- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
FARMERS’ protests in northern India over the Narendra Modi government’s controversial farm laws were spreading fast to other areas, putting local administrations of a number of states under pressure to tackle them.
On Tuesday (7), the district administration of Karnal in the northern state of Haryana invited an 11-member delegation of farmer leaders for talks after protesters in large numbers assembled for a ‘mahapanchayat‘ (mega rally) and planned to gherao (encircling) the district headquarters.
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Senior leaders of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of several Indian farmers’ unions that organised the rally, including Rakesh Tikait, Balbir Singh Rajrwal and others joined the mega rally seeking action against the police brutality against farmers on August 28.
The farmers leader said they would raise various demands during their talks with the district officials. Karnal is the constituency of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who justified the police action against the farmers. Khattar belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party of prime minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Haryana suspended internet services in various districts apart from Karnal, including Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind and Panipat from 12 am local time on Tuesday for 24 hours in order to maintain the law and order situation.
The local police also issued a traffic advisory for motorists, particularly those traveling on National Highway – 44 (Ambala-New Delhi stretch). They came up with route diversions and said adequate security arrangements were made to avoid law and order disruption.
The protests have been taking place for more than eight months now and tens of thousands of farmers have camped on major highways to New Delhi, the Indian capital, to oppose the new farm laws that they allege threaten their livelihood.
On Sunday (5), more than half a million farmers took part in a massive protest in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and adjoining Haryana, demanding the withdrawal of the laws. Protests were also staged in another northern state of Punjab.
They have also warned of serious repercussions for the Modi government at the Centre and Yogi Adityanath government in UP if their demands were not met. UP is set to go to elections next year.
While the farmers have alleged that the new laws will cause them harm, the Indian government has claimed that they will help them get better prices.
