- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
HUNDREDS of thousands of farmers on Sunday (5) came together in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous one, to hold the biggest rally called ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ in a months-long series of protests to press the Narendra Modi government to repeal three controversial new agricultural laws.
Reuters reported citing local police forces that more than 500,000 farmers took part in the rally that took place in Muzaffarnagar in the western part of the state.
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The demonstration in UP will breathe fresh life into the protest movement, Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmer’s leader, said. The state, which is a predominantly agricultural one, is home to 240 million people. It is also due for the assembly elections early next year in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of Modi which is in power in the state, will seek its second successive term.
“We’ll intensify our protest by going to every single city and town of Uttar Pradesh to convey the message that Modi’s government is anti-farmer,” Tikait was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Narendra Modi makes fresh appeal to farmers protesting over new laws
Several thousand of farmers have camped on major highways that head to Indian capital New Delhi to oppose the farm laws in what has emerged as the country’s longest-running farmers’ protest against the Modi government. Recently, farmers were allegedly beaten up by the police in another northern state of Haryana after they assembled to protest against the BJP which also rules that state.
As per the new agricultural laws that were introduced a year ago, the farmers can directly sell their products to big buyers outside the government-regulated wholesale markets. While the government has claimed that this will help the farmers get bigger prices for their products, the latter have alleged that the law will hurt their livelihood and leave them with weak bargaining power against giant private retailers and food processors.
Agriculture sustains almost 50 per cent of India’s more than 1.3 billion people and accounts for about 15 per cent of the country’s economy worth $2.7 trillion.
The mega farmers’ rally also had its political significance. Balbir Singh Rajewal, a farmers’ leader, said that Sunday’s rally was a warning for Modi and his BJP ahead of the 2022 elections. The UP is considered the most crucial state politically since the party that dominates the state generally does well at the federal government.
“Our message is very clear – either repeal the laws or face defeat in the state election,” he said.
The ‘Samyukt Kisan Morcha’, a coalition of over 40 Indian farmers’ unions which organised Sunday’s rally, said farmers from as many as 15 Indian states joined the protests. The umbrella body said on the eve of the ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ that it would prove that the agitation has the support of “all castes, religions, states, classes, small traders and all sections of the society”.
The farmers’ issue is also expected to make an impact in the state elections of Punjab, another major agricultural state, that are due next year. Last year, Shiromani Akali Dal, a key player in Punjab politics and a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, quit it to protest the farm laws.
