NEW DELHI: A week after the government agreed to repeal the three farm laws, Indian farmers announce the end of a year of major protests and calls for a Victory March.
Thousands of farmers had tented on the outskirts of Delhi, with dozens dying as a result of the heat, cold, and Covid, they will begin returning to their homes.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farmers' unions had decided to suspend the over a year-long farmers' movement.
After ministers agreed to explore their other demands, including guaranteed prices for produce and the removal of criminal charges against protesting farmers, the farmer groups made their choice.
On the 15th of January, we will host a review meeting. We may renew the demonstration if the government fails to keep its promises," farmer activist Gurnam Singh Charuni told local media. Farmers were protesting the government's passage of three laws that ease controls governing the selling, price, and storage of farm food, rules that had previously shielded them from the free market.
This legislation, according to Farm Unions, would leave farmers susceptible to large corporations and destroy their livelihoods
Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared on November 19 that his government would abolish the legislation after months of maintaining that the measures would benefit farmers and also requested all the protesters to go to their respective homes and farms.
The government has also committed to compensating the families of farmers who died as a result of the protest. The administration had told parliament last week that it had no record of the number of farmers who died during the protests, thus this is considered a success for agricultural unions.
The government has agreed to organize a committee that will include officials from the federal and state governments, agriculture scientists, and farmer organisations in response to the demand for a minimum support price (MSP).
Farmers attempted to march into Delhi in November but were halted by police at the city's outskirts, igniting the protests. They'd lingered at the outskirts of the city against all odds since then, enduring blistering heat, a harsh winter, and even a devastating second wave of Covid.
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