Editor’s note:
This song (and video) are a brilliant Punjabi adaptation of the long-famous Italian folk protest song Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful ) that originated among women peasants in the Po valley of northern Italy in the late 19th century. Much later, members of the Italian anti-fascist resistance would change the lyrics and adapt the song to their struggles against Mussolini’s dictatorship. Versions of it have since continued to be sung worldwide as an anti-fascist hymn of freedom and resistance.
This rendition in Punjabi is written and wonderfully sung by Poojan Sahil. The video has been superbly shot, edited and produced by the media team at Karwan e Mohabbat , a campaign led by Harsh Mander, and devoted to the universal values of the Constitution of India, of solidarity, equality, freedom and justice.
Over recent weeks, sustained and widespread protest in Delhi-Haryana, Punjab, and other parts of the country have continued against the three new farm laws rammed though Parliament in September by the central government – though agriculture is a state subject – which severely disadvantage farmers. The video and song featured below demand, as do the protests, the repeal of those laws:
