India’s Punjab state is casting ballots in polls seen as a barometer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity. The polls will reflect whether Modi’s party has been able to neutralize Sikh farmers' resentment after repealing contentious farm laws.
Political newbies like Dholewal are pinning their hopes on this very formula. They are vying to convert the farmers’ anger into votes, arguing that a new party is the only path to change.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has a relatively small footprint in Punjab but hopes to form a government there with a regional ally and strengthen its fledgling voter base among farmers, one of the largest voting blocs in India. Punjab, where people are deeply proud of their state’s religious syncretism, also represents, which has flourished in most of northern India since 2014.
But in December last year, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told Parliament that his government had no record of the farmers’ deaths. This caused widespread anger among the families of the deceased, many of whom are small or landless farmers who constitute the lowest rung of India’s farming community.
“Even though we won in the end, those laws only brought misery to our lives. Do you think we would forget that?” said Singh, pointing to a framed portrait of his friend. “That’s why you don’t see flags of any political party flying atop our homes,” said Singh, the village head. “We don’t trust them anymore.”
At its peak, the protest drew support from Punjab’s rural and urban populations. Now, those protests find very little resonance among city voters who say the farmers’ issues should take a backseat since the laws have been withdrawn.
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