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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff

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Speaker 1: I've never told your protection of I heart radio, said Samantha.

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Speaker 1: My question for you is do you have any experience

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Speaker 1: with farms? Farming? So I do have a little experience,

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Speaker 1: not a lot, because I haven't spoken many times before

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Speaker 1: how I kill plants um and purpose right, No, it

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Speaker 1: just inevitably happens because plants hate me. Been keeping my

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Speaker 1: basil alive. I'm fairly I'm fairly proud of that. Although

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Speaker 1: now my partner's taken over and is doing a better

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Speaker 1: job than I did, so whatever, not better. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I come from a small town that has a lot

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Speaker 1: of egg farms, chicken farms, and cow farms, and you

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Speaker 1: know your typical corn and all of I never necessarily

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Speaker 1: was raised on one, but because I was in proximity

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Speaker 1: with that, I would have friends who would have worked

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Speaker 1: on farms and stuff like that, and I would go

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Speaker 1: as well. And I've had a couple of summers of

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Speaker 1: experiences of that. I didn't like it. No, No, because

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Speaker 1: one of my jobs was cleaning off egg poop, chicken

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Speaker 1: poop off of eggs. I think I gagged the entire

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Speaker 1: time and I was not a fan. I was not

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Speaker 1: a fan, was not a fan. What about you? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a similar vein I. I

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Speaker 1: think we've talked before about we both went to schools.

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Speaker 1: Were in high school. There was like program and you

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Speaker 1: would go and like the f f A. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say, do things with cows. That sounds so wrong,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of have those experiences on farms and

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Speaker 1: almost like a tourist visiting. Some of my family members

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Speaker 1: have farms, and when I was a kid, I thought

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Speaker 1: it was really really cool, like to see the chickens

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Speaker 1: and the cows and um, one of my realiity has

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Speaker 1: had his horses. But I wasn't working on the farm.

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Speaker 1: So I feel like that's a different that's a different thing.

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Speaker 1: Like it was cool for me to see it and

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Speaker 1: all that land, you know. But even if like I

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Speaker 1: remember once I was like, yeah, I'll put me to work,

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Speaker 1: and then I was like, no, this is a lot

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Speaker 1: of work. Yeah, I will say after working just for

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Speaker 1: like a couple of summers, the amount of work, the

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Speaker 1: amount of like what it felt like backbreaking work, I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, man, kudos to whoever can do this.

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Speaker 1: And they're not getting paid enough. Like that was the

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Speaker 1: entirety of my conversation was like, no, whatever they're getting

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Speaker 1: paid is not enough. Totally agree. So we wanted to

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Speaker 1: put a time stamp on this one. It is February

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Speaker 1: ninth one because things do move really rapidly, and today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the farmers protests in India and there

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Speaker 1: is a lot going on there. It's continuously evolving, so

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Speaker 1: as we record this episode, this is the date. So

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Speaker 1: back in September, the Indian government passed very controversial farm

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Speaker 1: laws without resulting any stakeholders. According to experts, these laws

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Speaker 1: would drive out small and marginal farmers and allow for

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Speaker 1: the creation of private monopolies. And this is a huge

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Speaker 1: deal because in India eighties six percent of farmers are

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Speaker 1: small landowners. So of course many people were furious, right,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of Indians started protesting, camping at the

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Speaker 1: main entry points to the capital, demanding the government repels

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Speaker 1: the laws. The protests gained wide support both in Indian

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Speaker 1: around the world, and honestly, it's definitely made a lot

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Speaker 1: of traction within the celebrity worlds as well, and it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to see the conversations that are happening because there's

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Speaker 1: also a lot of backlash specifically coming from the Indian

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Speaker 1: government as well as their celebrities. So it's interesting to see.

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Speaker 1: And right now it is cold in India and but

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Speaker 1: people are refusing to leave. Yeah, And these protests have

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Speaker 1: been largely led and sustained by women of all ages,

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Speaker 1: like really traveling from all over and these women and

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Speaker 1: girls have been making sure there are rations, there are blankets,

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Speaker 1: all the necessities. Um. I've read stories of them waking

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Speaker 1: up super early to make sure there's enough food to

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Speaker 1: get people through the day. And on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: women have been running farms to enable their husbands to protest,

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Speaker 1: so they're doing that work of the protests too. They're

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Speaker 1: managing the farm while the man of the family is

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Speaker 1: away protesting potentially, which is all the more amazing when

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Speaker 1: looking at the two states at the forefront of the protest,

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Speaker 1: Punjab and Hadeyana. Both are among the worst performers when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the ratio of men to women and

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Speaker 1: have patriarchal systems that put constraints on women in various ways.

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Speaker 1: And households in these areas are usually categorized by unequal

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Speaker 1: access to resources, a problem that worse since during times

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Speaker 1: of economic stress, like during a pandemic, are potentially losing

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Speaker 1: your farm. Because of these things, any decrease in farming

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Speaker 1: income will almost certainly disproportionately have a negative impact on women.

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Speaker 1: And on top of that, cuts and farmers income could

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Speaker 1: lead to farmers going into debt, which is one of

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Speaker 1: the leading causes of suicide among farmers in India. And

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Speaker 1: due to the patriarchal way inheritance works, they're often prohibiting

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Speaker 1: women from owning land. Women in families where there is

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Speaker 1: a suicide are at high risk of poverty. Now, I

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Speaker 1: do want to say, obviously this is a many and

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Speaker 1: these are complex issues, like we could unpack a lot

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Speaker 1: of this stuff, and we're also coming from an outsider's perspective,

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Speaker 1: but these are kind of the surface level of why

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Speaker 1: this protest is so big and so important and there's

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Speaker 1: so many things at stake, right. So, reporters interviewing women

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Speaker 1: participating in these protests found that they often spoke of

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Speaker 1: how active they are in the agricultural process, including labor

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Speaker 1: and providing support in the form of cooking, cleaning, and

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Speaker 1: caring for family members. Despite the long, hard days, women

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Speaker 1: have done this work unaccredited and they're not seen as farmers.

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Speaker 1: While an estimated of all farm work is done by women,

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Speaker 1: which I've actually seen the numbers as high as eighty

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Speaker 1: five percent as well, because it's all varying, the only

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Speaker 1: account for twelve percent of land ownership, which is such

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Speaker 1: a shame. That's another reason women have given when asked

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Speaker 1: why they're protesting. They want people to know women are

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Speaker 1: farmers too, and these protests are changing that. Women are

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Speaker 1: about a hundred protests sites in Punjab alone and the

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Speaker 1: protests are ongoing and have been going. Yeah, so these

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Speaker 1: women want people to know like, yes, women are farmers too,

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Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons they're showing up is yes,

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Speaker 1: I am involved in this very important to me and

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Speaker 1: um wanting to get the credit and recognition of the

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Speaker 1: work that they're doing. And going back to what you said, Samantha,

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Speaker 1: different celebrities like Rihanna have been bringing attention to the

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Speaker 1: protests and have even garnered backlash from the Indian government

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Speaker 1: and celebrities. There After tweeting an article about the protest,

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Speaker 1: many Indians have lashed out saying she was ill informed

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Speaker 1: and using propaganda to divide the country. But as more

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Speaker 1: and more protesters come out and many risk their lives

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Speaker 1: by staying out in the cold to make their force heard. Also,

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Speaker 1: it is a pandemic. Still, it is clear there is

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Speaker 1: a call for change, right And it's really interesting on

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Speaker 1: a side note, that many of the attacks on Rihanna

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Speaker 1: are really troll level attacks, often referencing her domestic violence

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Speaker 1: incident with Chris Brown from way back when, and many

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Speaker 1: slut shaming her and calling her a prostitute in the

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Speaker 1: midst of all of this, like it's gonna outright like

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Speaker 1: mean and and just so you know, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of conversation about the fact that they have been limiting

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Speaker 1: access to social media within India as a way of

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Speaker 1: kind of controlling the narrative, of trying to hold onto

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Speaker 1: the narrative. Stating that again people outside of India are

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Speaker 1: being ill informed in this protest is dangerous and it's

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Speaker 1: almost as if blaming the protesters again as we've seen

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Speaker 1: many times, for the violence and for the deaths and

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Speaker 1: for the clashes that's been happening. Yeah, and speaking of

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Speaker 1: the Indian government has bargained to hault the law for

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Speaker 1: eighteen months, but many are still calling for the complete

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Speaker 1: repeal of the new laws, but they have yet to

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Speaker 1: see any conversation around that. The protest has been contentious

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Speaker 1: throughout the months, including protesters clashing with police and government officials,

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Speaker 1: even to the point the government has been building trenches

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Speaker 1: around the capital. And yeah, we have seen violence and death, right, So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's been a number of deaths reported, but it's been

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Speaker 1: so varying and the causes so varying, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: been hard to see exact numbers. And even talking about

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Speaker 1: the incidents where they took over tractors and we're driving

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Speaker 1: it to the capital and that brought on some violent

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Speaker 1: situations as well, but not really clear to all the details.

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Speaker 1: It's it's interesting to see what we are able to

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Speaker 1: get access of and who's being able to speak and

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Speaker 1: who's being silenced. And there are a few ways to help,

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Speaker 1: including checking out Save India, the Farmers which is one

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Speaker 1: of the organizations, and the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and

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Speaker 1: then there's a fundraiser organized by the United Seek Mission

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Speaker 1: to supply medical assistance during this protest. So there are

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Speaker 1: ways to reach out to see what's happening, to see

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Speaker 1: how to assist. But there's a lot of stuff going

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Speaker 1: on there, and it's been going on there and unfortunately

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Speaker 1: limited access to being able to see what exactly is

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Speaker 1: happening on the grounds and how we can help from

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Speaker 1: what information we can gather, watching the evolution of At

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Speaker 1: first these protests were mostly men, and then women kept

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Speaker 1: trickling in and trickling in and trickling in, and now

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Speaker 1: when you see pictures a lot of times it's mostly women.

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Speaker 1: So that conversation, the ongoing conversation around women as farmers

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Speaker 1: in India and the work that they do. I'm glad

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Speaker 1: that attention is being brought to that. And as always, listeners,

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Speaker 1: if any of you are in India, are you have

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Speaker 1: information that perhaps we don't, we would love to hear

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Speaker 1: from you. Our email is Stuff Medium, mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Instagram

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Speaker 1: and Stuff I've Never Told You are on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks It's always the a super producer, Christina,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I

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Speaker 1: Never Told You, the production of I Radio. For more

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