Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers to march to Parliament during monsoon session

Farmers protesting three contentious agricultural laws enacted last year said on Sunday they will take their demonstration to the national capital and protest outside Parliament during the entire duration of the upcoming monsoon session, setting the stage for a fresh deadlock between farm unions and the government.A group of around 200 farmers will protest against the Centre’s three farm laws outside Parliament every day during the monsoon session, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) said on Sunday.The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a platform of more than 35 farm unions spearheading the protests, spurned the government’s offer to put the three laws on hold to look into problems that the farmers may have had with any specific provisions, demanding that the government scrap the legislation entirely.Also Read: Farmers' protest may be sabotaged by Pakistan's ISI, alerts intel reportThe umbrella body said at a news briefing that two days before the session begins, a “chetavani patra” (warning letter) will be given to all Opposition MPs to protest the laws inside the House.“This is an ultimatum. We can’t wait forever and we are being forced to move into the Capital,” Gurnam Singh Charuni, a farm leader, said. Parliament convenes on July 19 for its monsoon session.The farm unions said they will intensify their protests, move protesters along with their tractors to the vicinity of Parliament and also organise demonstrations across the country.In November last year, thousands of farmers had pitched tents at five sites near Delhi’s borders — Singhu, Ghaziabad, Tikri, Dhansa and Shahjahanpur (on the Rajasthan-Haryana border) — from where they have been carrying on their protests.The call by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha to march into the Capital is likely to be met with resistance from the Delhi Police because such protests near Parliament are barred. On January 26, a tractor rally by the farmers on Republic Day in the national capital turned violent when protesters clashed with policemen and breached the Red Fort.The farm unions’ platform said nothing short of repeal of the laws would be acceptable to them and “mere tinkering here and there will not work”.“Ministers have been stating that the government is ready for talks, provided that the farmers are ready to discuss provisions that they have problems with. The ministers are also stating that the government will not repeal the three black central laws. Farmers have already clearly stated why amendments will not work,” Darshan Pal, a key leader of the unions, said.The cultivators say the laws enacted by the Narendra Modi-led government to liberalise farm trade will leave them at the mercy of large corporations and jeopardise their livelihoods. They have also said the new laws would lead to the dismantling of a system of assured prices that the government offers for farm produce.The government has billed the laws as necessary reforms to modernise India’s farming sector deemed largely unproductive. The gross domestic product (GDP) per worker in agriculture is one-third of the economy-wide GDP per worker. This means productivity in agriculture is too low to lift the overall economy.Despite 11 rounds of talks — the last one was held on January 22 — there has been no point of agreement between the government and the farmers. The government then offered to freeze the laws for 18 months, a proposal which the farmers had rejected.“We have been peaceful and always will be peaceful,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal, another farm leader who sits on the decision-making committee of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha.On Thursday, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government was ready to talk to farmers and willing to look into their objections to the three laws.“We are ready to talk to the farm union on any issue they may have except on the question of repealing the farm laws,” Tomar said while on a tour to Morena in Madhya Pradesh.The farmers say a number of convoys of tractors will begin heading towards the Capital as part of their plan to step up their agitation. One convoy left Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and more are reaching protest sites with people and material, such as food and cooking gas, said Rajewal.The three agricultural laws have virtually tested the Modi government’s ability to push reforms in the farm sector and thrown up a political challenge of sorts.“It is easier to do a stock-market reform or financial reform because its scope is limited to a certain elite section of the population. But when it comes to hard reforms affecting masses, such as labour or agricultural reforms, these are areas where we will see big challenges,” said KK Kailash, who teaches political science at the University of Hyderabad.Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament in February that the system of minimum support prices “was there and will continue to be there”.The Supreme Court had put the three laws on hold on January 12.The government has said that the changes in the farm-trade system in the country envisaged by the laws were necessary to bring investment and growth in the farm sector, which supports nearly half the population.Farmers say the laws would work against their interests. “The crux of the matter is that the government’s laws are centered around large corporations which are against the interest of farmers and consumers. Why can’t markets be farmer-led?” asked Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture who the farmers had nominated to argue their case with the government during talks held earlier this year.

Hindustan Times

05-07-2021

India