Police in northern India used tear gas to prevent thousands of farmers protesting for minimum crop prices from marching on Delhi.
Razor wire, cement blocks, and fencing surround the capital on three sides to prevent protests.The government fears a repeat of 2020, when dozens died in a year-long protest that ended only after ministers agreed to repeal contentious agricultural laws.However, just over two years later, farmers report that other demands have not been met.
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Why are farmers protesting
India’s farmers are an influential voting bloc, and analysts believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will be careful not to alienate them. This year’s general elections will see his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seek a third consecutive term in power. Images from Tuesday showed thick clouds of tear gas being used to disperse protesters near the city of Ambala, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital. Police also fired tear gas across the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab. Drones flew continuously over the crowd, dropping tear gas on those below.
Farmers, the majority of whom are from Punjab, claim they want to cross Haryana peacefully to reach Delhi, but they have been denied permission to do so. Scuffles between police and protesters have also been reported near the Shambhu border, and the situation remains tense. In 2020, protesting farmers hunkered down for months, blocking national highways that connect the capital to neighbouring
states. The movement was viewed as one of the most significant challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
What is happening on the ground?
More than 250 farmer unions are leading the protests, including the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (which represents over 150 unions) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), which is supported by over 100 unions. With participants traveling from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, the protests are being coordinated from Punjab and gaining support that crosses state lines.
Farmers began marching towards New Delhi on Tuesday of this week, accompanied by tractors and trucks. In an attempt to halt the march, Indian authorities have installed barriers, nails, and other heavy machinery along the highways leading to the capital. During one attempt by demonstrators to demolish barricades near Shambhu village on the Punjab-Haryana border, Haryana police responded by firing tear gas to disperse them. Haryana, which borders New Delhi, is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Farmers’ protest in the past
The social movement’s primary goal was to put pressure on the government to repeal all farm laws. According to the movement’s organisers and spokespersons, the three agricultural bills would have deregulated crop prices, destroying farmers’ earnings while benefiting large private corporations. Thus, in June 2020, when the government of India enacted the three agricultural legislations, farmer unions of the
northwestern state of Punjab, where primary occupation is agriculture, called for local protests in different cities and villages of the state, beginning with a tractor march or procession of tractors on July 20, 2020, before it began amassing the large numbers of participants at the sit-in protest sites outside of the national capital in 2020.
Even though the 2020-21 protests against farm laws were the first of their kind in terms of number and duration of sustenance, there had been several instances in the past of civilian-led, voluntary, and decentralised forms of social movements in India against certain proposed laws, as well as a history of mass mobilisation of farmer unions from other parts of the country to the national capital. The 2020-21 anti-farm laws protests were one of India’s largest, longest, most unified, and peaceful demonstrations in recent memory.
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