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World

Farmers back at protest camp after deep challenge to PM Modi

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NEW DELHI (AP) — Tens of thousands of farmers who stormed the historic Red Fort on India’s Republic Day were again camped outside the capital Wednesday after the most volatile day of their two-month standoff left one protester dead and more than 300 police officers injured.

The protests demanding the repeal of new agricultural laws have grown into a rebellion that is rattling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. On Tuesday, more than 10,000 tractors and thousands more people on foot or horseback tried to advance into the capital, shoving aside barricades and buses blocking their path and at times met by police using tear gas and water cannons.

Their brief takeover of the 17th-century fort, which was the palace of Mughal emperors, played out live Indian news channels. The farmers, some carrying ceremonial swords, ropes and sticks, overwhelmed police. In a profoundly symbolic challenge to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, the protesters who stormed Red Fort hoisted a Sikh religious flag.

“The situation is normal now. The protesters have left the streets of the capital,″ New Delhi police officer Anto Alphonse said Wednesday morning.

The protesting farmers’ groups are scheduled to meet later Wednesday to discuss the future course of action. Another march is planned for Feb. 1 when the Modi government is scheduled to present the annual budget in Parliament.

Protest organizer Samyukt Kisan Morcha, or United Farmers’ Front, accused two outside groups of sabotage by infiltrating their otherwise peaceful movement.

“Even if it was a sabotage, we can’t escape responsibility,” said Yogendra Yadav, a protest leader.

Yadav said frustration had built up among the protesting farmers and “how do you control it if the government is not serious about what they have been demanding for two months.”

Several roads were closed again on Wednesday near the police headquarters and Connaught Place areas following a protest by some retired Delhi police officers demanding prosecution of the protesting farmers who engaged in violence, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Political analyst Arti Jerath said Tuesday’s violence will put the farmers’ organizations on their back foot.

“The Supreme Court has all along said the farmers can continue with the protest without disrupting the life in New Delhi. Tuesday’s development has given the government a handle to go to the top court and say see this is precisely what it was fearing that it would turn violent. ”

Tuesday’s escalation overshadowed Republic Day celebrations, including the annual military parade that was already scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic. Authorities shut some metro train stations, and mobile internet service was suspended in some parts of the capital, a frequent tactic of the government to thwart protests.

The farmers — many of them Sikhs from Punjab and Haryana states — tried to march into New Delhi in November but were stopped by police. Since then, unfazed by the winter cold and frequent rains, they have hunkered down at the edge of the city and threatened to besiege it if the farm laws are not repealed.

Neeraja Choudhury, a political analyst, said the government failed to anticipate what was coming and prepare for it adequately. “If the farmers are agitated overall India, you can’t dismiss the protests as some opposition inciting the farmers.”

Anil Kumar, a police spokesman, said more than 300 police personnel were injured in clashes with farmers. Several of them jumped into a deep dry drain in the fort area to escape the protesters who outnumbered them at several places.

Police said one protester died after his tractor overturned, but farmers said he was shot. Several bloodied protesters could be seen in television footage.

Police said the protesting farmers broke away from the approved protest routes and resorted to “violence and vandalism.” Eight buses and 17 private vehicles were damaged, said police, who filed four cases over vandalism against the protesters.

The government insists the agricultural laws passed by Parliament in September will benefit farmers and boost production through private investment. But the farmers fear it will turn agricultural corporate and leave them behind. The government has offered to suspend the laws for 18 months, but the farmers want nothing less than a full repeal.

Since returning to power for a second term, Modi’s government has been rocked by several convulsions. The pandemic sent India’s already-teetering economy into its first-ever recession, social strife has widened and his government has been questioned over its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, the year that witnessed the first major protests against his administration, a diverse coalition of groups rallied against a contentious new citizenship law that they said discriminated against Muslims.

“The government on the national security front has failed. I think this government seems to be quite blinkered on the kind of security challenges that it is creating for itself by alienating minority communities, Muslims and Sikhs,” said Arti Jerath, a political analyst.

India is predominantly Hindu while Muslims comprise 14% and Sikhs nearly 2% of its nearly 1.4 billion people.

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World

Angry farmers drive thousands of tractors into New Delhi

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NEW DELHI (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesting farmers drove long lines of tractors into India’s capital on Tuesday, breaking through police barricades, defying tear gas and storming the historic Red Fort as the nation celebrated Republic Day.

They waved farm union flags from the ramparts of the fort, where prime ministers annually hoist the national flag to mark the country’s independence.

Thousands more farmers marched on foot or rode on horseback while shouting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At some places, they were showered with flower petals by residents who recorded the unprecedented rally on their phones.

Leaders of the farmers said more than 10,000 tractors joined the protest.

For nearly two months, farmers have camped at the edge of the capital, blockading highways connecting it with the country’s north in a rebellion that has rattled the government. They are demanding the withdrawal of new laws which they say will commercialize agriculture and devastate farmers’ earnings.

“We want to show Modi our strength,” said Satpal Singh, a farmer who drove into the capital on a tractor along with his family of five. “We will not surrender.”

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons at numerous places to push back the rows upon rows of tractors, which shoved aside concrete and steel barricades. Authorities blocked roads with large trucks and buses in an attempt to stop the farmers from reaching the center of the capital.

“We will do as we want to. You cannot force your laws on the poor,” said Manjeet Singh, a protesting farmer.

The government insists that the agriculture reform laws passed by Parliament in September will benefit farmers and boost production through private investment.

Farmers tried to march into New Delhi in November but were stopped by police. Since then, unfazed by the winter cold, they have hunkered down at the edge of the city and threatened to besiege it if the farm laws are not repealed.

The government has offered to amend the laws and suspend their implementation for 18 months. But farmers insist they will settle for nothing less than a complete repeal. They plan to march on foot to Parliament on Feb. 1, when the country’s new budget will be presented.

The tractor rally overshadowed the Republic Day celebrations, which were scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A thin crowd assembled along ceremonial Rajpath boulevard in New Delhi to watch a parade displaying the country’s military power and cultural diversity. People wore masks and adhered to social distancing as police and military battalions marched along the route displaying their latest equipment.

Republic Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the country’s constitution on Jan. 26, 1950.

Farmers are the latest group to upset Modi’s image of imperturbable dominance in Indian politics.

Since returning to power for a second term, Modi’s government has been rocked by several convulsions. The economy has tanked, social strife has widened, protests have erupted against discriminatory laws and his government has been questioned over its response to the pandemic.

Agriculture supports more than half of the country’s 1.4 billion people. But the economic clout of farmers has diminished over the last three decades. Once producing a third of India’s gross domestic product, farmers now account for only 15% of the country’s $2.9 trillion economy.

More than half of farmers are in debt, with 20,638 killing themselves in 2018 and 2019, according to official records.

The contentious legislation has exacerbated existing resentment from farmers, who have long been seen as the heart and soul of India but often complain of being ignored by the government.

Modi has tried to allay farmers’ fears by mostly dismissing their concerns and has repeatedly accused opposition parties of agitating them by spreading rumors. Some leaders of his party have called the farmers “anti-national,” a label often given to those who criticize Modi or his policies.

Devinder Sharma, an agriculture expert who has spent the last two decades campaigning for income equality for Indian farmers, said they are not only protesting the reforms but also “challenging the entire economic design of the country.”

“The anger that you see is compounded anger,” Sharma said. “Inequality is growing in India and farmers are becoming poorer. Policy planners have failed to realize this and have sucked the income from the bottom to the top. The farmers are only demanding what is their right.”

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AP video journalist Rishabh R. Jain contributed to this report.

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World

Indian Farmers March Set for Republic Day

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NEW DELHI — As pomp and color of military parades go, India’s Republic Day celebrations rank among the most eye-catching.

But on Tuesday, just as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepared to celebrate the anniversary of the inception of the country’s Constitution with another parade by the armed forces, an unlikely force was preparing to upstage the show.

India’s protesting farmers, who have been camped out at the gates of New Delhi for two months demanding that Mr. Modi repeal laws that would reshape Indian agriculture, were preparing to march into the capital with thousands of tractors.

The show of force, after the central government failed in its frantic efforts to prevent the tractor march, dramatically illustrated how deeply the deadlock with the farmers has embarrassed Mr. Modi. Though he has emerged as India’s most dominant figure after crushing his political opposition, the farmers have been persistently defiant.

Mr. Modi in September rushed through the Parliament three farming laws that he hopes will inject private investment into a sector that has been troubled with inefficiency and a lack of money for decades. But farmers quickly rose up against them, saying the government’s easing of regulations had left them at the mercy of corporate giants that would take over their businesses.

As their protests have grown in size and anger, with tens of thousands of farmers camped out in the cold for two months and dozens of deaths among them, the government has offered to amend some parts of the laws to include their demands. The country’s Supreme Court also intervened, ordering the government to suspend the laws until it reaches a resolution with the farmers.

But the farmers say they will not stop short of a repeal, and they have begun increasing pressure. In addition to their tractor march on Tuesday, they have announced plans to hold a march by foot to the Indian Parliament on Feb. 1, when the country’s new budget will be presented.

Tensions were high leading up to Tuesday, with some officials claiming the protests had been infiltrated by insurgent elements who would resort to violence if the farmers were allowed inside the city. Just days before the tractor march, the farmers’ leaders brought in front of the media a young man they claimed they had arrested on suspicion of a plot to shoot the leaders on Tuesday to disrupt the rally. Neither set of claims could be independently verified.

There was some confusion about the scope and size of the tractor march before it was to begin. Reports in the local media, citing documents from the Delhi police, said the march would begin only after the high-profile Republic Day parade in the heart of New Delhi had culminated. The reports also said the number of tractors and how long they could stay inside the city had been capped.

But farm leaders at a news conference on Monday said there were no limitations on time and number of tractors as long as they stuck to the routes set out by the Delhi police. Maps of the routes suggested a compromise between the farmers and the police that could allow the protesters to enter the city but not get close to sensitive institutions of power.

The leaders said that about 150,000 tractors had gathered at the borders of the capital for the march, that about 3,000 volunteers would try to help the police in keeping order, and that 100 ambulances were on standby.

The farm leaders, both in statements given to the marchers as well as during the news conference, repeatedly appealed for peace as they carried out the tractor march.

“Remember, our aim is not to conquer Delhi, but to win over the hearts of the people of this country,” they said in instructions posted online for marchers, who were told not to carry weapons — “not even sticks” — during the march and to avoid provocative slogans and banners.

“The trademark of this agitation has been that it’s peaceful,” Balbir Singh Rajewal, one of the main leaders of the movement, said. “My request to our farmer brothers, to our youth, is that they keep this movement peaceful. The government is spreading rumors, the agencies have started misguiding people. Beware of it.

“If we remain peaceful, we’ve won. If we turn violent, Modi will win.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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