Farmers Movement Archive

Mann ki Baat: Farmers bang plates to drown out PM’s speech

Farmers protesting at Delhi’s borders against a set of contentious new agricultural laws enacted by the government marked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann ki Baat monthly radio address on Sunday by clanging utensils -- the way in which the PM had asked people to show their gratitude to medical personnel and other staff at the frontline of the fight against Covid-19 on March 22, the day of the Janata curfew.At the Singhu and Tikri borders, farmers picked up and banged steel plates, used tin cans and canisters and even metal pots used for cooking. “We did not want to hear the prime minister’s Mann ki Baa’. By beating plates, we ensured no one would hear his talk,” said Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of the Dakonda (Punjab) unit of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. To protest against the government for not repealing the three farm laws, many farmers’ group gathered on Delhi’s borders had earlier announced that they would clang utensils when the PM makes monthly radio address. The farmers last Sunday had given a call for the plates to be beaten during the PM’s radio programme to drown out the speech. The farmers said this may be the first time that they greeted the programme that way, but certainly not the last. “As long as we stay here, we’ll greet his programmes the same way,” said Balwinder Singh, president of the Majha Kisan Sangharsh Committee. Sunday’s protest at the borders was also marked also by loud slogan chanting against the government. “We knew the timeframe from when the prime minister’s speech would be delivered. We didn’t even need to switch on the radio. We kept beating the metal items. We had enough utensils and sufficient wooden logs here to go about the clanging and raise our protest,” said Harbhajan Singh, a farmer from Agwan village in Gurdaspur, who is camping at the Tikri Border. Jagmohan Singh said that while a dialogue with the government is scheduled for Tuesday, the farmers will organise a procession of tractors from Delhi’s borders to places like Shahjahanpur in Rajasthan and Palwal in Haryana.Thousands of farmers have camped on Delhi’s borders since November 26 to protest against the three farm laws that allow agribusinesses to trade with minimal regulation, permit traders to stockpile large quantities of food commodities for economies of scale and lay down new contract farming rules.Farmers say the new rules favour big corporations to whom they will lose business and gradually end the system of state-set minimum prices.

Hindustan Times

28-12-2020

India