Jagjit Singh Dallewal: Crusader of farmers’ rights

The year 2024 saw farmer and farm labourer groups from Punjab resuming their protests highlighting the agrarian distress and asking the Union government to enact a law for guaranteed buying of their crops at the minimum support price (MSP).

Under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM), protesters have been camping at Shambhu-Ambala and Khanauri-Jind, the inter-State boundaries between Haryana and Punjab from February 13, 2024. Their mission: start a ‘march’ to New Delhi to press the government on their demands, including a complete farm loan waiver and legal guarantees for purchasing their crops.

Elaborate security arrangements were set in place by the BJP-ruled Haryana government, and the ‘farmers march’ has been at a halt for close to 11 months. With the farmers not willing to relent, on November 26, 2024, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, a veteran leader, started an indefinite hunger strike in support of their demands, at the Khanauri protest site in Punjab’s Sangrur district.

As Mr. Dallewal’s fast-unto-death has completed 40 days, the 67-year-old is visibly frail, yet he is unwilling to back down unless the government meets the farmer community’s demands.

Born on October 4, 1958, in a farmer-family at Dallewala village in Punjab’s Faridkot district, Mr. Dallewal completed his primary education in nearby Golewala and later pursued a Bachelor in Arts at the Government Brijindra college in Faridkot. He has a Master’s degree in political science. But his heart was in farming. After studies, Mr. Dallewal, who owned around 17 acres of farmland in his native village, opted to be a full-time agriculturist.

A vocal advocate for the rights of farmers, Mr. Dallewal started taking up the issues faced by the agricultural community in Punjab. His dedicated work surrounding not just farmers’ issues but also societal matters pertaining to the youth is seen as a key factor behind his swift rise as a farmer leader in the State. In 1989 when the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Sidhupur) was formed, Mr. Dallewal joined the outfit. Mr. Dallewal, who held various positions in the the BKU (Ekta Sidhupur), rose through the ranks to become the president of the organisation in 2017. ‘Sit-ins’ and ‘hunger strikes’ became a hallmark of Mr. Dallewal’s way of agitation over the years.

In recent years, he had held hunger strikes in March 2018, January 2019, January 2021, November 2022 and June 2023, all in support of farmers. However, the ongoing fast is his longest.

Open letter to PM

Ahead of launching his latest fast, Mr. Dallewal transferred his properties to his son, daughter-in-law and grandson, indicating his willingness to sacrifice his life for the cause of the farming community. In December, in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Dallewal equated the MSP for farmers to the fundamental right to live. Asserting that his death would possibly wake up the Union government from its deep slumber, he wrote: “To stop the deaths of farmers, I have decided to sacrifice my life…”

The ongoing protest has rekindled the memories of the year-long agitation during 2020-21 when scores of farmers camped at several places, including Singhu-Tikri, at Delhi’s boundaries, and chaos prevailed in the national capital and surrounding areas of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Back then, the farmers were demanding a repeal of three farm laws enacted by the Centre, which were eventually repealed.

The movement was spearheaded by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer outfits, in which Mr. Dallewal’s BKU (Ekta Sidhupur) was also a player. However, in 2022, when SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal formed the Samyukta Samaj Morcha (SSM) and decided to contest the Assembly election in Punjab, Mr. Dallewal, who was not in favour of jumping into politics, broke away and formed his new forum — the SKM (Non Political), which claims to be an amalgamation of around 28 organisations. The SKM (Non Political) is now at the forefront of the protests.