NEW DELHI (AP) – Leaders of a protest movement on Wednesday sought to distance themselves from a day of violence when thousands of farmers stormed India’s Red Fort history, the most dramatic moment in two months of demonstrations that have become a major challenge. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government.
Farmers calling for the repeal of new agricultural laws briefly took over the 17th-century fort, and live television images shocked the nation. In a particularly bold rebuke to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, protesters hoisted a Sikh religious flag.
At least one protester was killed and several protesters were injured, as well as more than 390 police officers, and there are concerns that violence could undermine the protest movement, which has so far been largely peaceful and is increasingly stronger.
Police said 19 people had been arrested and another 50 detained for questioning.
Farmers – many of them minority Sikhs in the main agricultural states of Punjab and Haryana – are calling for the repeal of new laws that are said to favor large farm holdings, destroy the profits of many farmers by reducing price support and leave plot owners small in the back as large corporations gain.
The government insists the laws will benefit farmers and boost production through private investment, but in the face of protests, has offered to suspend them for 18 months. Farmers want nothing less than a complete repeal.
On Tuesday, more than 10,000 tractors and thousands of people on foot or on horseback moved into the capital, setting aside barricades and buses blocking their path and sometimes encountered by police using tear gas and water cannons.
“The situation is normal now. Protesters have left the streets of the capital, “New Delhi police officer Anto Alphonse said Wednesday morning.
Hundreds of police are now guarding the fort, while farmers have returned to their camp on the outskirts of the capital, where they have been sheltering since November, when they last tried to go to New Delhi. Dissatisfied with the winter cold and the frequent rains, they said they would stay until the farm laws were repealed.
Protesters’ groups were due to meet later Wednesday to discuss the next action. Another march is scheduled for February 1, when the Modi government is scheduled to present its annual budget to Parliament.
As the protests have gained momentum, they have shaken the government like never before since forming the most influential voting bloc in India and are also crucial to its economy. However, political analyst Arti Jerath said Tuesday’s violence could diminish their power.
“The Supreme Court has always said that farmers can continue the protest without disturbing life in New Delhi,” she said. “Tuesday’s development gave the government an urge to go to the top court and say that this is exactly what he feared would become violent.”
The cracks appeared in the protest movement on Wednesday when a former convener of the farmers’ umbrella organization disengaged from the group after Tuesday’s violent clashes.
VM Singh said he was ready to discuss with the government legislation that guarantees a minimum price of support for wheat and rice. He said he was no longer seeking the repeal of the three new laws.
Protest organizer Samyukt Kisan Morcha, or United Farmers Front, sought to distance the movement from violence, accusing two outside groups of sabotage by infiltrating their movement.
“Even if it was sabotage, we cannot escape responsibility,” said Yogendra Yadav, another protest leader.
Yadav said frustration had built up among protesting farmers and asked, “How do you control it if the government isn’t serious about what they’ve been asking for two months?”
Several roads were closed again on Wednesday near the police headquarters and Connaught Place, a commercial area close to government offices, following a protest by retired Delhi police officers demanding the prosecution of protesting farmers who engaged in violence, the news agency Press Trust of India said.
Since returning to power for a second term, Modi’s government has been shaken by several convulsions. The pandemic sent India’s economy, already unleashed, into recession, social conflicts spread and his government was questioned about its response to the coronavirus pandemic. India last suffered a recession in 1979-80 after an oil shock.
In addition, India has seen an increase in the wave of Hindu nationalism under Modi, which has endangered minority groups. In 2019, the year that saw the first major protests against his administration, a diverse coalition of groups rallied against a controversial new citizens’ law that they said discriminated against Muslims.
Anger is now starting to rise among Sikhs as well, although farmers’ protests remain largely driven by economic factors. India is predominantly Hindu, while Muslims make up 14% and Sikhs nearly 2% of the nearly 1.4 billion people.
“The government on the front of national security has failed. I think this government seems to be quite intermittent about the kind of security challenges it creates by alienating minority communities, Muslims and Sikhs, ”said Jerath, the political analyst.
Tuesday’s escalation overshadowed Republic Day holidays, including the annual military parade, which has already been reduced due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Neeraja Choudhury, a political analyst, said the government had failed to anticipate what was to come and to prepare for it properly. “If farmers are generally agitated in India, you cannot reject the protests as oppositions that incite farmers.”
Police said Protestant farmers broke away from approved protest routes and resorted to “violence and vandalism.” Anil Kumar, a police spokesman, said more than 300 police officers were injured in the clashes. A few jumped in a deep dry drain in the area of the fort to get rid of the protesters who overtook them in several places.
Police said a protester died after he overturned his tractor, but farmers said he was shot. Several bloody protesters could be seen in the television footage, but it is not known how many were injured.
Thirty police vehicles and hundreds of metal barricades were damaged by protesters, police said.