Sukhcharan Singh grows nuts in Yuba, California, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. Like many Sikh farmers in this small Central Valley town, Singh’s thoughts are occupied with the ongoing protests in India.
“I am losing sleep because of this. When I was there, it was a poor country, yes, but it was a good country, ”said Singh, 68, flipping through the notes he took on the latest news from India. “Last night I finally slept at 11.30.”
Since the end of November, hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, have been protesting on the outskirts of Delhi, making the nation’s capital inaccessible for miles. They demand that the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, repeal three laws hastily approved by parliament – “turned down the neck of the people”, as Singh says – in September that farmers fear they will remove regulations, leaving earnings and livelihoods vulnerable to private investors.
“He’s very unhappy,” Singh said, looking down beyond the tip of his long white beard. “On the one hand I feel happy to be here, on the other hand I feel guilty that I am not there.”
The connections between there and here are obvious. Outside India, the city of Yuba is home to one of the largest groups of farmers in Punjab, the birthplace of Sikhism. About half of the 500,000 Sikhs in the United States live in California, with the largest concentration living in the city of Yuba. Nicknamed “Mini Punjab”, the city elected the first Sikh mayor of the US in 2009 and the first female Sikh mayor of the country in 2017. In the first week of November, the city hosts an annual festival honoring the birthday of the first Sikh prophet, attracting over 100,000 people.
No wonder, then, that the largest rally outside India in support of farmers’ protests took place not far from here. On December 5, people in Yuba and other Central Valley towns, including Fremont, Fresno, Stockton and Manteca, beat drums, shouted over megaphones and waved flags that read “No farms, no food.” Thousands of large platforms, cars and trucks left Oakland and roared for hours on Bay Bridge before reaching the Indian consulate in San Francisco. Other big rallies took place in Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Texas and Michigan that week; During December and January, demonstrations of solidarity and caravans of various sizes took place in at least 16 US states.
Naindeep Singh, 34, executive director of the Jakara movement, a youth-oriented non-profit organization that advocates for the Sikh community, led the protest. “I am just inspired. I see elderly people, members of my family, sleeping in the cold and I’ve been there for months. I feel a deep will to support the efforts in any way I can, “he said.
Community members also raised funds to support billboards, drawing attention to India’s protests across the Central Valley, where Punjabi is the third language spoken, after English and Spanish. And there are other plans to advertise on the sides of 500 large platforms.
“I went to the San Francisco rally in December to show my support for my brothers there,” said Kulwant Johl, 70, a Sikh farmer in Yuba who rents out his farmland in Punjab. . “Farmers [in India] I say they don’t need money, so at the moment it’s just moral support and let’s talk to the local politicians here and see if they can help ”.
He is constantly watching Indian news about protests on satellite and social media, like many of his neighbors – he has had conversations in the community. “That’s what we’re talking about now,” Johl said.
Migration and discrimination
It is estimated that 95% of peaches and 70% of prunes in the city of Yuba are grown by Sikh Punjabi farmers.. Johl farms peaches, prunes, pomegranates and almonds. Its 800 acres is a fairly large extension of the 20-acre plot of his grandfather Nand Singh Johl, who is believed to be one of the first Punjabi people to settle in the city of Yuba.
Nand arrived in Yuba in 1906. He, like many other Panjabi people following a pattern of immigration to the Pacific, worked on railroads and other temporary jobs from Vancouver to California. Coming from a region known for agriculture, many have naturally settled in rural areas with fertile land, including the Central Valley.
But those men faced several forms of discrimination. They were not allowed to become citizens or bring wives from India; they also could not own land or sign long-term leases because of the California Foreign Land Act of 1913.
One way to circumvent this law was to put property on behalf of children of American descent such as husband and wife Ralie and Stella Singh. Both Ralie and Stella were born to Punjabi parents and Mexican mothers – about 100 such marriages took place in the city of Yuba in the early 20th century. Mexican women, many displaced by the Mexican revolution, could find agricultural work alongside, and eventually, for Indian men in the Central Valley. The couples shared enough physical features to be agitated by court officials, thus avoiding anti-mixing laws that were not enacted in California until 1948.
On the phone, 90-year-old Stella remembers eating chicken and curry prepared by Mexican women at a gathering in the city of Yuba to celebrate Indian independence in 1947. “In their day,” as Ralie, in 92 years old, starts many sentences, “just did not exist” Indian women here. ”
After the adoption of the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, Indian men managed to bring wives from India to the United States, which led to the diminution of these interracial marriages. Singhii, who have retired from 1,000-acre farming, are two of the few left here. “We’re unique now,” Stella said, “and we’ll be old enough soon.”
Mixed-race children like them allowed the Indian community to put a stake in the city of Yuba. Start on five acres, bring relatives to work, get more land, bring more relatives, Ralie said. “In their day, Indian men came here with nothing, but they multiplied and are very proud.”
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“People are watching”
On January 26, protests in India changed shape as some farmers deviated from protest routes, jumping barricades and driving tractors to Delhi. Police responded in the following days by cutting off the internet, building stronger barricades and erecting barbed wire fences, which affected the protesters’ water and food supplies. All the while, talks between farmers’ union leaders and the government have stalled, and farmers say they are not leaving until the laws are repealed.
“Modi was seen as untouchable. But a lot of people look at that. You cannot have an authoritarian regime that has victory after victory and remains uncontrolled, “said Naindeep Singh of the Jakara movement. India’s Supreme Court ruled in January in favor of suspending the laws, an unusual push against the prime minister. “Will it be the farmers who will break Modi’s authoritarian line?” Singh asked.
Then his lively cadence slowed. “I have a family that was affected by the violence of the ’80s and’ 90s. I know the violence that the Indian state can adopt, I know how brutal it can be, “he said. “This must end peacefully.”
Mallika Kaur is an author, lawyer and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, working on human rights issues in South Asia. She said The genocidal violence of the 1980s and 1990s against Sikhs in India – “practically open season for Sikhs, and politicians have been at the forefront of attacks” – including on the streets of Delhi, where farmers protest today, has led to a decade-long distrust of the government.
“Giving the keys to agriculture to corporations touches a deep and painful nerve for the community,” she said. “For a very poor country, once these things, such as the wheel and slab base bodies, are able to set prices, there is a rather dreaded mass devastation and despair. That is part of the reason why the average person, farmer or not, supports farmers and someone who stands in front of the government, handing over yet another sector to the control of big companies ”. An estimated 250 million Indian workers in various sectors are also striking in support of farmers.
Kaur said at least 143 farmers had died protesting, with about seven suicides – in one place and a profession devastated by suicides, which have grown more than twelvefold in the Punjab in five years. Pneumonia is a high risk; as well as heart attacks and other ailments that occur with old age and out of the cold and rain. Medical tent workers installed at the protest report had an initial blood pressure of 150, Kaur said.
“What we know for sure is that very desperate times are coming,” Kaur said. “People outside India should say that these protests matter because we don’t want to get the same kind of disconnection from our food producers.”
The US Embassy in Delhi urges the Indian government to resume talks with farmers. A tweet by singer Rihanna, followed by Greta Thunberg, who expressed solidarity with Indian farmers, angered Indian protesters, who burned photos of both women on Thursday.
Sukhcharan Singh said he was “very, very hopeful” about supporting celebrities. “I can’t tell you how much respect for people like them, who think about human rights, I have,” he said. But its prospects are greater than a few important recommendations. “In India, it is no longer just a protest by farmers. It has infiltrated the lives of ordinary people. When that happens, those in power must bow. But I don’t know at what price and I don’t know when. ”