Rural distress reaches heart of Capital again CP almost cut off as farmers marched to Jantar Mantar
OUT AND ABOUT For many protesters at the ‘Kisan Mukti March’, it was their first time in Delhi. After the protest ended, some opted to tour the city before returning to their homes in different states
NEWDELHI: A middle-aged woman, not conversant in Hindi or English, wondered why the march she was a part of didn’t go till Parliament, while a man, who came from Maharashtra with 200 others, wanted to visit the Jantar Mantar.
Many protesters, in the city for the ‘Kisan Mukti March’, wanted to use their time in Delhi for a spot of sight-seeing.
“Where is Parliament? How far is it? How much time will it take from here?,”a group of women from Andhra Pradesh asked, standing a few metres ahead of the main stage on Parliament Street where farmer leaders were addressing the march Friday afternoon.
“I wanted to see the Jantar Mantar until netalog (politicians) started speaking. Where is it?” asked Jatin Das, from Maharashtra. The first half of the second day of the two-day march saw farmer leaders addressing the protesters, while several politicians took the stage in the latter part of the day. As the day came to close, and evening began to settle, the crowd, which occupied the stretch from Jantar Mantar to the stage near Parliament Street police station, dispersed.
After braving the night’s cold at Ramlila Maidan, an estimated 15,000 farmers who had descended on the national capital from across the country on Thursday, marched towards Parliament Street to participate in the rally Friday morning onwards to put their demands — including debt relief and remunerative prices for their produce — forward.
Many, like Kaushalya Devi, who works in a sugarcane field in Bihar’s Champaran wanted go sight-seeing on what was their first tryst with the city. “We are yet to be paid for last year’s labour, but are working this year as well,” the 60-year-old woman said. “I am in Delhi for the first time and will now take a look around the city.”
Unlike past protests, this one witnessed the visible involvement of volunteers, students, lawyers and doctors. At night in Ramlila Maidan, a group of doctors from AIIMS and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), completed check-ups and treated people for free.
“If 40 doctors have taken time off from their jobs to be here, this also means there are 40 others who are substituting them in the hospital. They are shadowing their work, essentially. This is how everyone is contributing,” P Sainath, founder of the PARI network, who is also leading a support volunteer group ‘Nation for Farmers’, said.
However, with such large numbers, the availability of food and drinking water remains a matter of concern. A few food stalls were set up for people to buy food and water. The Delhi government too had put in place mobile toilets and drinking water tanks. Some volunteer groups like ‘Iftaar for All’ and Nation for Farmers distributed biscuit packets and cartons of juice.
“Farmers are the ones who put food on our plates. We are now contributing however we can, and doing our bit to help by distributing biscuits,” said Anas Tanvir Siddiqui, a member of Iftaar for All, and a lawyer at the Supreme Court.
Hidden in a corner behind the barricades, a group of students from Banaras Hindu University were involved in eclectic conversations. While a few of them discussed how political parties had “hijacked” a genuine cause, others were seen busy taking selfies with farmers from Maharashtra. NEWDELHI: As thousands of farmers marched from Ramlila Ground to Jantar Mantar on Friday morning, several roads near Connaught Place was cut off in parts to motorists for nearly three hours.
Though the traffic police said they diverted vehicles to alternative routes to prevent a tailback, several motorists said they found themselves inert at separate junctions along the route for around 30 minutes.
But traffic police officers said the overall disruption in traffic didn’t exceed 45 minutes. “Generally, we were able to limit the disruptions to 20-25 minutes at most junctions,” Veenu Bansal, deputy commissioner of police, traf- fic, New Delhi district, said.
Bansal said there were occasions when one set of farmers was asked to wait for a few minutes at a junction to briefly allow the movement of traffic. “If we felt the traffic had built up at a point, we let protesters march ahead in batches so as to allow vehicles to pass,” he explained.
Having begun their march from Ramlila Ground to Jantar Mantar–viagurunanakchowk, Ranjit Singh Flyover and the Tolstoy Marg – around 10 am, the farmers were restricted to one carriageway on most stretches.
But stretches and junctions such as the Guru Nanak Chowk, Ranjeet Singh Flyover, Barakhamba Chowk, Tolstoy Marg, KG Marg, Janpath and Parliament Street remained restricted to motorists till nearly 12.30pm.
As protesters neared a certain traffic junction, police said they began diverting vehicles from that point. “We also had adequate personnel at vantage points such as Gol Dak Khana, Windsor Place and Kharak Singh Marg where vehicles were expected to pile up because of diversions,” Bansal said.
The officer said the focus was also on not letting farmers split into smaller groups. “Keeping them all together meant fewer instances of unexpected disruptions in traffic,” the officer said.
He said it was easier to manage the farmers after they dispersed in the evening. “We had identified some important points to which most protesters would head to or gather at. We deployed officers at those points to manage the traffic,” Bansal said.