Violence explodes in the latest protest by Indian farmers against changes in agricultural legislation

In some corners of the capital, the police tried to stop them by hitting the crowd with batons. Local media broadcast footage of farmers pushing their tractors against parked buses to block roads and contain them.

Some subway stations have been closed and the Indian Interior Ministry has ordered the internet to be turned off in some areas in and around Delhi.

More than 80 police officers were injured during the protests, said Anil Mittal, a spokesman for the Delhi Police. Delhi police said a group of demonstrators on horseback carrying swords attacked police barricades in one incident.

“This protest damaged many public properties and many policemen were injured,” the Delhi Police said in a statement. “We call on protesters to maintain peace.”

Vikram Singh, deputy secretary of India’s Agricultural Workers’ Union, a national body of some seven million farmers, said most of the protesters were peaceful. He said at least one farmer died during the protest.

“In the past two months, our movement has been peaceful and disciplined. It was the use of force by the police that led to chaos, ”said Singh. “The government has been playing with the emotions of farmers.”

The protests emerged as the biggest challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he came to power in 2014. Mr. Modi supported an ambitious reform of India’s agricultural sector through new agricultural laws as part of a larger plan to help the country’s economy recovering from one of the worst Covid-19 recessions in the world.

The government says the laws will dismantle part of government control over agricultural markets, in the hope that more competition and involvement from the private sector will simplify and modernize the sector. Protesting farmers fear the laws will drastically reduce government support.

The laws were passed in Parliament in September with little debate. Farmers converged on the capital in November demanding that the laws be repealed. The government and agricultural leaders held more than 10 meetings, and Mr. Modi’s government offered to delay implementing the laws for 18 months.

Protesting farmers are concerned that the laws mark the beginning of the dismantling of a system of regulations, subsidies and support that increase their meager incomes. Most are from the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, which are the most dependent on the government system.

Many economists have for years defended the types of changes Modi is making, saying they would stimulate investments and stimulate innovation and efficiency. Deregulation should help raise farmers’ incomes and lower prices for consumers, reducing the number of government-sanctioned intermediaries and giving companies more reason to invest in the sector.

While the average farmer and consumers may eventually benefit, policy advocates say it will still be a difficult change for many traders, who will be exposed to more competition, and farmers, who fear losing the buyers who are forced to buy their grain. and produce at prices set by the state.

Prime Minister Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata party, has been consolidating power at the national and state levels, and many economists hope he can use his dominant position to promote unpopular but necessary reforms. Agricultural laws were among the BJP’s most ambitious attempts to change the way the Indian economy was run.

Some economists and investors said they would be watching to see if Modi decides that the effort is not worth the blow his party can take in the polls.

“Agricultural reform was delayed and the government has the numbers and support to make these changes a reality,” said Mihir Sharma, head of the economy and growth program at the Delhi Observer Research Foundation-based study institute. “It would be a shame if I gave in to totally predictable protests.”

—Vibhuti Agarwal and Krishna Pokharel contributed to this article.

Write to Eric Bellman at [email protected] and Rajesh Roy at [email protected]