DM Monitoring
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today acknowledged the right of farmers to non-violent protests and suggested the Centre to put on hold the implementation of three contentious farm laws as it was thinking of setting up an “impartial and independent” panel of agriculture experts and farmer unions to resolve the impasse.
The top court was also of the view that the farmers’ right to protest should not infringe the fundamental rights of others to move freely and in getting essential food and other supplies as the right to protest cannot mean blockade of the entire city, PTI reported.
The court has issued notice to the Centre as well as the Delhi, Punjab and Haryana governments and said they will have to respond by tomorrow before winter vacation begins.
Meanwhile, Protests that have led to violence in India for months have prompted a response from a Northern California congressman, but some in the Sikh community are calling for stronger action.
India’s Parliament passed in September a new set of laws that changed the way farmers conduct business in selling their products. In the past, farmers were guaranteed a minimum price for crops at auctions held by the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, but the new rules make it so that farmers could sell crops at their own price and effectively eliminate base prices. That has many farmers who depended on the minimum profit worried about their livelihoods.
For the past three weeks, tens of thousands of farmers have changed their protesting methods by blocking half a dozen major highways on the outskirts of New Delhi, saying they won’t leave until these laws, referred to by protesters as the “Black laws,” are repealed, according to a report by The Associated Press. Rep. John Garamendi, D-03, sent a letter Friday to the United States’ Ambassador of India, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, to decry the Indian government’s violent response to protests that have been dubbed peaceful. Garamendi’s district, which has the largest immigrant Sikh community in the country, includes Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, and parts of Glenn, Solano, Yolo and Sacramento counties.
“Hundreds of thousands of farmers from the states of Punjab and Haryana that have made their way to New Delhi to peacefully protest these new agricultural laws, and the Indian government has met these peaceful protestors with tear gas, water cannons, barricades, baton attacks, and more,” Garamendi wrote in his letter.
“Many of these farmers have children, relatives, and friends who are U.S. citizens, many of whom have reached out to us to share their concerns about these developments. We urge the Indian government to demonstrate its respect for these crucial democratic freedoms, and to be a model of democratic values in the vital Indo-Pacific region.”
Garamendi is also the co-chair of the American Sikh Caucus. His letter was submitted alongside Rep. Jim Costa, D-16, members of the American Sikh Caucus and Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas.
The new agriculture laws could come to impact the United States, which is a major importer of Indian goods.
According to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, India was the U.S.’s 14th largest supplier of agricultural products in 2019, totaling $2.6 billion in 2019. The leading categories for imported products in 2019 include the following:
• Spices – $271 million
• Rice – $230 million
• Essential oils – $184 million
• Processed fruit &
vegetables – $142 million
• Other vegetable
oils $133 million
India is the leading consumer and exporters of spices, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation. Spices that come from India include chili, spice oils, cumin, turmeric, pepper, curry powder, cardamom seeds and others.
Garamendi told KCRA 3 that trade between the two countries is not likely to be an issue, his main concern being the Indian government’s handling of protesters. He said many of his constituents have reached out to his office worried about the safety of their family in India. There is also fear that the laws passed by the Parliament in September will effectively put small or family-owned farms out of business. Bhajan Singh was one of the organizers of a protest that met in Davis on Wednesday, and he also works with the Sikh Information Centre, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the ideals of liberal democracy among people of South Asian Origin. He said the newest agriculture laws are a blow to small business farmers who relied on the guaranteed minimum of crops at public auctions prior to the change.
Bhajan said what upset him about Garamendi’s letter was its “soft” approach in admonishing the Indian government’s handling of protests. He and a handful of others gathered outside of the congressman’s downtown Davis office, holding up signs and calling for more action from the U.S. Representative. His reference to Garamendi’s letter was where he wrote, “ we have also struggled at times in the United States to live up to the ideals of a just, democratic, society.”
“There are many things Garamendi can do, but the last thing he should have done was apologize and blame America for the problems of India,” Bhajan said. “No patriotic American, no decent congressman would say such words that he said to the ambassador of India.”
“I understand the emotion and concerns that many Indian families here in the United States have about what is happening in India, but there is a limit to what I can do,” Garamendi said. “I can write a letter to the ambassador. I had a long conversation with the ambassador, where he attempted to explain what was going on, and I just found myself in serious disagreement with him about what was happening.”
Garamendi said the Indian ambassador pointed to the violent protests happening in the U.S. for the past months, each with their own varying reasons, as a response to their conversation about the need for peaceful protests.
The congressman also said that while many Californians may not be fully aware of the situation in India, he stressed that people living in his district are aware, as is the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C. For Bhajan, the protests locally and in India are especially important because they fold into other political and religious movements that have been happening in India months before the farmers’ protests.
In June, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urged U.S. officials to designate India as a “country of particular concern” and bar some Indian officials from visiting the U.S. “for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.”
