You may have seen many posts being shared by several people on social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter about the Farmers Protest in India but you probably don’t even know what the protest is about so let’s take a sneak peek at what the background details of this protest are! The Farmers’ Protest in India is a protest that started on August 9, 2020 and is still going on. It has been going on for over a year now. It is a protest against the three farm laws that have been passed by Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. Before, there had been small-scale protests happening in only Punjab when the Farm Bills had been made public. Then shortly after these laws had actually been passed, many farmers from across all of India joined the protests in the capital of the country, New Delhi, against these resolutions. Now you may wonder why these laws are such a big deal to these farmers. These laws take away the Minimum Support Price . A Minimum Support Price is a rate to safeguard the farmer to a minimum profit for the harvest, if the open market has a lesser price than cost incurred. In addition to that, the Indian government ordered the police and law enforcement of various states to attack the protesters using water cannons, batons, and tear gas to prevent the farmer unions from entering into Haryana first and then also Delhi. November 2020 saw a nationwide general strike in support of the farmers and thousands converging at various border points on the way to Delhi. On India's Republic Day, tens of thousands of the farmers held a farmer's parade with a large convoy of tractors and drove into Delhi. There are also a number of hashtags that have been related to this protest such as #KisaanMajdoorEktaZindabad, #FarmersProtest, #FarmerLivesMatter, and etc. Now you have a general knowledge of what the Farmers’ Protest is all about and why you might be seeing so many posts about it on social media!
- Jaspreet Kaur