- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
RAKESH Tikait, the farmers’ leader and national spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Indian farmers’ union) who has been leading a peasants’ protest against the Narendra Modi government over its new agricultural laws, on Friday (24) urged US president Joe Biden to focus on their concern while meeting the Indian prime minister in person.
Modi was set to have its first-ever in-person meeting with Biden since the latter took charge as the president in January this year.
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In a tweet, Tikait tagged the US president to say, “Dear @POTUS, we the Indian Farmers are protesting against 3 farm laws brought by PM Modi’s govt. 700 farmers have died in the last 11 months protesting. These black laws should be repealed to save us. Please focus on our concern while meeting PM Modi.” He then used the hashtag #Biden_SpeakUp4Farmers.
Dear @POTUS, we the Indian Farmers are protesting against 3 farm laws brought by PM Modi's govt. 700 farmers have died in the last 11 months protesting. These black laws should be repealed to save us. Please focus on our concern while meeting PM Modi. #Biden_SpeakUp4Farmers
— Rakesh Tikait (@RakeshTikaitBKU) September 24, 2021
Modi is also set to attend the first-ever in-person Quad summit on Friday featuring Biden and the prime ministers of Australia and Japan.
Thousands of farmers have been protesting at border entry points of Delhi since November, demanding withdrawal of the controversial farm laws that were passed by the Modi government in September last year. The protests have continued to be staged in several parts of the country and Tikait, a former police constable, has even challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the centre as well as in the state of Uttar Pradesh which will go to elections next year.
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While the government claimed that the new laws were aimed at giving relief to India’s troubled agricultural sector by giving the farmers more choice of buyers to purchase their produce, the farmers have said that laws were eyeing to corporatize the sector and would lead to crony capitalism and hurt their interests.
In February, the US embassy in New Delhi urged the Modi government to resume negotiations with the agitated farmers over the problem.
“We encourage that any differences between the parties be resolved through dialogue,” an embassy spokesperson said in a statement that also proffered a general support to government measures to “improve the efficiency of India’s markets and attract greater private sector investment”, Reuters reported.
