Thousands of farmers clash with police over new laws
new delhi — Thousands of farmers clashed with police in northern Haryana state on Thursday during a protest demanding that the government abolish new farming laws that they fear will reduce their earnings and give more power to corporations.
The farmers, who were travelling towards the capital, New Delhi, on tractors and motorbikes, flung police barricades into a river and threw bricks and stones at the officers near Ambala district. Police halted them by firing teargas and water cannons.
There were no immediate reports of injuries. “Such kind of injustice towards farmers is not fair. Peaceful protest is their constitutional right,” New Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet. Hundreds of police were also deployed at the border between New Delhi and Haryana to block the protesters.
The farmers say the farming laws, which were approved by parliament in September, could cause the government to stop buying grain at guaranteed prices and result in their being exploited by corporations that would buy their crops at cheap prices. For the last two months, farmer unions unwilling to accept the laws have camped on highways in Punjab and Haryana states. In an attempt to pacify them, the federal government has called leaders of the farmers to a second round of negotiations on Dec. 3 after the first round failed last month.
Opposition parties and some Modi allies have called the laws anti-farmer and pro-corporation.
More than half of India’s farmers are in debt, and 20,638 killed themselves in 2018 and 2019, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau.
Agriculture supports more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion people. —