Watch: Farmers across India performed ‘shavasana’ on highways in protest on International Yoga Day
‘We’re not celebrating the day of yoga but observing the day of death.’
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi put up a display of soft yoga with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on International Yoga Day this Wednesday, farmers across India also used yoga – to engage in a country-wide protest.
The method they adopted was both non-violent and effective – they performed the “shavasana” or “corpse position” on highways and roads in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, to emulate dead bodies.
The protest was in response to the agrarian crisis and the deplorable condition of farmers in the country – an increasing number of farmer suicides, the central government’s failure to meet their promise of waiving farmers’ loans, unfair regulation of crop prices, and the killing of five protesting farmers in Mandsaur, MP.
Farmers, Union members and Congress leaders performed the shavasana in Bhopal to protest against CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whom they blame for the death of the five farmers in police firing. Farmers’ protests have been going on in MP since June 1.
In Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, too, farmers of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) blocked highways and roads while they performed shavasana. Alok Varma of BKU told The Hindustan Times:
“We selected shavasana because we wanted to show the government that farmers are reduced merely into a dead body if they are not treated well. Farmers don’t deserve bullets if they demand good rates or loan waiver.”
In Haryana’s Jind, farmers led by BKU state president Rattan Mann chose to perform the “shirsasana” or head-stand, instead, as it was symbolic of their miserable condition. Mann said that the farmers would make the government get into a shirsasana in the 2019 elections if their demands were not met.
The protesters chose International Yoga Day as they wanted to attract the attention of the entire world towards their plight. Shiv Kumar of Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sanngathan told Business Standard, “Our non-violent movement will continue. But yes, we want to tell people across the length and breadth of this country the pitiable condition of farmers.”
