Report by correspondent of Mazdoor Ekta Committee
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), which had spearheaded the year-long farmers’ protest at the borders of Delhi through 2020-21, has expressed its strong opposition to the central government’s slanderous attack on the farmers’ protests, in the FIR filed against the media portal NewsClick on October 9, 2023. It has issued a strong statement criticising these attacks. The SKM has announced country-wide protests against the central government to condemn these attacks.
The FIR has stated that the 13-month-long farmers’ movement was to “abet damage and destruction of property, cause huge loss to the Indian economy and create internal law and order problems, through illegal foreign funding”.
The SKM has “categorically rejected” all these allegations. It has clarified in its statement that the protests against the “anti-farmer and pro-corporate” laws and policies of the BJP government were peaceful. “No supply was disrupted by the farmers. No property was damaged by the farmers. No loss to the economy was caused by farmers. No law and order problem was created by the farmers. By violently stopping the farmers from exercising their democratic right of reaching the nation’s capital, through barbed wire fencing, water cannons, lathi charge and digging up roads, it is the Union Government that caused great inconvenience to the people of the nation and the farmers,” the statement says.
Further, the SKM statement refers to the deaths of 735 farmers at various protest sites and the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, where four farmers and one journalist were murdered. “It is the government that conspired with crony capitalists to grab and capture food production and supply chains, destroying food security of the people and economy of the nation”, the SKM statement says.
Condemning the attempts of the government to discredit and slander the farmers’ movement, the statement says: “The Farmers’ Movement succeeded, overcoming enormous hardship and with great sacrifice of the farmers. To belittle such sacrifice by alleging that the movement was foreign funded and acts of terrorism, betrays the arrogance, ignorance and anti-people mindset of the government”.