KUNDLI, India (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of tractor farmers occupied a section of an expressway on the outskirts of the Indian capital, New Delhi, on Thursday in one of the biggest demonstrations of force since a demonstration against deregulation began. from farm markets for over a month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has held several rounds of negotiations with farmers to calm them down, offering concessions on the three laws passed last year to bring private investment to the country’s old-fashioned agricultural markets.
But the farmers resisted the proposals and were camped on an interstate border near the village of Kundli, outside Delhi, for more than 40 days, demanding that the government repeal the laws.
On Thursday, protesters mostly from Sikh-dominated Punjab state, which is one of the country’s top wheat and rice producers, took to the highway.
Young people with turbans and elderly farmers with flying beards rode a convoy of tractors that reached thousands, some with loud music.
There was no sign of a police presence.
“We want Modi to repeal the three laws,” said Rajvinder Singh, 35, a farmer in the Gurdaspur district in Punjab.
He said the demonstration was a way of increasing pressure on the government before India’s Republic Day on 26 January, when agricultural unions threatened to march into the center of the capital if the laws have not been repealed by then.
Farmers fear that the deregulation under which food processors and large retailers can buy products directly from them will replace government-regulated wholesale markets, where they have a guaranteed minimum price for their products.
The government says the courtyards of the state-regulated market will continue alongside the new ones and has offered written guarantees to farmers that they will continue to get a minimum price.
On Friday, the two sides will meet for yet another round of negotiations.
(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Raju Gopalakrishnan)