Farmers Movement Archive

Kisan unions reject the Centre’s ‘clause by clause’ discussion offer, vow protests at villages, blocks, districts

NEW DELHI: A day after agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar expressed the government’s willingness to discuss farm laws “clause by clause”, farmers’ unions on Tuesday once again rejected the outreach and instead announced plans for protests in several cities. The unions’ protest plans for the next 14 days include organising rallies against the farm laws in Kolkata on Wednesday, Manipur on Saturday, Mumbai on December 22 and Patna on December 29. They also said they will hold protests at village, block and district levels in different states and while unions claimed the December 14 protests a success, the disruptions were largely in the Delhi-NCR region. “The government is saying it won’t repeal these laws, we are saying we will make you do it,” farmer leader Jagjeet Dallewal said, signalling the unions’ resolve on the 20th day of their protests. “We are not running away from negotiation, but the government has to pay heed to our demand of repealing the laws,” he said while addressing a joint press conference with other leaders at the Delhi-Haryana Singhu border. On Tomar’s proposal that talks would happen once the unions gave their opinion on the government’s proposals, the leaders said they had rejected these the day they had received them last week. “If the government wants our written opinion, we’ll send our rejection to those proposals in writing as well,” they said. Emphasizing that their fight has reached a stage where they are determined to win at any cost, the farmer leaders said they decided to observe a ‘Shraddhanjali Diwas’ (Homage Day) across the country on December 20 for all the farmers who lost their lives during the ongoing protest. “You can well imagine the reaction of people if photographs of those who died during the protest reach their villages,” said Dallewal, hinting at involvement of more farmers in the protests in coming days. The stand of farm unions was also elaborated by leader of All India Kisan Sabha and former CPM MP, Hanna Mollah, who, while addressing a separate press conference, said there was nothing in the laws which could be discussed “clause by clause” when the farm representatives told the government in as many words that only repeal of the laws would be acceptable to farmers. Asked whether at any point of time the government side had shown willingness towards considering the demand of repeal of laws, Mollah claimed home minister Amit Shah had agreed to consider this but corrected himself. “I think it was just a slip of tongue on his part. So, in a way, we had never heard anything on repealing the law from the government side,” he said. On a question whether the farm unions would consider talking to the government over the proposal of legal guarantee to purchase at minimum support price (MSP) as demanded by different farm organizations, Mollah emphasized the demand of repealing the central farm laws needs to be addressed first. He said, “Anything would come on the agenda only after addressing the first demand of repealing the central farm laws.” On the other hand, more farmer organisations are coming out in support of farm laws. One such group from Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Kisan Union (Kisan), met Tomar and submitted a memorandum on suggestions for strengthening the farm laws and their demand that the “MSP should be made legal and there should be a penalty if anyone sells produce below MSP”. Thanking them for their support for farm laws, Tomar said the government was willing to continue dialogue with “genuine farm unions” and was willing to find a solution with an open mind. He, however, said, “The MSP is an administrative decision and will continue as it is” – an indication that any assurance for law on giving legal guarantee to MSP would not be possible. After meeting the minister, the BKU (Kisan) leaders announced their decision to stay away from the farmers’ protests. They said they would rather visit villages and try to make farmers aware of the benefits of the farm laws. Reacting over these meetings of pro-farm laws groups with Tomar, the protesting farmers' groups said the “meetings with so-called farmer leaders are illusory and diversionary tactics to draw attention away from farmers’ problems because people whom the minister was talking to neither represented the struggling farmers nor did they articulate their demands”.

The Times of India

2020-12-16

India