It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sikh priest commits suicide during India farmer protests
3 HOURS AGO
Farmers have been protesting for nearly a month against agricultural reforms that allow corporations to buy directly from the producer, fearing they will push down crop prices.
Protesting farmers burn an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a highway, refusing to move ahead unless they're allowed to proceed to their place of choice to protest, at the Delhi-Haryana state border in India on November 28, 2020 (AP)
A 65-year-old Sikh priest, Sant Baba Ram Singh, has committed suicide at one of the farmers protest sites in Indian capital New Delhi.
In his suicide note doing rounds on social media, Singh said he was "hurt to see the condition" of the protesting farmers.
His postmortem was done at a government hospital in Karnal district of his home state of Haryana.
Farmers have been protesting for nearly a month over the reforms, enacted in September, to deregulate the agriculture sector, allowing farmers to sell to buyers beyond government-regulated wholesale markets.
Blaming government apathy for Singh's suicide, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration should immediately repeal the laws.
The reforms, contained in three laws, loosen rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce, while farmers say that new rules threaten their livelihood.
Modi has tried to assure farmers the changes will bring them new opportunities but few have been convinced. Several rounds of talks between farm union leaders and the government have failed.
Farmers and activists from various political groups, along with bulls, take part in a rally in support of farmers against the central government's recent agricultural reforms in Kolkata on December 16, 2020. (AFP)
Top court's offer to mediate
India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday offered to set up a mediation panel to end the three-week protest.
The court sent notices to the government and the farmers’ representatives across the country seeking their views on the proposal and set on Thursday as the date for a possible decision.
Earlier, Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian made the offer to set up the panel after five rounds of talks failed to end the impasse between the government and farmers.
“Your negotiations with protesting farmers have not worked apparently until now,” the Press Trust of India news agency cited the judges as telling government Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta.
Women, including widows and relatives of farmers who were believed to have killed themselves over debt, attend a protest against farm bills passed by India's parliament, at Tikri border near Delhi, India on December 16, 2020. (Reuters) India's 'invincible' women join protests
Legions of women have trekked to India's capital to join the farmer's protests, hoping not only to protect their livelihoods but also win visibility as farmers.
About 75 percent of rural women in India who work full-time are farmers, Oxfam says, with numbers rising as men migrate to work in factories and construction sites. Yet farming is still widely seen as men's work and only 13 percent of women own the land they till.
"Women are never counted as farmers ... we are always counted as housewives, but not workers," said Sunita Rani, 39, who owns a farm of less than an acre in northern Haryana state and joined the protests on New Delhi's border a fortnight ago.
"More women work as farmers than men, but their work is not seen as equal. This is a major national protest and I joined it so people know that we are also farmers," Sunita told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Globally, more than 400 million women farm, yet only about 15% of farmland is owned by women, according to Landesa, a global land rights organisation, with many women doing unpaid work on family farms or as casual labourers.
In order to support women farmers, the government has spent billions of rupees on an empowerment scheme and provides training on agricultural techniques and support to find markets.
"We work from 7am to 5pm on the field, tilling the soil, cultivating, fencing fields but our contribution is not considered ... not a single woman in my village has land ownership," said 27-year-old Kavita Kumari.
Kumari was among hundreds of women farmers and farm workers who travelled for 15 hours in trucks from central Madhya Pradesh state to national highways bordering New Delhi where thousands are camping as entry to the city is barred.
"I have been a farmer since I was a child ... I can ride a bike, and a tractor. People will see if we can come forward for protests, we can also do farming," she said.
Women farmers have taken to the stage during the protests to oppose the new legislation.
"It matters to them to voice their thoughts and perspective on these laws," said Kavitha Kuruganti, convener of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a coalition of farmer groups taking part in the protests.
"Yet tens of thousands remain invisible even now.
It was not possible for men to participate (in the protests) if women were not doubling up back home and taking on the role of men who are here."
Visibility at the protest site, however, might not help women win their identity battle, since the protests are not about their rights, some campaigners said.
"They have always cultivated the land but never been called cultivators. They even get paid less (as farmer labourers) for the work they do," said Jai Singh, founder of Punjab-based charity Volunteers for Social Justice.
"The voices of women you hear at these protests are still very much from the margins.
Change for them will need a different venue and a different protest."
Why Are Farmers Protesting in India? Thousands of protesters, many driving tractors, took to the streets of New Delhi on Tuesday. Who are they, and what do they want?
Indian farmers taking part in a tractor rally in New Delhi on Tuesday against the central government’s new agricultural laws.
At least one protester was killed and 300 police officers were injured after tens of thousands of farmers, many driving tractors, took to the streets of New Delhi on Tuesday to call for the repeal of contentious new agriculture laws.
After months of sustained but peaceful demonstrations on the city’s outskirts, the farmers upstaged the city’s national Republic Day holiday, clashing with the police, destroying barricades and storming the Red Fort, a 400-year-old landmark. In addition to the police officers, many protesters were injured as well.
On Wednesday, the day after the chaos, the farmers returned to their camps on the city’s edge, pledging to continue their movement but canceling plans for a march on foot to India’s Parliament that had been set for Monday.
Protesting farmers have camped outside New Delhi since November.
Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Who are the protesters?
Many of the protesting farmers are members of the Sikh religious minority and come from the states of Punjab and Haryana. Farmers in other parts of the country have held rallies in solidarity.
Since November, thousands of farmers have encamped outside New Delhi, the capital, keeping vigil in sprawling tent cities and threatening to enter if the farm laws were not repealed.
The protest has laid bare the dire reality of inequality across much of the country.
More than 60 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, though the sector accounts for only about 15 percent of the country’s economic output. Their reliance has only increased after the coronavirus pandemic badly struck the urban economy and sent millions of laborers back to their villages. For years, debts and bankruptcies have been driving farmers to high rates of suicide.
The grain market in the Indian city of Khanna, the largest in Asia, last year.
Credit...Karan Deep Singh/The New York Times What do they want?
The protesters are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his efforts to reshape farming in India.
The demonstrators are demanding that Mr. Modi repeal recent farming laws that would minimize the government’s role in agriculture and open more space for private investors. The government says the new laws would unshackle farmers and private investment, bringing growth. But farmers are skeptical, fearing that the removal of state protections that they already consider insufficient would leave them at the mercy of greedy corporations.
THE MORNING: Make sense of the day’s news and ideas. David Leonhardt and Times journalists guide you through what’s happening — and why it matters.Sign Up
Government support for farmers, which included guaranteed minimum prices for certain essential crops, helped India move past the hunger crisis of the 1960s. But with India liberalizing its economy in recent decades, Mr. Modi — who wants the country’s economy to nearly double by 2024 — sees such a large role for the government as no longer sustainable.
Farmers, however, contend that they are struggling even with the existing protections. They say that market-friendly laws will eventually eliminate regulatory support and leave them bereft, with the weakened economy offering little chance of a different livelihood.
Farmers trying to dismantle barricades during the Republic Day protest on Tuesday
.Credit...Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters
How did the violence erupt?
Thousands of protesting farmers poured into New Delhi on Tuesday in what had been expected to be a peaceful protest during holiday celebrations and a military parade overseen by the prime minister.
Some farmers broke with the main march and used tractors to dismantle police barricades. Many farmers carried long swords, tridents, sharp daggers and battle axes — functional if largely ceremonial weapons. Most protesters did not seem to be wearing masks despite the Covid-19 outbreak in India.
Police commanders deployed officers carrying assault rifles. They stood in the middle of main roads, tear gas swirling around them with their rifles aimed at the crowds. In some areas, video footage showed, the police beat protesters with their batons to push them back.
The farmers claim the violence was stoked by the government and outside elements in an effort to derail their months of peaceful protest.
The farmers waved flags and taunted officers. They also breached the Red Fort, the iconic palace that once served as the residence of the Mughal rulers of India, and hoisted atop the ramparts a flag that is often flown on Sikh temples.
Local television channels showed farmers placing the body of a protester in the middle of a road. They claimed the man had been shot, but the police said he had died when his tractor overturned.
The Indian government temporarily suspended internet services across the areas that have been hubs of protest for months, an official at the Home Affairs Ministry confirmed.
A farmer inside a tractor trolley amid the march into the capital on Tuesday.
Mujib Mashal is The New York Times correspondent for South Asia. Born in Kabul, he wrote for magazines such as The Atlantic, Harper’s, Time and others before joining The Times. @MujMash
Emily Schmall is a South Asia correspondent based in New Delhi. @emilyschmall
Russell Goldman is a senior editor on the International Desk of The New York Times, focusing on digital storytelling and breaking news and based in Hong Kong. He is a winner of the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for Excellence. @goldmanrussell
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 28, 2021, Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Laying Bare The History Of Inequality Across India.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Farmers storm India's Red Fort by the thousands Sheikh Saaliq
NOW PLAYING Thousands of farmers stormed the Red Fort in New Delhi to demand the withdrawal of new laws which they say will impact their earnings.
NEW DELHI -- Tens of thousands of farmers marched, rode horses and drove tractors into India's capital on Tuesday, breaking through police barricades to storm the historic Red Fort -- a deeply symbolic act that revealed the scale of their challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
As the country celebrated Republic Day, the long-running protest turned violent, with farmers waving farm union and religious flags from the ramparts of the fort, where prime ministers annually hoist the national flag on the country's August independence holiday. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons and set up barricades in an attempt to prevent the protesters from reaching the centre of New Delhi, but the demonstrators broke through in many places.
People watched in shock as the takeover of the fort, which was built in the 17th century and served as the palace of Mughal emperors, was shown live on hundreds of news channels. Protesters, some carrying ceremonial swords, ropes and sticks, overwhelmed police.
The farmers have been staging largely peaceful protests for nearly two months, demanding the withdrawal of new laws that they say will favour large corporate farms and devastate the earnings of smaller scale farmers.
The contentious legislation has exacerbated existing resentment among farmers, who have long been seen as the heart and soul of India but often complain of being ignored by the government. As their protest has gathered strength, it has rattled the government like never before since they form the most influential voting bloc in India and are also crucial to its economy.
"We want to show Modi our strength," said Satpal Singh, a farmer who drove into the capital on a tractor along with his family of five. "We will not surrender."
Leaders of the farmers said more than 10,000 tractors joined the protest, and thousands more people marched on foot or rode on horseback while shouting slogans against Modi. At some places, they were showered with flower petals by residents who recorded the unprecedented protest on their phones.
Authorities used tear gas, water cannons and placed large trucks and buses in roads to try to hold back crowd, including rows upon rows of tractors, which shoved aside concrete and steel barricades. Police said one protester died after his tractor overturned, but farmers said he was shot. Several bloodied protesters could be seen in television footage.
Farmers -- many of them Sikhs from Punjab and Haryana states -- tried to march into New Delhi in November but were stopped by police. Since then, unfazed by the winter cold and frequent rains, they have hunkered down at the edge of the city and threatened to besiege it if the farm laws are not repealed.
"We will do as we want to. You cannot force your laws on the poor," said Manjeet Singh, a protesting farmer.
The government insists that the agriculture reform laws passed by Parliament in September will benefit farmers and boost production through private investment. But the farmers fear it will leave those who hold small plots behind as big corporations win out.
The government has offered to amend the laws and suspend their implementation for 18 months. But farmers insist they will settle for nothing less than a complete repeal and plan to march on foot to Parliament on Feb. 1.
Farmers are the latest group to upset Modi's image of imperturbable dominance in Indian politics.
Since returning to power for a second term, Modi's government has been rocked by several convulsions. The economy has tanked, social strife has widened, protests have erupted against laws some deem discriminatory and his government has been questioned over its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2019, the year that witnessed the first major protests against his administration, a diverse coalition of groups rallied against a contentious new citizenship law that they said discriminated against Muslims.
But the latest protests -- which began in northern states that are major agricultural producers -- have triggered a growing farmer rebellion that is fast spreading to other parts of the country, presenting a serious challenge to Modi's government.
Agriculture supports more than half of the country's 1.4 billion people. But the economic clout of farmers has diminished over the last three decades. Once producing a third of India's gross domestic product, farmers now account for only 15% of the country's $2.9 trillion economy.
More than half of farmers are in debt, with 20,638 killing themselves in 2018 and 2019, according to official records.
Devinder Sharma, an agriculture expert who has spent the last two decades campaigning for income equality for Indian farmers, said they are not only protesting the reforms but also "challenging the entire economic design of the country."
"The anger that you see is compounded anger," Sharma said. "Inequality is growing in India and farmers are becoming poorer. Policy planners have failed to realize this and have sucked the income from the bottom to the top. The farmers are only demanding what is their right."
Modi has tried to dismiss the farmers' fears as unfounded and has repeatedly accused opposition parties of agitating them by spreading rumours.
The protests overshadowed Republic Day celebrations, in which Modi oversaw a traditional lavish parade along ceremonial Rajpath boulevard displaying the country's military power and cultural diversity. Authorities shut some metro train stations, and mobile internet service was suspended in some parts of the capital, a frequent tactic of the government to thwart protests.
The parade was scaled back because of the pandemic. People wore masks and adhered to social distancing as police and military battalions marched along the route displaying their latest equipment.
Republic Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the country's constitution on Jan. 26, 1950.
Police said the protesting farmers broke away from the approved protest routes and resorted to "violence and vandalism."
The group that organized the protest, Samyukt Kisan Morcha, or United Farmers' Front, blamed the violence on "anti-social elements" who "infiltrated an otherwise peaceful movement."
------
AP video journalist Rishabh R. Jain contributed to this report RELATED IMAGES
Indian Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel march during Republic Day celebrations in Hyderabad, India, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)
Sikhs wave the Nishan Sahib, a Sikh religious flag, as they arrive at the historic Red Fort monument in New Delhi, India, on Jan. 26, 2021. (Dinesh Joshi / AP
Indian farmers storm historic Red Fort in Republic Day protests
Growers have camped outside New Delhi for almost 2 months
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Jan 26, 2021
Protesters gather at the Red Fort as Indian farmers continue to demonstrate against the central government's recent agricultural reforms in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
Thousands of Indian farmers protesting against agricultural reforms overwhelmed police on Tuesday and stormed into the historic Red Fort complex in New Delhi after tearing down barricades and driving tractors through roadblocks.
Police fired tear gas in an unsuccessful bid to force the protesters back. One protester was killed, a witness said, and Delhi police said 86 officers had been injured across the city.
Some of those who scaled the walls of Red Fort carried ceremonial swords, scattering police who tried to prevent them from entering. Footage from Reuters partner ANI showed police jumping from the ramparts to escape. Once inside, the protesters hoisted flags.
Angered by laws they say help large, private buyers at the expense of producers, farmers have camped outside the capital for almost two months, posing one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he came to power in 2014.
"Modi will hear us now, he will have to hear us now," said Sukhdev Singh, 55, a farmer from the northern state of Punjab.
The body of one protester draped in an Indian tricolour lay in the street after the tractor he rode overturned in one clash, said a witness, Vishu Arora.
"He died right there," Arora said.
Indian farmers descend on capital to protest reforms
A Reuters witness saw several police and protesters with head injuries following clashes at the Red Fort, from whose ramparts Modi delivers an annual speech.
The government ordered internet services in some parts of the capital to be blocked, according to mobile carrier Vodafone Idea, in an attempt to prevent further unrest. Breakaway protests condemned
Tens of thousands of farmers began the day in a convoy of tractors festooned with flags along the city's fringes.
But hundreds of protesters — some on horseback — broke away from approved routes, heading for government buildings in the city centre where the annual Republic Day parade of troops and military hardware was taking place.
They commandeered cranes and used ropes to tear down roadblocks, forcing constables in riot gear to give way, Reuters witnesses said. A second group rode tractors to a traffic junction, also breaching barricades after clashes with police.
Police accused those who diverged from the agreed routes of "violence and destruction."
"They have caused great damage to public property and many police personnel have also been injured," a police statement said.
Farmers in New Delhi take part in a tractor rally on Tuesday as they demonstrate against the Indian government's recent agricultural reforms. (Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images)
Protest organizer Samyukt Kisan Morcha said the groups deviating from set routes did not represent the majority of farmers.
"We also condemn and regret the undesirable and unacceptable events that have taken place today and dissociate ourselves from those indulging in such acts," the group of farm unions said in a statement.
Amarinder Singh, chief minister of Punjab state where many of the protesters came from, called the clashes "shocking."
"The violence by some elements is unacceptable," he said in a tweet. "It'll negate goodwill generated by peacefully protesting farmers." Farmers' unrest concerns government
Agriculture employs about half of India's population of 1.3 billion, and unrest among an estimated 150 million landowning farmers worries the government.
Nine rounds of talks with farmers' unions have failed to end the protests, as farm leaders rejected the government's offer to delay the laws for 18 months, making a push for repeal instead.
A farmer in New Delhi covers his face to protect himself from
tear gas during the protest on Tuesday against controversial
farm laws introduced by the government.
(Adnan Abidi/Reuters)
"The farm organizations have a very strong hold," said Ambar Kumar Ghosh, an analyst at New Delhi think-tank the Observer Research Foundation.
"They have the resources to mobilize support, and to continue the protest for a long time. They have also been very successful in keeping the protest really focused."
India showcases its military hardware with a parade every year on Republic Day, which marks the adoption of its constitution in 1950.
Shambhu border, India — Balvinder Singh lies on his side, writhing in pain, on a hospital bed in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
When Singh, 47, was hit by a volley of piercing objects while marching towards New Delhi with thousands of other farmers, he did not know what had struck him.
But his body is pockmarked with telltale black scars from iron pellets fired by security forces to prevent farmers from crossing over from Punjab into the state of Haryana, which borders New Delhi. Haryana is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, whose federal policies the farmers are protesting against.
Singh, a farmer from Faridkot district in Punjab, who was admitted at Rajindra Hospital in the city of Patiala, was hit when he was calming the angry young farmers at the front of the protest site, metres away from the border on February 14, a day after the protests began.
“I was calming down the protesters when I was hit,” Singh says, his left eye bloody from a pellet injury. “I could not understand whether it was a bullet or something else that hurt me.”
Singh says he had never heard of iron pellets being used as ammunition by security forces against civilian protesters. In the past, such pellets have been mostly used in Indian-administered Kashmir as a crowd-control mechanism. Pellet guns have blinded scores of people in Kashmir.
Balvinder Singh, his eye bloodied by a wound from an iron pellet fired by police, in a hospital in Patiala, Punjab
[Md Meherban/Al Jazeera]
Now, they are part of the intensifying confrontation between farmers and the government. The government in Punjab, which is ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party that is in opposition nationally, has said that three farmers have lost their eyesight after being hit with the Haryana police pellets and a dozen others have also suffered pellet injuries.
Critics of the farmers, meanwhile, argue that the central government cannot allow the protests to escalate the way they did in 2021, when clashes broke out on the streets of New Delhi. Some protesters reached the Red Fort – from where the prime minister delivers the Independence Day speech – and were accused of yanking down the national flag. A security crackdown followed.
Yet, days after this latest agitation kicked off, there are growing signs of a repeat of the kind of escalation in tensions that India witnessed three years ago.
Thousands of farmers in their tractor trolleys, small trucks, on foot, and scooters have travelled from rural areas of Punjab and gathered on the Punjab-Haryana highway waiting to march on the capital city. They are hoping to press the BJP government for demands including a guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for their crops and loan waivers, among others.
In Haryana, the government has been criticised for using drones to drop tear gas shells on the protesting farmers. The state’s police have sealed the border with heavy cemented blocks, iron nails and barbed wire.
Singh, who owns a four-acre plot where he grows rice and wheat, says there is no guarantee of price in the fluctuating market for other crops.
“We spend more on cultivation [when growing other crops] and there is no earning,” he says.
“Now, we are also facing water shortages for even growing these two crops [rice and wheat]. We are in deep stress.”
At present the government buys rice and wheat from farmers for public distribution, and offers them a minimum support price for these grains. But other agricultural commodities do not receive this price protection. That, farmers say, has in turn led to the overproduction of rice and wheat. Paddies in particular, are water intensive, leading to depleted groundwater levels.
“If I want to diversify to other crops, there should be financial security for me that I will get a good price – that is what we are asking. We are asking for our rights,” says Singh, from the hospital, where eight other farmers, some aged above 60, are also being treated.
One of them, Mota Singh, 32, from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, said that he was hit by a rubber bullet on his hand. To Mota, something even more fundamental is at stake than crop prices.
“Farmers are demanding dignity, we cannot be poor forever,” says Mota, when asked why he was protesting.
Female farmers listen to a speech by a farming leader at the protest site on the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab
[Md Meherban/Al Jazeera]
Why are farmers again on the roads?
More than 250 farmers’ unions have supported the protest that is being organised from Punjab.
Up to two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population are engaged in agriculture-related activities for their livelihoods and the sector contributes nearly a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product.
Farmers say that their main demand – minimum support price legislation – would ensure that the rates of their crops are sustainable and provide them with decent earnings.
At present, the government protects wheat and rice against the price fall by setting a minimum purchase price, a system that was introduced more than 60 years ago, to ensure food security in India.
Development economist Jayati Ghosh says that if other crops were also brought under the MSP regime, it would help provide sustainable financial support to the farmers. This wouldn’t mean that the government would need to buy large volumes of these crops, says Ghosh, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
It’s only when the price drops below the MSP that the government would need to step in and buy just enough that the price rises above the minimum set bar, she says.
“It’s a market intervention that makes sure that farmers have this other option,” Ghosh says.
In India, experts say that agriculture has been going through a severe crisis due to increasing extreme weather combined with a lowering water table, affecting yields and pushing farmers deep into debt. Thousands of farmers take their own lives each year. In 2022, data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that 11,290 farmers died by suicide.
Ghosh questions why the government is reluctant to write off farm loans.
“Every year the banking system writes off loans of lakhs of crores (billions of dollars) of money taken by large corporations and that is not even mentioned and it is not even news,” she says. “The corporations can get away with all kinds of loan waivers but the farmers are asking a small fraction of that and … are treated as criminals.”
Injured farmers at a hospital in Patiala, Punjab, where they are being treated for injuries received during baton charges and pellet gun firing by the police
[Md Meherban/Al Jazeera] ‘Government not honouring its promises’
The farmers are also demanding that the Modi government withdraw cases filed against them during the last protest in 2020-21.
Held on the outskirts of New Delhi for 13 months, those protests were against a set of three farm laws brought in by the BJP government that aimed to push India’s family-based, smallholdings-driven farm sector towards privatised and industrialised agriculture.
The government argued that the laws would improve market competition and in turn bring new wealth, especially to smaller farmers. But farmers protested, worried that the laws would leave them at the mercy of big corporations.
Eventually, Modi agreed to repeal the laws, and his government said it would set up a panel of stakeholders to find ways to ensure support prices for all produce.
The protesting farmers now accuse the government of not honouring those promises. And they are readying for a long wait to pressure the government.
Hardeep Singh, 57, from Gurdaspur in Punjab, has come prepared with bags of rice, flour, and other essentials in his tractor.
“We are here even if it takes months,” says Hardeep, who left his home with dozens of other villagers on February 11.
“We might not be allowed to go forward but we will not go backward, either.”
Darshan Singh displaying the photo of his son who died in the farmers’ protest two years ago
[Md Meherban/Al Jazeera]
‘Not afraid of losing my health’
Darshan Singh, 66, sits silently on the side of the highway. He carries a passport-size photo of his son, 27-year-old Gurpreet Singh, in his wallet.
Gurpreet was among more than 700 farmers who died during the previous farmers’ protest in 2021.
“He was at the protest site for a year. He fell sick at the site and died after returning to the village. We are giving sacrifices for this movement,” Darshan tells Al Jazeera. But that tragedy has not deterred the father from joining the protest this time. “I am not afraid of losing my health here.”
Darshan says he wants justice for the two children and young wife his son left behind.
With national elections in India just two months away, the farmers are trying to ensure that they cannot be ignored. Because of their sheer numbers, farmers constitute a significant chunk of Indian voters.
The ruling BJP government recently conferred the nation’s highest civilian award on MS Swaminathan, a pioneer of the agricultural revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, the opposition Congress party has promised to legalise an MSP on crops if elected to power.
A government delegation has been engaged in negotiations with the protesting farmers without a breakthrough.
“We feel the government wants to suppress us and pass time,” Manjeet Singh, a leader of Bhartiya Kisan Union Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a local farmers’ union from Haryana, told Al Jazeera.
A fourth round of talks on Sunday evening, held between a 14-member farmers’ delegation and government representatives, including three federal ministers, failed to yield a breakthrough.
The government has offered farmers MSP for pulses, cotton and maize. The crops, according to the proposal, would be bought by the government agencies on an agreement for five years.
But the farmers have rejected the offer, which they argue only temporarily addresses their demand – unlike a law that would guarantee them MSP for these commodities in the long run. The farmers say they will continue with their protest march to New Delhi.
Farmers rest in a tractor trolley at the protest site on the Shambhu border between the Indian states of Haryana and Punjab
[Md Meherban/Al Jazeera]
‘Why can’t farmers be prosperous?’
Devinder Sharma, a food and agricultural expert based in Chandigarh, the capital of both Punjab and Haryana, says that the farmers’ demands have merit.
“We have deliberately kept agriculture impoverished,” he says, adding that an MSP law could provide an unprecedented economic boom for the country by improving the income of a majority of the nation’s families that depend on agriculture.
He is not surprised at the pushback the farmers are facing from critics, mostly in the cities, though.
“The problem is when the prices go up the corporate profit is reduced. The (corporates) want to ruthlessly exploit farmers and I think enough is enough,” he says.
“Why can’t farmers be prosperous?”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
With cranes and excavators, Indian farmers prepare to march on capital
A farmer wears a makeshift mask to protect himself from tear gas fired by the police, at the site where farmers are marching towards New Delhi to press for better crop prices promised to them in 2021, at Shambhu barrier, a border crossing between Punjab and Haryana states, India, Feb 21, 2024. PHOTO: Reuters
FEBRUARY 21, 2024
SHAMBHU, India — Indian police fired tear gas on Wednesday (Feb 21) to scatter protesting farmers as they resumed a march to the capital, equipped with cranes and excavators after talks with the government on guaranteed prices for their produce failed to break a deadlock.
To escape the stinging gas and clouds of smoke, thousands of farmers, some wearing medical masks, ran into the fields surrounding their gathering-point on a highway about 200 km north of New Delhi.
The police action came as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a fresh offer to resume talks on the farmers' demands. Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda urged the farmers to resolve their grievances through the talks.
"After the fourth round, the government is ready to discuss all the issues" such as guaranteed prices, he posted on social network X, as the march resumed.
"I again invite the farmer leaders for discussion. It is important for us to maintain peace."
On Monday, the farmers' groups had rejected the government's previous proposal for five-year contracts and guaranteed support prices for produce such as corn, cotton and pulses.
Farmers shout slogans, as they stand on a modified excavator, during a protest demanding better crop prices, promised to them in 2021, at Shambhu Barrier, a border crossing between Punjab and Haryana states, India, Feb 20, 2024. PHOTO: Reuters
The farmers, mostly from the northern state of Punjab, have been demanding higher prices backed by law for their crops. They form an influential bloc of voters Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot afford to anger ahead of general elections due by May. Sticks, stones, gas masks
The farmers began marching at 0530 GMT from the spot where authorities had stopped them by erecting barricades on the border of Punjab state with Haryana, blocking a key highway.
"It is not right that such massive barricades have been placed to stop us," said one of the farmers' leaders, Jagjit Singh Dallewal. "We want to march to Delhi peacefully. If not, they should accede to our demands."
Police in riot gear lined both sides of the highway as the farmers, gathering earlier amid morning fog, waved colourful flags emblazoned with the symbols of their unions, while loudspeakers urged them to fight for their rights.
Television images showed some wearing gas masks.
Late on Tuesday, Haryana police's chief ordered the immediate seizure of the heavy equipment brought by the farmers, to prevent its use by protesters in destroying barricades.
Police also asked owners of such equipment not to lend or rent it to protesters, as its use to harm security forces would be a criminal offence.
Farmers guide a modified excavator, during a protest demanding better crop prices, promised to them in 2021, at Shambhu Barrier, a border crossing between Punjab and Haryana states, India, Feb 20, 2024. PHOTO: Reuters
About 10,000 people had gathered on Wednesday, along with 1,200 tractors and waggons at Shambhu on the state border, police in Haryana posted on X, warning against the risk of stone-throwing as they were armed with sticks and stones.
Sunday's government proposal of minimum support prices to farmers who diversify their crops to grow cotton, pigeon peas, black matpe, red lentils and corn was rejected by the protesters, who wanted additional foodgrains covered.
Similar protests two years ago, when farmers camped for two months at the border of New Delhi, forced Modi's government to repeal a set of farm laws.
Police fire teargas as Indian farmers resume protest march to New Delhi after talks fail
Police have fired tear gas at thousands of Indian farmers who resumed their protest march to New Delhi after talks with the government failed to end an impasse over their demands for guaranteed crop prices
ByALTAF QADRI Associated Press and KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press
February 21, 2024
SHAMBHU, India -- Police fired tear gas on Wednesday at thousands of Indian farmers who resumed their protest march to New Delhi after talks with the government failed to end an impasse over their demands for guaranteed crop prices.
The protests come at a crucial time for India, where national elections are due in the coming months and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is widely expected to secure a third successive term in office.
The farmers began their protest last week but were stopped some 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the capital. Authorities are set on containing the protest, which has renewed the movement from over two years ago when tens of thousands of farmers had camped out on the outskirts of the city for over a year.
At the time, the farmers pitched tents, bought food supplies and held out in the sit-in until they forced Modi to repeal new agriculture laws in a major reversal for his government.
This time around, the authorities have barricaded the highways into New Delhi with cement blocks, metal containers, barbed wire and iron spikes to prevent the farmer from entering.
On Wednesday, the farmers arrived at the barricades with bulldozers and excavators to try and push through.
Jagjit Singh Dallewal, one of the farmers leading the march, said they did not want any violence, but condemned the federal government over the massive security measures.
“It is our request that we want to go to Delhi in a peaceful manner. The government should remove the barricades,” he said.
Last week, the farmers had paused their protest and hunkered down near the town of Shambhu, close to the border between Punjab and Haryana states, as farmers unions engaged in discussions with government ministers.
They rejected a proposal from the government that offered them five-year contracts of guaranteed prices on a set of certain crops, including maize, grain legumes and cotton, and the farmers resumed their march on Wednesday.
The protest organizers say the farmers are seeking a new legislation that would guarantee minimum prices for 23 crops.
The government protects agricultural producers against sharp falls in farm prices by setting a minimum purchase price for certain essential crops, a system that was introduced in the 1960s to help shore up food reserves and prevent shortages. The system can apply up to 23 crops, but the government usually offers the minimum price only for rice and wheat.
The farmers say guaranteed minimum support price for all 23 crops would stabilize their income. They are also pressing the government to follow through on promises to waive loans and withdraw legal cases brought against them during the earlier 2021 protests.
Several talks so far have failed to break the deadlock. But Arjun Munda, one of the ministers negotiating with the farmers, said they were willing to hold another discussion and that the government wanted to maintain peace.
“It is the prime minister’s responsibility, who has been elected with majority votes, to handle the situation and accept our demands,” Sarwan Singh Pandher, a farm leader, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The farmers are an influential voting bloc and particularly important to Modi’s base — especially in Northern Haryana and several other states with a substantial farming population that are ruled by his Bharatiya Janata Party.
___
Pathi reported from New Delhi.
Thousands of Indian farmers prepare to continue march on Delhi
They are demanding higher prices backed by law for their crops
Thousands of Indian farmers prepared to march on the capital on Wednesday to pressure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to meet their demands.
Last week, farmers from Punjab and Haryana, the states responsible for 60 per cent of India's wheat production, started their journey to New Delhi on foot and by tractors. However, they were halted about 200km from their destination by road blockades erected by police and paramilitary forces.
The farmers waited while representatives held talks with the government but decided to press on with their march after a meeting on Monday ended without agreement on their main demand of minimum supports prices for their crops.
Braving the cold and rain, farmers stood on a bridge over the Ghaggar river on Wednesday morning amid preparations to push through barricades. The bridge is on a motorway that passes from Punjab through Haryana, ruled by Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, to Delhi.
The motorway was blocked when farmers from the two states launched a sit-in in 2020 after they were stopped from entering Delhi to protest.
Authorities brought in more than 700 more security personnel and dug trenches to prevent the farmers moving forward. Internet and SMS services were cut off in Haryana.
“We are not scared of the authorities. Last time, we protested for a year. This time around, if they don’t fulfil our demands, we will spend our entire lives here protesting for our rights,” Jaspreet Singh, a farmer from Punjab, told The National.
“We have all the preparations in place to go through the barricade and we still appeal to the government to not use force against us and allow us to go to Delhi which is our constitutional right,” said Manjeet Singh, another farmer.
The farmers have rejected a government offer to buy pulses, maize and cotton at guaranteed prices through cooperatives for five years, saying they want minimum support prices for 23 crops.
The protest has already caused disruption in Delhi, with long traffic jams at entry points to the city where police and paramilitary forces have been posted.