Farmers perform Shavasana on road in Mirzapur district

NARAYANPUR (MIRZAPUR): When the Prime Minister was doing yoga at Ramabai Maidan in Lucknow on the occasion of International Yoga Day (June 21) on Wednesday, a group of farmers under the banner of Bhartiya Kisan Union performed Shavashana on Varanasi-Mirzapur highway near the statue of Sardar Patel, the hero of Bardoli Satyagrah of farmers in 1928, at Narayanpur crossing.The farmers of the neighbouring district of PM’s parliamentary constituency performed yoga on the road and held meeting in protest against government's apathy towards farmers. There was a massive traffic jam on the highway due to the farmers protesting on the road. No government official or police were there to handle the situation. However the stir was nonviolent and peaceful.“We are not against yoga, but it is our way to express our anguish over indeffferent attitude of the central and state governments to farmers by doing Shavasana on the road,” said BKU district president Siddhnath Singh. Shavasana (corpse pose) is usually done at the end of a yoga practice in which practitioners lie flat on their backs with the heels spread wide and arms on the side of the body, palms facing upward.On the call of BKU (Tikait) the farmers from different villages including Kundadih, Karhat, Baraipur, Jadupur, Sonpur, Sonai, Mathana and many others of Mirzapur districts held the yoga event on the road. “We small and marginal farmers have been facing lots of problems to meet our basic needs due to insufficient income in farming,” said Savitri Devi of Kundadih village. She was joined by several other rural women taking part in the yoga stir. Other farmers like Budhiram Singh of Sonpur, Devi Singh of Bhagvati Dei village and Arun Singh of Rasoolpur village shared similar views.Holding placards in hands displaying slogans like 'all loan waivers of farmers' and 'implementation of the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission', they also demanded a compensation of Rs 5 crore to the kin of each farmers killed in Mandasaur (MP) firing. They also submitted a memorandum to the district administration. The half-an-hour yoga event on the road caused a long jam on the highway. Later, the jam was cleared after the intervention of local police. After yoga they held a meeting on the adjacent side of the road leading to the market.