“Like you’ve conquered Mount Everest!” he said.STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning In the 1960s and 70s, poor Nigerian families would loan their children to British couples while they went away to try and attain a better life. Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer leader and activist, said he was “ecstatic” after hearing the news.
Protest leaders on Friday greeted Modi’s turnaround with cautious optimism, with plans to meet at the main protest site in New Delhi to discuss next steps. “I am sad that we were not able to convince some farmers of the country about the benefits of these laws,” he said. Narendra Singh Tomar, India’s agriculture minister, on Friday still defended the laws, saying Modi had a “clean intent” to revolutionize farming. “The government has had to eat humble pie,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. Until Friday, Modi and his supporters had stood firm, labeling the farmers secessionists and pawns in the service of opposition parties, and ignorant of how the agricultural reforms would benefit them. Their campsites resembled small townships, with community kitchens, laundry facilities, and even gyms and volunteer masseuses. They remained in their tents through last year’s harsh winter, the summer heat and the second COVID-19 wave, which caused havoc in New Delhi.
The farmers refused any compromise short of repeal. In January, while Modi watched a military parade in the city to commemorate a national holiday, farmers drove tractors through police barriers, leaving one farmer dead and others injured. Their suspicions grew after the BJP passed the laws quickly last year.įor more than a year, protesting farmers have camped out in tents outside New Delhi, snarling traffic. But the farmers, already struggling under heavy debt loads and bankruptcies, feared that reduced government regulations would leave them at the mercy of corporate giants. Modi’s government had argued that the new laws would bring private investment into a sector that more than 60 percent of the population still depends on for their livelihood. Its farms grow some crops in such excesses that they rot in silos or get exported, while people suffer from malnutrition elsewhere in India. “The BJP of the rich wanted to cheat the poor and farmers with land acquisition and these black laws,” Yadav said in a tweet Friday.Įconomists widely agree that India’s agricultural sector needs an overhaul. Since then, Akhilesh Yadav, an opposition politician and a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has held huge campaign rallies that have worried the incumbent BJP leadership there. The son of one of Modi’s ministers is among those under investigation in connection with the episode. After more than a dozen rounds of failed negotiations, the farmers changed tactics this fall, shadowing top officials of Modi’s government as they campaigned in Uttar Pradesh and across northern India.ĭuring one such confrontation in October, a BJP convoy rammed into a group of protesting farmers, resulting in the deaths of four protesters along with four other people, including a local journalist. Some of that weakening may be a result of the farmer protests. Polls show the BJP’s lead in Uttar Pradesh - a state seen as a bellwether for the national vote, and which will hold elections early next year - has weakened. Modi himself remains popular, according to some polls, and the disorganized opposition makes it highly unlikely he will lose power.īut in May, his Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a decisive loss in elections it had considered winnable, in the state of West Bengal. “Modi’s image as a tough, no-nonsense prime minister has suffered a huge dent,” said Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister who quit Modi’s party in 2018. But it signaled that his standing has weakened amid a variety of problems, including a disastrous response to a second wave of the coronavirus and a struggling economy. The speech stunned Indians accustomed to Modi’s usual stance as a muscular leader impervious to criticism. “Today, I beg the forgiveness of my countrymen and say with a pure heart and honest mind that perhaps there was some shortcoming,” he said. Modi timed his announcement for Guru Nanak Jayanti, a holiday celebrated by Sikhs, in a nod to India’s minority Sikh community, who make up the base of the protest.
I urge the protesting farmers to return home to their families, and let’s start afresh.” The government, he said in a televised address, “will begin the procedure at the Parliament session that begins this month.