A City-based jewellery designer has in an artistic way pledged support to the farming community whose representatives from the State are protesting in New Delhi.

UMT Raja (47) has a work of art made in pure gold showing four farmers portraying different emotions.

“The basic idea is to voice against the hydro carbon project, against which farmers and the student community have been fighting for long,” he said.

The bottom part of the artwork shows two farmers sitting under a plough with their hands on their heads expressing dejection. “This is the present status of farmers in the State. The ones who give us food are in worse condition financially and their very livelihood is at stake,” Raja says.

The central part of the artwork depicts a farmer trying to stop a person digging as part of work on the hydro carbon project. The farmer is seen using the plough as a balance to resist the digger’s pressure.

The top part shows a farmer killed by the digger. “Farmers have started resorting to suicide as a result of the drought. They have little strength to withstand the might of corporate giants,” says Raja.

The work of art has been etched on a pen nib, suggesting that the media for whom the pen is the tool should use it to fight the cause of farmers, he adds.

He plans to gift the work to a farmer once the protest in Delhi ends on a positive note. It took him two days to complete the work. Earlier, he had made designs in wax like one after the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.