The farmers have been camped out on the outskirts of the city for over two months in protest against the introduction of a number of new laws: they are afraid of losing the power to negotiate the price of their own products and of being at the mercy of whims. from major buyers. However, they were never allowed to enter the city, but this Tuesday, on Republic Day, they were allowed to do so.
Tens of thousands of farmers with beards and turbans, most of them still wrapped in thick scarves against the winter cold, traveled to New Delhi on their tractors and horses. Protesters soon deviated from the permitted routes, and marched to the center, where the military would hold its annual parade on this national holiday – although this time it was a lot smaller due to corona.
The farmers broke through police cordons, used cranes and ropes to break open roadblocks, and forced officers to withdraw. In the heart of the old town, they climbed the walls of the iconic Red Fort, which dates back to the 16th century, and hoisted the flag of the Sikh faith next to that of the national flag. Many of the farmers are from the Punjab (together with Haryana state the ‘granary’ of India), which is also where most of the country’s Sikhs live.
Diljender Singh, a Punjabi farmer, stood on the wall of the Red Fort in the afternoon, telling the British newspaper The Guardian that they had been demonstrating for six months, and the government just didn’t listen to them. ‘Our ancestors have attacked this fortress several times in the past. With this we show the government that we can do that again if they do not meet our requirements. ‘
This is not the first time. Those whose memory is not bad will remember that this movement took place after the Nirbhaya case at Rashtrapati Bhavan. This did not end democracy. Termites of Indian democracy are inside, not outside power. Democracy is never threatened by public. They will return. pic.twitter.com/Ki5UMsQQNW
– Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) January 26, 2021
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who watched the army parade just 2 kilometers from the riot, drove to his home before it could come to a confrontation. The farmers’ protests, an important part of his electorate, are a headache for him.
He presented the new laws, rushed through parliament last summer, as a great improvement: reforming a sector suffering from bureaucracy, inefficiency and waste. The state-regulated agricultural market would be thrown open, giving farmers more freedom to sell their produce. But farmers fear that all protection will soon disappear, such as minimum prices that the government still guarantees for wheat and rice, for example.
The Supreme Court ruled in December that the laws should be temporarily suspended, and that a mediation committee should work on a compromise. However, the farmers have no confidence in this, because that committee would be too much on the hand of Modi.
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Hardly anyone has been able to stop Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent years. But the farmers who camp the access roads to New Delhi in protest, come a long way.
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