Farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s three contentious farm laws entered day 14 on Wednesday amid indications the impasse between the government and farm unions will not end anytime soon. As protesting farmers continue to sit on the outskirts of Delhi, occupying various highways leading to the national capital, sixth round of talks between the Centre and farm leaders is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, though its fate hangs in balance after “informal” talks between Union home minister Amit Shah and farmer leaders, which took place late Tuesday night, failed to break the deadlock.
Credit: thequint
At the meeting at the state-run Indian Council of Agriculture Research’s (ICAR) Pusa Complex, Shah said agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar would present a concrete proposal in Wednesday’s talks and propose key amendments in the contentious agricultural laws that have triggered protests, according to farmers’ leaders who reiterated that their only demand is the scrapping of the legislation that liberalize farm trade. Wednesday’s meeting, if it takes place, will be the sixth time the two sides will be holding talks over farmers’ demand of scrapping the three pro-market agricultural laws they say will hurt their incomes and benefit large corporations.
While the protests have garnered support in India amongst the various opposition parties, both national and regional, it has also garnered attention in the international community, as is evident by the remarks made by the leaders in countries such as United Kingdom, Australia, USA, and Canada.
Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has waded in a controversy following his comments on November 30th . “Canada will always be there to defend the right of peaceful protest.” These words were spoken in the context of the physical force being used by the Indian police against protesting farmers, many of them Sikhs, in parts of north India. It did not take much time for the rebuke to reach India and invoke a plethora of reactions – the Indian government strongly objected to it, calling the comments ill-informed and unwarranted, while the farmers, especially Sikhs from Punjab expressed their gratitude to Justin Trudeau. Most of the Indian media condemned Trudeau for ‘interfering in the internal matter of India’.
Sikh political lobbying is a strong force in Canadian politics which makes all the three major federal political parties of Canada sensitive to the affairs and sentiments of the sikh community. Thus, it is very unsurprising that days before Trudeau’s comments, chiefs of the other two federal parties – the NDP and the Conservatives – had already made public statements in support of the farmers’ protests, condemning state violence.
While the support of foreign leaders can be chalked off as politics of appeasement, the issue at home remains serious and a breakthrough looks very unlikely as the farmers demand unconditional withdrawal of all the three bills, a demand the government does not seem likely to comply.
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