On Wednesday, farmers’ groups, led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, continued their march to Delhi a day after the police attacked them in order to stop them from crossing the Punjab-Haryana border at Shambhu.
Farmers’ 21-point demand list
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha called for a statewide industrial strike and a Grameen Bharat Bandh, during which villages would be closed to all agricultural activity and work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The walkout was called in support of the farmers’ 21-point demand list as well as to protest the police force’s excessive use of state force against farmers on Tuesday. The demands include better crop prices, enacting a minimum support price (MSP) law, a complete debt waiver, pension schemes, and scrapping the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020.
“We strongly protest the repression unleashed on farmers today at the Punjab border, including lathi charges, rubber bullets, and tear gas shelling, causing many injuries. We want to clarify that the Kisan Movement in India is united and single-minded and will resist any such act of authoritarianism and excessive use of state power,” the group said to the press.
Protests and injuries
Rapid Action Force, police, and Riot Control Vehicles were deployed at the Singhu border in Delhi, while security arrangements were intensified at the Shambhu border in Ambala, Haryana. More concrete is being poured between concrete slabs at the Tikri Border to strengthen the border. However, the farmers are using tractors and all available tools to pass barricades installed to stop them from heading to Delhi. Police reacted with tear gas shells—some dropped by drones.
According to PTI, Patiala Deputy Commissioner Showkat Ahmed Parray stated on Wednesday that drone usage along the Punjab-Haryana border has been limited by Ambala, Haryana officials. Parray had requested that his colleague in the Ambala district cease using drones to shoot tear gas at protesting farmers.
The Haryana government, which borders Punjab, decided to prolong the ban on internet and bulk SMS services in the districts of Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad, and Sirsa from Tuesday, February 13 to February 16.
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On Tuesday, the Shiromani Akali Dal also asked the Center to promptly honor all of its promises to the farmers while expressing its solidarity with the protesting farmers. Party leader Sukhbir Singh Badal tweeted, “We urge the Centre and Punjab government to find a peaceful resolution to farmers’ just demands through negotiations and not through repression.”
The opposition parties claim that the central government of the Bharatiya Janata Party is treating farmers like enemies in response to their criticism of the heavy use of force against protestors at the Shambhu border. “Taxpayers’ money spent on military-grade drone technology should be used to stop Chinese from coming into Galwan,” Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra said in a tweet on Wednesday. “Our farmers should not be injured by domestic policing or prevented from visiting Delhi.”
Congress promised a legal guarantee for the minimum support price
On February 13, the Congress expressed solidarity with the farmer protests. They promised to provide a legal guarantee for the minimum support price if the India-Boss alliance forms the government. The move would benefit nearly 15 crore farmers in the country, the party announced. Additionally, on a phone call with a farmer who was hurt by police action at the Shambhu border near Ambala, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi expressed empathy. The farmer said that he had wounds on his hands and near his eye and was brought into the medical facility.
