Kanika Gupta

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_01-_MG_2060-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

medium_01-_MG_2060-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

small_01-_MG_2060-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

thumbnail_01-_MG_2060-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

01-_MG_2060-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

It’s been more than a month since a tear gas shell wounded Sardar Santokh Singh in skirmishes between farmers and security forces at Singhu, on the Haryana-Delhi border.But the 70-year-old is still at Singhu, protesting against the new farm laws. &quot;We were sitting there peacefully and suddenly we heard firing,” he says of November 27, the day the shell hit him below his left eye. The day before, 17 people had left from Gharka, his village in Tarn Taran district of Punjab, and reached the Delhi border the next morning. “When we arrived, there were around 50,000-60,000 people gathered here. I went and sat with the other protestors, listening to a speech,” recalls Santokh Singh Around 11 a.m., scuffles and chaos broke out, and in a while the water cannons and tear gas shells began raining down. “The youngsters in front of me got up, jumped over me, and ran to the other side. I got up and stabilised myself,” says Santokh Singh. “I yelled at the security forces: ‘Why are you provoking us? We were sitting here peacefully’. They replied, angrily: ‘We have to do this to chase away the crowd’. Just then the kid in front of me ducked when he saw an oncoming shell, and it hit me instead. But I didn’t move at all.” Sardar Santokh Singh, who has spent a lifetime cultivating paddy and wheat in his village in Punjab’s Chola Sahib tehsil, adds, “I didn’t even realise that I had been injured until a crowd gathered around me. People told me that I was bleeding heavily and offered to take me to the hospital. But I refused and called back the protestors who ran. Don’t run away, I said. Keep moving forward. We have not come this far to go back. I wanted to ask the government forces why they attacked us. I dared them to come down and fight me. Their bullets won&#39;t scare us.”After the shell hit him, Singh endured eight stitches and a blood clot in his left eye. “Youngsters from my village took me to a hospital near the protest ground. That hospital refused to let us in and closed their door on us. It was complete chaos. Luckily, there was an ambulance on standby that had come from Punjab. They came rushing towards us and helped with the stitches and medicines. They were also treating other injured people hit by tear gas.”

02-IMG_3071-KG-People_told_me_that_I_was_bleeding_heavily.jpg

Santokh Singh recounts that day with a smile on his lips and dash of honour in his voice. “This injury is nothing compared to what we endure on the fields. Deep wounds are common at the time of harvesting. I am a farmer, I am used to blood. Do they think their shells will make us run away?”  It’s been over a month since this incident, and Singh and the other protesters are still at the border, still determined as one round after another of talks with the government has failed. The laws the farmers are protesting against are the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/library/resource/the-farmers-empowerment-and-protection-agreement-on-price-assurance-and-farm-services-act-2020/">Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020</a>; the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/library/resource/the-farmers-produce-trade-and-commerce-promotion-and-facilitation-act-2020/">Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act</a>, 2020; and the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/library/resource/the-essential-commodities-amendment-act-2020/">Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020</a>. The laws have also been criticised as affecting every Indian as they <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/and-you-thought-its-only-about-farmers/">disable the right to legal recourse</a> of all citizens, undermining Article 32 of the Constitution of India.  The laws were first passed as ordinances on June 5, 2020, then introduced as farm bills in Parliament on September 14 and rushed through as Acts on the 20th of that month. The farmers see these laws as devastating to their livelihoods by expanding the space for large corporates to exercise even greater power over farmers and farming. They also undermine the main forms of support to the cultivator, including the minimum support price (MSP), the agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs), state procurement and more.“The government’s plan is to make us sit for long so that we get tired and go back on our own. But they are wrong in thinking that. We didn’t come here to go back. I have said this before and say it again: we have no problem in sitting here. We have tractors and trolleys full of rations. Our Sikh brothers are providing us with everything we need. We will not go back until they give us our rights. Our fight is to get these laws repealed. Not doing so will ruin us and our generations to come. We have to do it for them and their future. We will only leave when we get our rights, not before that.”

‘People told me that I was bleeding heavily…’

‘लोकांनी सांगितलं की जखमेतून रक्त भळभळतंय...’

মানুহে কৈছিল মই তেজে তুমৰলি হৈ পৰিছিলো...

‘সবাই বলল আমার প্রচুর রক্তপাত হচ্ছে ...’

‘எனக்கு இரத்தம் அதிகமாக கொட்டுவதாக சொன்னார்கள்…’

'ನನಗೆ ಬಹಳ ರಕ್ತ ಸುರಿದು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದೆಯೆಂದು ಜನರು ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು ...'

‘രക്തം വാര്‍ന്നൊഴുകുന്നു: എന്നോടാളുകള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു...’

‘ମୋ ଶରୀରରୁ ଖୁବ୍ ଜୋରରେ ରକ୍ତ ବାହାରୁଥିବା ଲୋକମାନେ ମୋତେ କହିଲେ…’

'ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੇ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਦੱਸਿਆ ਕਿ ਮੇਰੇ ਬਹੁਤ ਜ਼ਿਆਦਾ ਲਹੂ ਵਗ ਰਿਹਾ ਸੀ...'

‘मेरा ख़ून काफ़ी बह रहा है, यह मुझे लोगों ने बताया...’

’میرا خون کافی بہہ رہا ہے، یہ مجھے لوگوں نے بتایا...‘

Sonipat

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

‘People told me that I was bleeding heavily…’

The day he arrived at Singhu from his village in Punjab, on November 27, 70-year-old Sardar Santokh Singh was hit by a tear gas shell – despite the injury, he remains steadfast at the protest site

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit