Press Release, 8 December 2020
Highlights of the Bandh
- Complete Bandh in some states, huge protests all over India;
- More than 50 Lac people participate in 20,000 places to make Bharat Bandh Successful;
- All Sections of common working class people and white-collar workers join Bandh; city streets and markets deserted;
- Organised and Unorganised Sector workers involved in supporting Bandh; Daily wagers sacrifice to make Bandh successful;
- BJP Govt. has not learnt lesson from farmers march to Delhi; Haryana & UP Govt. again tries to stop protests & unleashes repression, arrests to stall Bandh but fail;
- AIKSCC thanks people of India for supporting the just and democratic demand of farmers to repeal the Centre’s anti-farmer laws;
- AIKSCC reasserts demand, says Govt. should listen to voice of people & no divert – it is farmers versus corporate & not about political parties.
The people of the country have observed a near-complete General Strike and there has been a massive outpouring of peoples’ opposition to the Central Govt’s adamant attitude and rigidity towards the just and genuine demands of farmers to save their livelihood means from being captured by big corporate and MNCs.
The enthusiastic response of the people of the country to the Bharat Bandh call by the Farmers Organizations, including AIKSCC, has refuted the govt’s claim of these laws are beneficial to farmers and a saviour for the economy. People have rejected this logic of the model of corporate-profit driven economy. Along with farmers, for weeks people have heard the Govt’s illogic of reforming and not repealing the law and they have firmly and with mass participation rejected the Govts’ position.
More than 90 percent of public life came to a standstill in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Punjab and West Bengal while the Bandh was widely observed in a total of 22 states including in Maharastra, Bihar, Tripura, Kerala etc. Most states saw massive outpouring of people in rallies and dharnas since early morning and these also included Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP, Haryana and others. In major cities, markets, rural markets, tribal areas, people came out in large numbers. Major mandis including the Azadpur mandi in Delhi and several in Uttar Pradesh was closed.Those who rallied included fishermen, adivasis, stone quarry workers, sand mine workers, daily wagers, share croppers, tenant farmers and a large spectrum of industrial workers, tempo and other transport workers, students and intellectuals. More than 1000 district and tehsil Bar Associations have observed a strike in support of the farmers.
A notable feature has been the active support from people of Delhi who came out in large numbers in all industrial areas and at least a 100 other places where huge rallies in support were taken out.
State Govts of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana unleashed massive repression and made hundreds of preventive arrests as well as during protests. Still several parts of these states saw people coming out and voicing their support to the farmers. Gujarat Govt has even issued a gag order over social media posts. AIKSCC condemns these undemocratic steps, cautions these Govts that voice of people cannot be muffled by barbaric and illegal use of state power and demands immediate release of all persons detained.
AIKSCC has severely condemned PM Modi’s attempts to defend the pro-corporate laws as establishing a new system, which in fact is a new system for direct Corporate control over input prices, crop purchase, marketing and take-over of farmers’ land. It is being driven by Modi Govt to allow the Corporate including MNCs, International Food Giants, Grain Trading Giants, World Food Processing Industry and Retail trading and online MNCs go gain control over the food market and enslave the people of India.
All farmer outfits including AIKSCC are determined to continue the struggle till the Black Acts of Modi Govt. are repealed.
