Mounting bank loans, crop failure, lack of avenues to pay off debts and large dependent families form the common thread tying together the numerous women farmers who hit the streets Thursday.
Hoping to make themselves heard in the power centre of the nation, thousands of farmers, who had converged here from across the country, began a two-day protest, backed by the Left, to press their demands including debt relief and remunerative prices for their produce.
Raising the banner of protest among them are women farmers who see themselves as worse than their male counterparts.
Rita Messi, 45, travelled around 200 km from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh to the national capital with a hope of sustaining her livelihood as a farmer and making her demand heard at the Kisan rally.
Rita, who supports 11 family members as a sugarcane farmer, has struggled over the years due to crop failure and her inability to pay off the debts.
"I took big risks by taking loans from banks with the hope of doing well. But a drought like situation in the first year, flood in second year and lately, storms have destroyed all my hopes. Now I am unable to repay my loans," she said.
At the Kisan rally, Rita has been huddled with others from her village who all hope that the establishment will finally wake up to the agrarian distress.
She said she took a loan of Rs 5.5 lakh from Rudrapur branch of Allahabad Bank for sugar cane cultivation,
Rs 3.5 lakh from Bhumi Vikas Bank and another loan of
Geeta, who owns only four bigha land on which she cultivates coconut and rears ducks, was accompanied by her
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