Indian farmers not pacified by order to suspend new laws
Supreme Court appoints panel to look into grievances; farmers vow to continue protests until laws are repealed
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Indian farmers listening to a speaker at a protest site at the New Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Monday. Farm leaders, the opposition and some of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's allies fear the farm laws will lead to corporate control over agricultural production, processing and markets, and lower crop prices by removing government purchases, thereby causing losses to cultivators.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
NEW DELHI • Tens of thousands of farmers will continue their protests against India's new farm laws until they are repealed, rejecting the top court's decision to keep them in abeyance and adding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's woes.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of the laws while a four-member committee looks into the protesters' grievances. But farm leaders have refused to cooperate with the committee and were yesterday set to torch copies of the legislation on bonfires at protest sites to drive home their opposition and mark the Lohri mid-winter festival.
The siege of a key roadway connecting the country's capital, where the farmers have been camping for the past two months, will continue, protest leaders said, as will plans to march into the city later this month.
"We expect to mobilise up to two million farmers across the country on Jan 26," Mr Kulwant Singh Sandhu, general secretary of Jamhuri Kisan Sabha, one of the main farm unions, told Reuters.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde on Tuesday barred the implementation of the laws until the court hears the matter. It also set up a panel to mediate between the government and protesters and submit a report to the court.
"Suspending the implementation of the laws as an interim measure is welcome but is not a solution," the farm leaders said in a statement. The government "must repeal the laws".
The government has tried to prevent the march from happening with claims that the protesters are "infiltrated" by separatist militants.
Farm leaders, the opposition and some of Mr Modi's allies fear the laws will lead to corporate control over agricultural production, processing and markets, and lower crop prices by removing government purchases, thereby causing losses to cultivators.
While the government maintains that farmers are being misled and that the new laws will lift curbs on purchases, remove middlemen and raise farmers' income, the court's decision to suspend the laws adds to its challenges.
Mr Modi had in his first term promised to double farmers' incomes by next year.
With the agitation refusing to die down, the court said the farmers' right to protest cannot be stifled, even as it urged protesters to return to their livelihood.
It ruled that the existing system of the government setting a minimum floor price for procurement of certain farm produce will continue and that no farmer will be deprived of his land using the new laws.
The court will continue to hear the matter next week to decide on the constitutional validity of the laws approved by Parliament last year.
It is rare for Indian courts to stay a law cleared by the Parliament.
The Tuesday order notes that the country's Attorney-General, Mr K.K. Venugopal, "opposed vehemently" the judges' suggestion to stay the law, saying the judiciary should refrain from interfering in acts of Parliament.
But the court ruled that it had the powers.
Yet, the farmers have said they will "not participate" in discussions with the court-appointed panel, saying all four committee members "have actively advocated" for the laws, according to their statement.
BLOOMBERG, NYTIMES, REUTERS
