An evening of solidarity with the haris

An evening of solidarity with the haris, enslaved by permanent debt to the landowners, generation after generation. It is the “Annual Peasant Conference” in Hyderabad. 400 seats, all full, “notables” in the front row, men on one side, and women on the other, many of them haris. All colourful, some obviously with money, some obviously not. Music with drums and tabla. Then an impressionist, a real performer - he does skits and sound effects and, most realistically, a storm. Together with colleagues from PILER and the Fisher folk and a bank manager, I’m welcomed by the compere.

A woman lawyer is presented with a statuette for her work defending the haris. It’s an Oscar sized cast metal woman with a clenched fist. A poem is read. More awards of statuettes. The Sindhi scarf is also awarded. A speech at top volume with references to Islam. It goes on. Then more music. A double pipe player with splendid orange pointed moustache and beard and castanet bells player join the troupe. Far too soon we get another speech from a TV director talking about landlord mafia. Applause. Now a singer, like the others an older man, with a hard, worn face joins the band only to be followed by the chief manager of the State Bank here in Hyderabad who presents a statuette. He’s an “influential” I’m told. He looks humourless.

Then without warning I’m summoned to the platform. I think it is the tradition of welcoming strangers. I’m presented with a Sindhi scarf. Cursing those colleagues who didn’t prepare me, I nevertheless resist the temptation to give the speech of a life time and confine myself to declaring solidarity with all those fighting with the haris against the landlord mafia. Now a comic act by our impressionist and then a Sindhi break dancer, not the youngest one could add.

A lawyer, recently kidnapped for 34 days, is given a statuette. Then Mian Qayyum, the Faisalabad textile workers leader, speaks at length, powerfully.

We leave with a group of young girls among them dressed in the brightest, cheapest clothes imaginable. Huge smiles on their faces as they say ‘Goodbye’ to me in English and disappear towards their buses to go home. Our minibus gets to PILER after two.