The Indian government recently repealed the three controversial farm laws after year-long protests by thousands of farmers. BBC Hindi's Raghvendra Rao meets the families who paid a heavy price. It is the sowing season in the northern Indian state of Punjab, but people here are yet to come to terms with the bitter harvest that has been reaped over the past year. Punjab is often called India's food bowl because of its contribution to the country's grain basket. But for more than a year, the state saw hundreds of its farmers camp on the borders of the national capital, Delhi, protesting against the three contentious farm laws brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Last month, the government relented and repealed the farm laws, but for scores of families in Punjab, this has meant little. These are families who lost their loved ones - sons, husbands, mothers and fathers - who had gone to participate in the protests and didn't make it back home alive. Some of them died due to the extreme cold during the winter, some from heart attacks and others in road accidents, says Yogendra Yadav, one of the protest leaders. The farmers are demanding compensation and jobs for a family member of the dead from the federal government. The government recently told the parliament that it had no record of the number of farmers who died during the protests, so "the question of providing financial assistance did not arise". But farm leaders differ. "We have sent them a list of all those who lost their lives during the protest. It has over 700 names and more than 600 are from Punjab," said farm leader Balbir Singh Rajewal. How did they arrive at this number? Yadav says volunteers collected information about deaths during the protests and then verified it with farmer organisations and newspaper clippings. "It's sad to see a government treat its own people in this fashion. Do farmers matter in this country? The government has been treating us as if we don't belong to the country," complains Mr Rajewal. Hundreds of miles away from the protest sites, a farmer couple in a Punjab village is struggling to cope with the death of their only son. Manpreet Singh, 24, died of a heart attack in January. "I am unable to bear this pain. I feel like crying all the time," says his mother Baljinder Kaur, trying hard not to break down. Manpreet's father Gurdeep Singh said they had tried to stop him from going to Delhi. "But he said that if farmers like us didn't take part in this protest, everything would be lost," he says. The Punjab government has given the family a compensation of 500,000 rupees ($6,631; £5,008), but that has brought them little solace. "We are ready to give all we have. Can the government give us our son back?" asks Baljinder Kaur. A few lanes away, a son is still trying to come to terms with the fact that his mother is dead. Balbir Kaur, 65, regularly visited the protest sites with other women from their village. "Once there she would do whatever she could to help, be it cooking or serving meals," said her son, Chamkaur Singh. In March, she died of a heart attack during one of her trips. Around 80 miles away, a mother is mourning her son. Gurpreet Singh, 23, died in December 2020 in an accident while returning home from the protest site with his uncle, who was also killed. "How does it matter that the laws have been repealed? Can this bring our son back? Nobody would have died had these laws not been made," says an inconsolable Paramjeet Kaur. Kaur said her son used to say that they needed to fight for their rights together. Amarjeet Kaur, wife of Gurpreet's uncle Labh Singh, is shattered, but proud of her husband. "The day he was going, he said he'll either come back after winning the battle or will die a martyr," she says. For many in his Punjab village, he has now become a martyr.
