almost entirely by women. Most of the men followers of SS were already in jail and responsibility to carry out agitation was left to the women. And they did rise splendidly to the occasion. Suman Agarwal, Saroj Kashikar, Shailaja Deshpande and others were at the forefront. For many of the courageous women who actually laid themselves down on the railway track it was the first time outside their homes. This rail roko of 12 December was an important high point of the farmers’ struggle. During the preceding Babu Genu memory week, nearly six lakh men and women took to the streets. They all were ready to be arrested but the police could not make arrangement to arrest all. Still in Vidarbha around sixty thousand farmers were arrested. Schools and Colleges were given holidays and their buildings and grounds were converted into ‘open prisons’. Shankaranna Dhondage, who was earlier the President of SS and later became an MLA after joining Nationalist Congress Party, told this writer, “In our Marathwada region between 6 and 12 December about thirty thousand farmers were imprisoned. All the jails were filled to capacity and different groups of farmers were enclosed on various grounds. Their arrest was not shown on paper but they were still under arrest.’ Later, on 26 December, Nagpur High Court released Joshi and his colleagues on bail. In the subsequent trial this arrest under National Security Act was also termed illegal. This time, renowned lawyers like Ram Jethmalani from Mumbai along with Bhausaheb Bobade and Sharad Bobade of Nagpur fought in the High Court for Joshi. Generally, it is very rare for someone arrested under NSA to get the bail but because of the brilliant arguments by these senior lawyers it became possible. The Court had observed that, ‘We refuse to accept that Sharad Joshi is a threat to national security.’ The policy of the Government was to arrest SS leaders under the harshest possible laws and then to 166
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
