Protests in India turn violent as angry farmers face police

NEW DELHI – Thousands of protesting farmers invaded New Delhi on Tuesday as they used their tractors to separate barricades, prompting police to fire tear gas and throw an event that posed a direct challenge to the government.

Farmers protesting India’s new agricultural laws should start a tractor procession around the city at noon, local time, to avoid interfering with the morning celebrations that mark the Republic Day of India holiday in central Delhi. But farmers began to dismantle the barricades about two hours earlier, amid apparent confusion among protesters.

The protest had already threatened to overshadow the annual celebration of the start of India’s constitution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi oversaw a sumptuous military parade, and news channels showed surreal scenes of Modi saluting officers as chaos broke out in various parts of the city just a few kilometers away.

By nightfall in New Delhi, at least one person had died and many parts of the city still felt besieged. It was not clear whether security forces or agricultural leaders who appeared to have lost control could push protesters out of the city and back to the camps they have occupied for the past two months on the capital’s borders.

“Farmers’ agitators broke the agreed terms and started their march long before the agreed time,” Delhi police said in a statement, confirming that several members of the force were injured, without providing numbers. “The agitators chose the path of violence and destruction.”

At the town’s border with the village of Ghazipur, where farmers camped for months in protest, tractors pushed aside a container placed to block their route while the police remained powerless. Elsewhere, thick clouds of tear gas rose over the approved march routes, while farmers on tractors, horses and on foot began their rallies with force, hours ahead of schedule.

Farmers waved flags and mocked police, TV news showed. They also breached the Red Fort, the iconic palace that once served as the residence of the Mughal rulers of India, and hoisted a flag atop the fort that is usually hoisted in Sikh temples. Many of the protesting farmers are from Punjab, a predominantly Sikh part of the country.

Many farmers carried long swords, tridents, sharp daggers, and battle axes – functional, though largely ceremonial, weapons. It appeared that most of the protesters did not wear masks, despite the Covid-19 outbreak in India.

“Once we get to Delhi, we won’t be going anywhere until Modi repeals the law,” said Happy Sharma, a farmer in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh who was among 27 people traveling in a trailer behind a tractor.

Large groups of bulldozers and protesters escaped the approved protest routes – knocking over buses and crashing into overloaded policemen armed with bamboo poles – as they marched towards central Delhi.

In the early afternoon, Delhi police commanders had deployed police officers carrying assault rifles. Television footage showed them in the middle of important roads, looking at the protesters, rifles aimed at the crowd. In some areas, police beat the protesters with their batons to push them back.

Some of the most violent clashes took place at an intersection near India’s income tax office and a former police force headquarters, as protesters tried to break the final barrier and force their way into the city center. Enraged farmers retreated and drove their tractors on a side road out of the city, only after the police fired several blasts of tear gas.

Local television channels showed farmers placing the body of a protester in the middle of a nearby road. They said the man had been shot, but that could not be verified independently. New York Times reporters in the area saw injured people being loaded who said they were injured when a tractor toppled. CCTV footage broadcast on local television showed a tractor overturning after hitting a speeding police barricade.

The Indian government has temporarily suspended internet services in border areas that for months have been centers of protests, an official at the Indian Interior Ministry confirmed.

The demonstration, after the central government failed in its frantic efforts to stop the tractors from marching, illustrated how deeply the impasse with the farmers embarrassed Modi. Although he emerged as India’s most dominant figure after crushing his political opposition, farmers have been persistent.

In September, Modi quickly passed three agricultural laws in parliament that he hopes will inject private investment into a sector that has suffered from inefficiency and lack of money for decades. But farmers stood up, saying that loosening government regulations left them at the mercy of corporate giants who would take over their businesses.

As their protests grew in size and anger, with tens of thousands of farmers camped out in the cold for two months and dozens of them dying, the government offered to change parts of the laws to reflect their demands. The country’s Supreme Court also intervened, ordering the government to suspend the laws until reaching a resolution with the farmers.

But farmers say they will not stop before a repeal and have started to increase pressure. In addition to the tractor protest on Tuesday, they announced plans to march on foot to the Indian Parliament on February 1, when the country’s new budget will be presented.

Tensions were high until Tuesday, with some officials claiming that the protests were infiltrated by insurgent elements who would resort to violence if farmers could enter the city. A few days earlier, farmers’ leaders took a young man to the media who they allegedly detained on suspicion of a plot to shoot the leaders on Tuesday to stop the rally. No set of claims can be independently verified.

There was some confusion about the scope and size of the tractor’s gear before it started. Local media reports, citing Delhi police documents, said the march would only begin after the Republic Day parade in the heart of New Delhi had culminated. The reports also state that the number of tractors and the time they can stay within the city has been limited.

But agricultural leaders at a news conference on Monday said there were no time restrictions or limits on the number of tractors, as long as they followed the routes set by Delhi police. Route maps suggested a compromise between the farmers and the police that could allow protesters to enter the city, but not approach sensitive institutions of power.

The leaders said some 150,000 tractors were assembled at the capital’s borders for the march, that about 3,000 volunteers would try to help the police maintain order and that 100 ambulances were on standby.

Farm leaders, speaking to protesters and also during the press conference, have repeatedly called for peace.

“Remember, our goal is not to conquer Delhi, but to conquer the hearts of the people of this country,” they said in instructions posted online to protesters, who were instructed not to carry weapons – “not even sticks” – and to avoid slogans and provocative banners.

“The hallmark of this unrest is that it is peaceful,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal, one of the movement’s main leaders. “My request to our fellow farmers, to our young people, is that they maintain this peaceful movement. The government is spreading rumors, the agencies have started to deceive people. Be careful with that.

“If we remain at peace, we win. If we become violent, Modi will win. “

Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reports.

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