Indian farmers remain defiant, a year after ‘black laws’ passed
Al JazeeraAl Jazeera visits Singhu outside New Delhi to meet the farmers who refuse to call off their nearly 10-month-old protest. Last September, Modi’s right-wing government passed three laws aimed at “modernising” the country’s agricultural system. “The government says the laws are for the betterment of farmers but we know they are hand-in-glove with the corporates and the laws are meant to benefit them, not the farmers.” Two months after the laws were passed, hundreds of thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh states marched on their tractors, motorbikes and on foot to New Delhi to put pressure on the government to repeal them. “Unless and until the government doesn’t take the black laws back, we will not move from here,” Gurcharan Singh told Al Jazeera. Raghbir Singh of the Indian Farmers Association said they will campaign against the BJP in upcoming regional elections early next year, mainly in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.