In a rare gesture of social assurance, that too on a festival day, a team of police and jail officials reached out to the farming community and celebrated Dasara with them on Sunday. The women farmers celebrated the occasion with joy as though it was their own brothers who came all the way to great them on the festival day.
Bobbiligam village in Sadashivapet mandal has a large number of farmers, and majority of them are tenants who take land on lease to cultivate crops. For past several years they have been cultivating cotton. This year too they sowed cotton and the recent rains damaged most of the standing crop. As a result these farmers are now deep in debt and many of them are not in a mood to celebrate the festival.
In a move to create confidence among them and assure them that they are with the farmers, Sangareddy Deputy Superintendent of Police P. Sridhar Reddy, District Jail Superintendent Shivakumar Goud, social activist Ch. Uday Kumar from Gummadidala and Puram Pandaiah from Sangareddy came together and gave away new clothes and sweets to the tenant farmers. “We are here to assure you that we are with you in difficult times. Though we could not reach out to everyone, we want to celebrate Dasara with the farmers, who are filling our plates three times a day, and what we have done is our responsibility,” said Mr. Sridhar Reddy.
Mr. Shivakumar Goud said farmers are in distress due to crop loss. “A good tradition of celebrating festival with farmers has started in this remote village. We wish that this tradition could spread to more villages where everyone in society comes out to assure the farming community,” he said.
“We are happy that you came here all the way from Sangareddy to celebrate the festival. It’s like our brothers coming and offering new clothes. We never had such an experience in the past,” several women said with a smile on their face.
