“Black Day”: Indian farmers protest farm laws for six months Agriculture News

New Delhi, India – Tens of thousands of farmers in India have witnessed “Black Day” across the country to celebrate six months of protests against farm laws passed by the Indian government last year.

Farmers staged demonstrations, raised black flags and burned the effigies of politicians from the government’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (including Prime Minister Narjra Modi) on Wednesday in various parts of the country.

“We are watching the Black Day,” Abhimanyu Kohar, a member of Sankyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), told Al Jazeera, the umbrella of more than 40 farmers ’unions who are protesting together.

“Farmers across the country are raising black flags in their homes, tractors and other vehicles. As part of our protest, we are also burning an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi across the country because he has not corrected our problems. “

In September last year, the Modi government passed three laws saying it would give farmers better opportunities to market their products and break the monopoly of commission agents known as “mandis” and government-regulated markets.

Farmers say the laws are aimed at giving private corporations greater control over the wider agricultural sector and handing them over to those corporations that will have no legal obligation to pay the guaranteed price.

“We will not give up until these anti-farmers laws are repealed,” said 40-year-old farmer Sar Singh on the Singhu border, the main site of a six-month protest outside the Indian capital New Delhi.

Singh, who lives in the northern Punjab town of Tarn Taran Sahib, has been protesting with his brother Singhun since farmers began their sit-in in late November last year.

He says he has decided to stay until the government is forced to repeal the legislation. “We are ready to protest for more months. We will only leave our homes when our requests are met, ”he told Al Jazeera.

Prayers of the congregation made by farmers to withdraw farm laws on the Singhu border [Hasan Akram/Al Jazeera]

Like Singh, thousands of farmers demanding the repeal of farm laws have encamped in the capital on the three main highways linking the capital to Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Some of these farmers have put up permanent shelters made of brick and cement on the highways to cope with the country’s scorching summer.

“We are forced to do that. We are not eager to protest on the roads. But this government is not serious. So far, there is no ongoing dialogue between farmers and the government. We had the last meeting in January, ”Kohar told Al Jazeera.

“Once the government agrees to withdraw the law and promises that our products will continue to be available at the Minimum Support Price (MSP), we will return to our villages,” he said.

A protester threw the image of Modi into the fire at the Singhu border [Hasan Akram/Al Jazeera]

The MSP is a mechanism by which the state guarantees the minimum price to farmers.

Multiple rounds of dialogue between farmers ’unions and the government have failed to make progress.

Earlier this year, the Modi government made an offer to repeal the agriculture law for 18 months, but the farmers rejected the offer, saying they wanted a complete repeal.

Meanwhile, authorities and health experts have expressed concern over the months-long protests taking place amid a second hard wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

In recent weeks, most Indian states have been blocked from controlling the virus, which has destroyed more than 300,000 lives, while the country’s case is estimated at 27.37 million.

A protester takes a picture at the Singhu border [Hasan Akram/Al Jazeera]

Nearly half of those deaths occurred in the second devastating wave, fueled by major regional election rallies led by Modi and other politicians and a week-long religious festival on the banks of the Ganges River.

Gauravdeep Singh, 25, of Ludhiana district in Punjab, has been protesting in Singhu for months, often doubling down as a volunteer. Unlike the country’s politicians, he says farmers follow COVID-19 safety protocols.

“We are taking measures at the border and there are no outbreaks of the disease here. Many social and non-governmental organizations help us keep protest sites safe from infections, ”he told Al Jazeera.

“This government organized mass rallies and held elections recently in different states. What moral reasons do they accuse us of being irresponsible in observing KOVID security measures? Did the virus go away then? ”

As farmers continue to insist on petitions to repeal agricultural laws, the government’s BJP has made it clear that the legislation will not be repealed.

“The government is clear on its position. He is ready to change the law after deliberations, but there is no way to withdraw, ”BJP spokesman Raman Malik told Al Jazeera.

Malik complained that the protests are driven by “politically motivated elements that have nothing to do with the well-being of farmers”.

“The law seeks to provide additional and alternative provisions for farmers, but there are some forces in the country that want to achieve political points and do not want the improvement of farmers,” he said.

But critics of the government accuse him of being “insensitive” to the situation of farmers.

Activist Shabnam Hashmi said the current government is “cooperating with corporations” and has never been serious about resolving the farm crisis.

“The government, instead of resolving the crisis, is trying everything to delegitimize the peasant movement using state-controlled media,” he told Al Jazeera.

Kavita Krishnan, a member of the opposition Communist (Marxist-Leninist) party in India, said Al Jazeera Modi’s government is “fully responsible for the mismanagement” of the crisis.

“The government, by refusing to withdraw the three anti-farmers laws, is helping to expand COVID because farmers have no choice but to continue to oppose thousands of laws because the laws are a death penalty for living and Indians. Agriculture,” he said.