NEW DELHI (AP) – Leaders of a protest movement tried to distance themselves on Wednesday from a day of violence when thousands of farmers stormed India’s historic Red Fort, the most dramatic moment in two months of demonstrations that have become a major challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Farmers demanding the repeal of new agricultural laws briefly took over the 17th-century fort, and images broadcast live on television shocked the country. In a particularly daring rebuke to Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, protesters hoist a religious Sikh flag.
At least one protester died and several protesters were injured, as well as more than 390 police officers, and there are concerns that the violence could undermine the protest movement, which has so far been largely peaceful and is growing in strength.
Police said 19 people were arrested and 50 others were held for questioning.
The farmers – many of them minority Sikhs from the major agricultural states of Punjab and Haryana – are demanding the repeal of new laws that they say will favor large businesses, destroy many farmers’ incomes by cutting price support and those with small plots. to leave. behind when big companies win.
The government insists the laws will benefit farmers and boost production through private investment, but despite protests, it has offered to suspend them for 18 months. The farmers want nothing less than a complete withdrawal.
On Tuesday, more than 10,000 tractors and thousands more people marched into the capital on foot or on horseback, pushing aside barricades and buses blocking their path and sometimes being met by police with tear gas and water cannons.
“The situation is normal now. The protesters have left the streets of the capital, ”said police officer Anto Alphonse in New Delhi Wednesday morning.
Hundreds of policemen are now guarding the fort, while the farmers have returned to their camp on the outskirts of the capital, where they have been squatting since November, when they last tried to march into New Delhi. Unaffected by the winter cold and frequent rains, they have said they will stay until the peasant laws are repealed.
The protesting peasant groups were to meet later Wednesday to discuss future course of action. Another march is scheduled for February 1, when Modi’s government will present its annual budget in parliament.
As the protests have grown stronger, they have stirred the government like never before, as they are the most influential ballot bloc in India and are also crucial to the economy. But political analyst Arti Jerath said Tuesday’s violence could dampen 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 has given the government a handle to go to the highest court and say that is exactly what it feared would turn violent.”
Cracks appeared in the protest movement on Wednesday when a former chairman of the umbrella farmers’ organization withdrew from the group after Tuesday’s violent clashes.
VM Singh said he was willing to talk to the government about legislation guaranteeing a minimum support price for wheat and rice. He said he is no longer pursuing the repeal of the three new laws.
Protest organizer Samyukt Kisan Morcha, of United Farmers’ Front, tried to distance the movement from the violence by accusing two outside groups of sabotage by infiltrating their movement.
“Even if it was a sabotage, we cannot escape our responsibility,” said Yogendra Yadav, another protest leader.
Yadav said there was frustration among the protesting farmers and asked, “How do you control if the government is not serious about what they have been demanding for two months?”
Several roads were closed again on Wednesday near police headquarters and Connaught Place, a shopping area close to government buildings, after a protest by some retired Delhi police officers who demanded prosecution of the protesting farmers who committed violence, the Press news agency Trust of India said.
Since Modi’s government took power for a second term, she has been startled by several convulsions. The pandemic plunged India’s already shaky economy into recession, social struggles have intensified and his government has been questioning its response to the coronavirus pandemic. India last suffered a recession in 1979-80 after an oil shock.
Additionally, India has seen a rising wave of Hindu nationalism among Modi that has plagued minority groups. In 2019, the year of the first major protests against his government, a diverse coalition of groups rallied against a controversial new citizenship law that they believe discriminated against Muslims.
Anger among Sikhs is now also starting to increase, although the farmers’ protests are largely driven by economic factors. India is predominantly Hindu, with Muslims making up 14% and Sikhs making up nearly 2% of the nearly 1.4 billion people.
“The government on national security has failed. I think this government seems to be quite blinkered at the kind of security challenges it creates for itself by alienating minority communities, Muslims and Sikhs, ”said Jerath, the political analyst.
Tuesday’s escalation overshadowed Republic Day celebrations, including the annual military parade already scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Neeraja Choudhury, a political analyst, said the government did not foresee what was to come and did not adequately prepare for it. “When farmers across India are restless, you cannot dismiss the protests as a form of resistance inciting farmers.”
Police said the protesting farmers broke away from the approved protest routes and resorted to “violence and vandalism”. Anil Kumar, a police spokesman, said more than 300 police personnel were injured in skirmishes. Several jumped into a deep dry drain in the fort area to escape the outnumbered protesters in various places.
Police said a protester died after his tractor fell, but farmers said he was shot. Several bloody protesters were seen on television, but it is unknown how many were injured.
Thirty police vehicles and hundreds of metal barricades were damaged by the protesters, police said.