resources to build secure financial futures for themselves.
Jasminder has been cooking for protesting farmers and helping out at community kitchens at the Singhu border site for two months now. "These days I cut vegetables and help in cooking. I used to cook on the weekends for my family at times but I have never cooked on such a large scale in my life. This is a different experience and even though I personally do not gain anything out of it, the feeling of being of service to the farmers of my state is enough for me," he said.
