The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti, the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Siddhupur) and other kisan organisations have stepped up their agitation for their long standing demands, including MSP for all agricultural produce. It may be recalled that on the basis of assurances by the Union Agriculture Minister, that the government would consider ways to implement the kisans’ demands, kisan leader Dallewal had concluded his 131-day fast and the 13-month long agitation at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders of Punjab-Haryana was withdrawn in March 2025.
Many activists were physically attacked and arrested by the police and security forces when the kisans had agreed to withdraw their agitation in March, following the meeting with the Union Agriculture Minister. Their tractors and vehicles, as well as refrigerators, coolers and fans used during the dharna, were impounded. The kisans are demanding that the government release the arrested activists as well as all the seized tractors and other vehicles and goods. They are demanding strict punishment for the police officers guilty of attacking the protesting kisans, as well as compensation for the activists who were injured in the attacks.
On 4 May, kisan delegations marched to the District Administrative Complex in Amritsar, to submit a memorandum of their main demands. In addition to their long-standing demands, they demanded compensation for the widespread crop damage caused by recent fires, hailstorms and crop diseases, which have resulted in extensive damage to wheat crop and farm machinery, as well as loss of life in some cases. Kisan leader Sarwan Singh Pandher addressed the protesting kisans.
The kisans had planned a march to the Shambhu border on 6 May, to highlight their demands. The Punjab government and its police forces employed the most criminal methods to prevent the kisan march.
Many kisan leaders were placed under house arrest, while several other kisan activists were detained at police stations, a day before the planned march. As kisans began gathering in Moga and Jagraon in preparation for the march, they were stopped. Police erected barricades, deployed sand-laden trucks and tippers to block the kisan march to Shambhu.
There was heavy police deployment of hundreds of police personnel from Sirhind to Shambhu. Vehicles were stopped and checked. Police nakas had been set up on Ludhiana-Malerkotla, Malerkotla-Khanna, Ahmedgarh-Raikot and Kup-Payal roads, to stop kisans from reaching Shambhu police station for the planned dharna. Declaring the kisan agitation as “against the cause of development and prosperity in Punjab”, the Punjab Chief Minister called for even more repressive measures by the state security forces, against the kisans.
Meanwhile, kisans organised under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha were stopped from going to Chandigarh on 5 May. They had given a call for a week-long dharna from 7 May, in front of the offices of the state administration, in support of their various demands. The police set up multiple barricades and checkpoints all across Punjab and hundreds of security forces were deployed at all entry points to Chandigarh.
Undaunted, the kisans are determined to continue the struggle for their demands.
These attacks on the agitating kisans are taking place at a time when the government of India is reported to be negotiating with the US government and various US monopoly capitalist companies, who are demanding reduction of tariffs on Indian imports of agricultural goods, in order to increase their control over the agricultural sector in India. These measures are likely to further threaten the insecurity of livelihood of the kisans.