Leaders urge PM to address farmer struggle amid deportation crisis

Identifying widespread despair and unemployment among farmers as the major factors behind immigration in the region, leaders have urged the Union Government to rescue debt-ridden farmers by accepting their demands.

The activists also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to voice his concerns over the inhuman treatment of the immigrants while deportation during his forthcoming visit to the USA, commencing on February 12.

“Besides lodging a protest against the inhumane manner in which the deportees have been brought to the country in a military plane on the orders of American President Donald Trump, the PM should try to comprehend that the root cause behind this insult was unemployment and widespread despair among farmers, which forced the youth to leave the country,” said Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon, state secretary CPM, Punjab.

Sekhon said Modi should also ensure that a positive attitude was adopted by the representatives of the Union Government during the proposed talks with farmers protesting for their rights, a meeting for which is scheduled to take place on February 14.

Baldev Singh Latala, an office-bearer of the state unit of the All India Kisan Sabha, alleged that unemployment and destabilisation of the agriculture sector due to defective policies of the Union Government had prompted youths, from rural and urban localities, to search for greener pastures in foreign countries by hook or by crook.

“It is on the record that most of the victims of the ongoing deportation by America had tried to find a solution to India’s unemployment problem either by selling property or by borrowing money at exorbitant interest rates to leave the country,” said Latala, regretting that parents of the returned youths were now facing a double whammy of paying off loans and consoling their wards.

Sikandar Jartauli, a retired teacher and an NRI settled in Brampton in Canada, said Punjab would cease to be called the food bowl of India if the Union Government failed to take diplomatic measures for stopping further deportation from America or other foreign countries. The situation could have never arisen had the government tried to solve the unemployment problem and resolved issues of the protesting farmers, added Jartauli.