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Sikh Tradition of Community Kitchens Sustains India's Farmers Protest

Anjana Pasricha

   NEW DELHI - Along a highway on the outskirts of New Delhi where
   thousands of protesting farmers have been camping for three weeks,
   scores of volunteers roll out Indian bread called "rotis," stir
   vegetables in gigantic pots, brew tea and fry savories.

   All through the day, makeshift kitchens that have sprung up on the
   roadside dish out hot meals to farmers who are demanding the roll back
   of new laws that liberalize rules for sale of farm produce to private
   companies.

   "We have come fully equipped to prepare mass meals. The supplies come
   from our villages daily and we run the kitchen round the clock," says
   Gurinder Singh, a Sikh farmer who has helped organize a community
   kitchen at one of the protest sites.

   The staggering scale of cooking underway to sustain India's biggest
   farm protest in decades is no surprise. Many of the farmers come from
   the northern Punjab state, where serving free, hot meals on a mass
   scale is an intrinsic tradition of the Sikh faith.

   Called "langar," and regularly served in their religious shrines, it is
   based on the principle of nourishing anyone in need, whether it is the
   homeless, victims of a natural disaster or protestors far away from
   home.

   A religious minority in India, the food assistance provided by Sikhs is
   famous-- most recently, they distributed hundreds of thousands of free
   meals to poor people who lost their livelihoods during the pandemic
   even during a strict lockdown.

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