S.ukhcharan Singh grows walnuts in Yuba City, California, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. Like many Sikh farmers in this small Central Valley town, Singh’s thoughts are preoccupied with the ongoing protests in India.
‘I fall asleep here. When I was there, it was a poor country, yes, but it was a good country, ”says Singh, 68, browsing notes he has taken on the latest news from India. “Last night I finally slept at 11:30 am.”
Since late November, hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from the agricultural states of Punjab and Haryana, have protested in the outskirts of Delhi, making the country’s capital inaccessible for miles. They demand that Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeal three laws hastily passed by parliament – “pushed down the throats of the people,” as Singh puts it – in September that farmers fear the regulations will disappear, leaving their livelihoods and livelihoods vulnerable to private investors.
“It’s a shame,” Singh said, looking down the tip of his long white beard. “On the one hand I feel happy to be there, on the other I feel guilty that I am not there.”
The link between there and here speaks for itself. Outside of India, Yuba City is home to one of the largest groups of Punjab farmers, the birthplace of Sikhism. About half of the 500,000 Sikhs in the US live in California, with the largest concentration in Yuba City. Nicknamed “Mini Punjab”, the city elected the US’s first Sikh mayor in 2009 and the country’s first female Sikh mayor in 2017. In the first week of November, the city hosts an annual festival in honor of the birthday of the first Sikh prophet. more than 100,000 people.
It’s no surprise, then, that the largest gathering outside of India in support of the peasant protests took place not far from here. On December 5, people from Yuba City and other Central Valley towns, including Fremont, Fresno, Stockton and Manteca, were beating drums, shouting over megaphones, and waving flags that read “No farms, no food.” Thousands of large platforms, cars and trucks took off from Oakland and snapped traffic on the Bay Bridge for hours, before arriving at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco. Other large gatherings took place that week in Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Texas, and Michigan; in December and January, solidarity demonstrations 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 nonprofit that stands up for the Sikh community, led the protest. “I feel inspired. I see older people, my own family members, sleeping in the cold and they have been there for months. I feel a deep will to support the effort in any way I can, ”he said.
Community members have also raised money to support billboards highlighting India’s protests in the Central Valley, where Punjabi is the third most spoken language after English and Spanish. And there are even more plans to advertise on the sides of 500 major platforms.
“I went to the meeting in San Francisco in December to show my support for my brothers there,” said Kulwant Johl, 70, a Sikh farmer in Yuba City who leases his farmland in Punjab. “The farmers [in India] say they don’t need money so right now it’s just moral support and talking to local politicians here and see if they can help. “
He constantly watches Indian news reports of the protests on satellite and social media, like many of his neighbors – it has consumed conversations in the community. “That’s all we’re talking about now,” Johl said.
Migration and discrimination
An estimated 95% of the peaches and 70% of the plums in Yuba City are grown by Punjabi Sikh farmers. Johl grows peaches, plums, pomegranates and almonds. His 800 acres is a decent extension of his grandfather Nand Singh Johl’s 20 acre parcel of land, believed to be one of the first Punjabi men to settle in Yuba City.
Nand arrived in Yuba City in 1906. He, like many Punjabi men who followed an immigration pattern across the Pacific, had worked the railroads and other temporary jobs from Vancouver to California. Hailing from a region known for agriculture, many naturally settled in rural areas of fertile land, including the Central Valley.
But those men faced different forms of discrimination. They were not allowed to become citizens or take women from India with them; they also couldn’t own land or sign long-term leases because of California’s 1913 Alien Land Law.
One way to get around that law was to put properties in the name of American-born children like the husband and wife Ralie and Stella Singh. Both Ralie and Stella were born to Punjabi fathers and Mexican mothers – about 100 such marriages took place in Yuba City in the early 20th century. Mexican women, many of whom had been displaced by the Mexican Revolution, were able to work on the farm alongside and eventually for Indian men in the Central Valley. The couples shared enough physical traits to be waved off by the county clerks, thereby circumventing anti-miscegenation laws that were not lifted in California until 1948.
On the phone, Stella, 90, recalls eating roti and curry chicken prepared by Mexican women at a rally in Yuba City to celebrate India’s independence in 1947. t Indian women here. “
After the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 was passed, Indian men were able to bring women from India to the US, leading to a decline in these interracial marriages. The Singhs, who have retired from the 1,000-acre farm, are two of the few remaining here. “We are unique now,” said Stella, “and we will soon be out of date.”
Mixed race children like her enabled the Indian community to put up a stake in Yuba City. Start on five acres, get family members to work, buy more land, bring more family members, Ralie said. “In those days, Indian men came here with nothing but they multiplied and they are very proud.”
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‘People watching’
On January 26, protests in India changed shape as some farmers deviated from protest routes, hopped up barricades and tractors drove into Delhi. Police responded in the days that followed 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 stalled, saying farmers would not leave until the laws are repealed.
“Modi has been seen as untouchable. But many people watch this. You cannot have an authoritarian regime that achieves victory after victory and it remains unchecked, ”said Naindeep Singh of the Jakara movement. India’s highest court ruled in January in favor of suspension of the laws, an unusual backlash against the prime minister. “Will it be the farmers who break through Modi’s authoritarian streak?” Singh asked.
Then his fast cadence slowed. “I have a family that has been affected by the violence of the 1980s and 1990s. I know the violence the Indian state can commit, I know how cruel it can be,” he said. “This has to end peacefully.”
Mallika Kaur is an author, attorney and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley who deals with human rights issues in South Asia. She said genocidal violence in the 80s and 90s against Sikhs in India – “basically open season on Sikhs, and politicians were at the forefront of the attacks” – also on the streets of Delhi, where farmers protest today, had resulted in decades long distrust of the government.
“Handing over the keys of agriculture to businesses touches a deep and painful nerve for the community,” she said. “For a very poor country, once these things like basic roti and valley companies are able to set prices, there is quite a lot of destruction and despair that is feared. That’s part of the reason why the common person, farmer or not, supports the farmers and someone who stands up to the government and turns another sector over to the control of big corporations. Also, an estimated 250 million Indian workers from various sectors went on strike in support of the farmers.
Kaur said at least 143 farmers had died in the protest, with an estimated seven suicides – in a place and profession ravaged by suicides, which have increased more than a dozen-fold in Punjab in five years. Pneumonia is a big risk; so are heart attacks and other conditions associated with old age and out in the cold and rain. Workers in medical tents set up against the baseline blood pressure of 150, Kaur said.
“What we know for sure is that there are very desperate times ahead,” said Kaur. “People outside of India should say these protests matter because we don’t want to end up with the same kind of disconnection from our food producers.”
The US Embassy in Delhi is urging the Indian government to resume talks with farmers. A tweet by the singer Rihanna, followed by Greta Thunberg expressing her solidarity with Indian farmers, outraged counter-protesters in India, who burned photos of both women on Thursday.
Sukhcharan Singh said he was “very, very hopeful” about celebrity support. “I can’t tell you how much I respect people like her who think about human rights,” he said. But his outlook is bigger than a few key notes. “In India it is no longer just a farmer’s protest. 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. “