Blockade set to enter second week -Farmers reject Modi govt's plan to set up a five-member committee

The past 24 hours had seen the government yield not once but twice to the farmers who have blocked two major thoroughfares on the Delhi-Haryana border

Farmers’ representatives speak to reporters after Tuesday’s talks.: PTI

Anita Joshua   |   TT   |   New Delhi   |   02.12.20  :  Farmers on Tuesday rejected the Narendra Modi government’s proposal to set up a five-member committee to look into their objections to the farm laws, standing by their demand for a repeal of the laws that they fear would leave them at the mercy of oligarchs.

The talks are scheduled to be held again on Thursday. The blockade of some of Delhi’s entry points — with police barricades set up to deny the thousands of farmers massed at the border entry into the national capital — is set to enter the second week.

Support for the farmers’ cause is growing despite efforts by the Right-wing ecosystem to discredit it. On Tuesday, several sportspersons said they would return their awards if the farmers’ grievances were not addressed.

The three-hour meeting at Vigyan Bhavan was chaired by agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar. Food and civil supplies minister Piyush Goyal was also present as the issue of minimum support price — a key concern of the farmers — falls within his department’s purview. Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who was expected to chair the meeting as the Modi government’s main trouble-shooter, was not present.

With this round inconclusive, the government has asked the farmer leaders to give their objections on the three farm laws and the electricity ordinance in writing by Wednesday for another round of talks on Thursday. The request left the farmers perplexed because they have already submitted several petitions to the government detailing their apprehensions.

Joginder Singh Ugrahan, one of the farmer leaders, told reporters: “While the government was of the view that a committee should be formed to look into the issues raised by farmers, we insisted that the new laws should be repealed. Because of the deadlock, everyone agreed to meet again on December 3.”

The past 24 hours had seen the government yield not once but twice to the farmers who have blocked two major thoroughfares on the Delhi-Haryana border, raising concerns among administrators of a possible disruption in the supply lines.

After a series of meetings among senior ministers, including home minister Amit Shah and Rajnath, as well as at the political level under the chairmanship of BJP president J.P. Nadda, the agriculture ministry had reached out to Punjab farmers’ unions late on Monday night for a discussion on Tuesday afternoon.

The farmers’ organisations met early on Tuesday morning under the banner of the Punjab Kisan Unions Coordination Committee and announced before noon that they would not join the talks unless the government extended the same invitation to the all-India leadership of the farmers’ movement.

Subsequently, the agriculture ministry invited the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) — which is the largest collective of 250 farmers organisations, and had given the call for the Dilli Chalo protest action that brought the farmers to Delhi’s borders — the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Haryana) and the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, paving the way for the meeting to be held.

The Punjab farmers who have been at the vanguard of the protests have been repeatedly insisting that the government should talk to all farmers’ organisations, not them alone, as this is a nation-wide movement and not specific to one state.

In a statement, the All India Kisan Sabha said the government’s decision to only call the Punjab farmers organisations for the talks was a “blatant effort by RSS-BJP to undermine the all-India movement.... AIKS condemns this heinous move to isolate the Punjab farmers’ movement which is the backbone of this struggle.’’

Senior BJP leaders have been projecting the farmers’ protests as limited to Punjab and used this argument to try to discredit the protesters, branding them “Khalistanis” and “Congress-sponsored”. However, not only have farmers from BJP-ruled Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh arrived at Delhi’s borders to give the lie to this claim, BJP allies in Rajasthan and Haryana have since spoken up for farmers.

Several sportspersons, including Padma Sri and Arjuna awardees, have extended support to the protesting farmers and said they would return their medals. Some of them — wrestler Kartar Singh, basketball player Sajjan Singh Cheema and hockey player Rajbir Kaur — plan to reach Delhi on December 5 to place their awards outside Rashtrapati Bhavan, which is where these top awards are presented by the President.

A PTI report from Chandigarh quoted Cheema as saying: “We are the children of farmers and they have been holding peaceful agitation for the last several months. Not even a single incident of violence took place. But water cannons and teargas shells were used against them when they were going to Delhi. If turbans of our elders and brothers are tossed, then what will we do with our awards and honour? We are in support of our farmers. We do not want such awards and that is why we are returning the same.’’

Tomar tweeted later that the government agrees with the farmers’ contention that the issues should be discussed with all the farmers’ organisations and not just a small committee. The government, he added, is working to resolve the issue at the earliest. Goyal, too, tweeted along similar lines.  The meeting was held amid tight security with all of Maulana Azad Road cordoned off.