“Unless this black law is repealed, we are not going to relent. We will not move to the ground allotted by government, we will only go to Jantar-Mantar where we will stage a peaceful protest’ “ we are here to stay until the Modi government withdraws the three anti-farmer agricultural legislations”. These were the words of the protesting farmers at the Delhi–Haryana border . Tens of thousands of farmers continued their march into Delhi, surmounting huge obstacles and repression under the directions of the Centre. The waiting lines of the their rally extended more than 80 k.ms from the Delhi borders.
The entire country is watching the brave and heroic fight of the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and several other states of India who have been marching to Delhi so that their voices can be heard. Never in the recent history of India has such a big movement of farmers been witnessed at such a widespread level.The determination and conviction of farmers can be understood by their preparation for the movement as they are ready to cope the hardships for the next four to five months. Uttar Pradesh government came under severe criticism for its brutal, barbaric repressive behaviour against farmers’ protests in the state. Protestors from Uttarakhand have also been camping in Uttar Pradesh since they have been disallowed to proceed further and detained by the UP police.The AIKSCC(All India Kisan Sanghrsh Samanay Samiti), BKU(Rajewal), BKU(Chaduni) and other farmers’ organizations have called out the government of India to immediately address the issues of the farmers and solve them rather than create a subterfuge about talks with no solution in mind.A joint press release of all struggling organizations said “The lack of sincerity of this government is apparent in numerous ways. Empty assurances and statements will not be believed by farmers any more. The government chose to ignore farmer protests for months on end now, and tried to malign it in numerous ways. It spent crores of rupees of taxpayers’ money in a publicity blitzkrieg in the name of ‘farmers being misinformed’. This very attitude and approach of the Govt. is unacceptable” The farmers bodies came down heavily on the GOI for its complete failure to address the issues being raised by the farmers, viz. annulling the 3 Acts and withdrawing the Electricity Bill 2020. While the Govt. is still justifying these Acts as helpful to farmers and their income, farmers all over the country want these Acts repealed. These Acts will not only undermine Govt. procurement and MSP, they will completely subjugate entire farming to Contracts by Companies, Indian and foreign corporations and deprive farmers of their land and respectable livelihood. Experience of contract farming has been disastrous and farmers know how it increases indebtedness and sale of their land.
Countering the government propaganda that farmers are being egged on by vested interests like political parties and commission agents in this agitation, farmer organisations pointed out that this movement is beyond party politics and any sponsored event would never have seen such massive groundswell of mobilization, or calm determination to get demands met, or such a sustained movement for months on end. They said that the Govt. should stop spreading canards and get down to sincerely addressing farmers’ demands rather than avoid them.
The farmers’ leaders also countered the fact that these protests are mainly Punjab-centric. The Govt. also had extended its invitation for December 3rd talks only to Punjab farmer unions, pretending and arguing that other farmers are happy with their reform. while national media may choose to ignore, state governments will vouch for the fact that agitations are underway in numerous states including in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and so on.
The anger of protesting farmers against the Modi Government can be understood by the words of an old ad bearded farmer, who had migrated to India during partition, he says,“ We were first ravaged by partition during 1947-48 and now Modi government is devastating our lives by introducing the new farm laws.”
Anish Ankur is a freelance journalist- based in Patna.
