Mumbai: A group of 150 dabbawalas sported black ribbons on Monday as they expressed solidarity with agitating farmers by staging a protest outside Lower Parel station. The protest started at 11.30 a.m. and lasted 30 minutes, after which it was business as usual for the dabbawalas as they went about delivering lunches.
Subhash Talekar, spokesperson, Mumbai Dabbawala Association, said, “Our farmer brothers are on strike for the past five days, and have called for a State-wide bandh today. We cannot observe the bandh as many people are dependent on us for their lunches, but we support them. To show solidarity, we have tied black ribbons on our arms.”
He said the association has requested the State government to accept farmers’ demands of loan waivers and implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Committee recommendations. “We are farmers first; our families are into farming since generations. We came to Mumbai to work as dabbawalas only because the income from farming wasn’t enough to survive. The price farmers get for their produce is too less. If we don’t come together for them, who will?,” Jalinder Karwande, a dabbawala from Lower Parel, said.
