With the Supreme Court on Monday stating that it intended to stay the implementation of the three agricultural laws and proposing to form a committee, protesting farmers at the Singhu border stated that they would not move from the protest site till the laws were repealed by the government.
The farmers who have been protesting across Delhi’s borders for over 45 days now, said that formation of a committee would result in delaying the process and that they would accept nothing short of the laws being repealed.
Litigation takes time
Jagmeet Singh, a 22-year-old veterinarian from Patiala said, “We are here fighting for our rights. Litigation takes a lot of time and it may be decades before judgments are passed. Even earlier we have seen how cases, be it the 1984 riots case or other matters, have dragged on for several years. How can we depend on such provisions now? We do not want any committee or any commission of any sort. We will leave the protest site only after the laws are repealed.”
Several of the agitating farmers also said that constitution of the committee as proposed by the apex court would be similar to the government “imposing” the new laws on the farmers.
‘PM should resign’
Malraz Singh, a farmer from Amritsar who owns around six acres of land said, “Why are the authorities imposing things on us which we do not want. We did not want the laws but the Centre was adamant on implementing the same. Now what are we supposed to do with a committee? After the manner in which the government has failed us, the Prime Minister should resign.”
“The farmers are not going to move from here unless the laws are repealed and our demands are met,” said Mr. Singh, who had reached the Singhu border on the first day of the protest along with a group of 20 others.
Jagdev Singh, a farmer from Punjab’s Barnala district said, “The government should know that we are not going anywhere without the laws being repealed. No committee can be useful to us whatsoever.”
Another farmer from Punjab’s Patiala, Sukhjeet Singh Sidhu said, “It looks like authorities are under the impression that they can form a committee and the farmers will retreat. But that is not the case as formation of a committee cannot be of any benefit to us. This will just end up dragging the matter for a longer period of time so that people end up leaving and going back to their villages. However, once people start leaving it will be very difficult to accumulate so many thousands of people together yet again. So we are not going to move as of now. We will move only when we are certain that the laws have been repealed.”
