Two years after farmer unions staged a massive protest in Delhi against the three farm laws by the Parliament in 2020-21, which lasted 16 months, farmers have once again intensified their agitation embarking on a 'Delhi Chalo' march. Farmers from three states - Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh - under the aegis of over 200 unions are headed towards Delhi, demanding a guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP). The capital has been heavily barricaded and farmers are being stopped through use of tear gas shells dropped from drones and water cannons.
When the 2020-21 protests were at its peak, Vishnuprasad, a leading Malayalam poet from Kerala wrote two poems inspired by the resistance offered by farmers, which was unmatched in scale. One of them was an ode to the tractors driven by farmers past the barricades and the other a critique of the heavy-handedness of rulers. A school teacher from Wayanad district of Kerala, the 1972-born Vishnuprasad's writings are experimental in style and marked by rich imagery. The poems have been translated from Malayalam to English by Binu Karunakaran.
Tractor,
You're not a rattletrap anymore
Decrepit six-wheeler
evoking pity in onlookers,
forever ready to secede
as head and tail, clamber
hills and ploughland
loaded with earth, bundles
of hay, grain bags
and cow dung - a simpleton
covered in grime and dust.
Your eyes show a resolve
Today, you'll speak up for the sweat
of farmers on the streets of Delhi
Today, you'll take up the vakalat
of croplands across the country.
Today, you'll be a new revolutionary
The throne of injustice will tremble at your sight
Snazzy, expensive cars and aeroplanes
will bring their head down ashamed
by your new-found stature.
Tractor,
You are not that decrepitude anymore…
coughing up phlegm, treading village roads
that I knew till yesterday,
How youthful you look today!
Today, you are a six-legged butterfly...
Nah, a tiger masquerading as butterfly.
In an evening when
tractors dressed up as dragonflies
or dragonflies dressed up as tractors
where soaring the skies
the king asked the wind
flowing from the wheat fields:
What should I do?
The wind parted the sights
around, pointed towards
a blade of lemon grass
and spoke...
Look at the sparrow
perching on the lemongrass blade
its heavier than the leaf
see, yet the leaf holds...
Wondrous, isn't it?
Highness, last month
you went on a game hunt
showed your escort a green frog
nodding off on a wild taro leaf.
It wasn't weighty as
the frog but how trustful its
repose! The covenant
the leaves have with the world
is that of tranquillity and care.
Highness, you can't perch on
the blade of lemon grass like birds
or recline on the taro leaf
like the green frog. They'll let go
your expansive butts and you'll
end up with a broken spine. But
the plants would spring.
to their feet again. The tale of
a babe who sleeps on banyan leaf
might have allured you but nothing
can bear your load save
a chopped down leaf of banana...
said the wind
drifting away to join
the revolt of green leaves outside
the palace gates.