Farmer leader Dallewal: Fighting both cancer and the govt

Subsequently, Dallewal joined Anna Hazare’s hunger strike in Delhi on March 23, 2018, on various issues, including Lokpal and agrarian distress, which continued till March 28 that year. In February 2018 also the demands were the same but the approach to handle them was a bit different from both sides — the farmers and the governments.

His last hunger strike was on June 8, 2023, when he sat outside the head office of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) office in Patiala to get his list of 21 demands fulfilled. As the dharna was organised outside the gate, nearly 40 employees of PSPCL could leave the office only by 10 pm. The hunger strike-cum-dharna continued till June 14 when around 4 am, Punjab Police forcibly cleared the dharna while Dallewal was forcibly admitted to hospital for treatment. The dharna had to be lifted as PSPCL staff were not able to enter the office. A few of the demands were 10-hour power supply to tube wells, regularisation of tube well connections, to stop installation of smart meters. Most demands are still on paper only, according to sources.

The June 2023 hunger strike was the fifth time Dallewal, who is coordinator of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political), had gone on such a strike in the last five years. He is also president of BKU Sidhupur. Many acquaintances say that hunger strike has always been his way of lodging protest.

Jagjit Singh Dallewal during a hunger strike on NH-54 in Faridkot district in November 2022. (File Photo)

On January 1, 2019, Dallewal again followed in Anna Hazare’s footsteps by going on a hunger strike for five days in Chandigarh over various issues related to the farm crisis, when the latter sat on fast at his Ralegan Siddhi village in Maharashtra. Even in January 2021 at Delhi borders, he sat on a chain hunger strike as part of the protest to get the farm laws repealed.

Dallewal again went on a hunger strike on November 19, 2022, at Tehna T-point on NH-54 in Faridkot over farmers’ demands, including higher compensation for their land acquired for national highway projects, withdrawal of cases registered against them during the agitation against the now-repealed three central farm laws, jobs for kin of those who lost their lives during the farm stir, and removal of red entries from revenue records for burning paddy stubble. It was a 41-point charter of demands and most of them are still unfulfilled.

In November 2022, Dallewal decided to launch his hunger strike immediately after Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s statement hitting out at the farmer unions for frequently staging protests by blocking roads to get their demands fulfilled.

Farmers at Khanauri on Punjab-Haryana border Wednesday. (Express photo by Jasbir Malhi)

“It has become a trend. First, they hold a dharna to seek a meeting with the government. Then they stage another dharna when the talks are held. Then another one is staged demanding issuance of notification. It looks like it has become a ‘riwaaz’ (trend),” CM Mann had said on November 18, 2022.

Hailing from Dallewal village of Punjab’s Faridkot district, Dallewal became president of BKU Sidhupur in 2017 and is heading that union since then.

In July 2022, he had formed his own outfit SKM (non-political) following a difference of opinion with the SKM after it had allowed 16 farmer unions of Punjab to return to SKM, though their members had contested or supported candidates in 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls.

Dallewal is now also heading SKM (non-political) and hasn’t returned to SKM, although it (SKM) had approached him a couple of times. Even when the recent farm protest was launched at Shambhu and Khanauri, he was not interested in coordinating with the SKM and had stated that it (SKM) can continue organising their separate programmes.

During the earlier farm agitation three years ago, he had found a supporter in actor Deep Sidhu, who later died in an accident.