Canadian Labour, social society groups come out in support of protesting farmers

Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, March 2

More than 100 labour, community, and civil society organsiations in Canada, and other countries have issued a joint statement in solidarity with the protesting farmers of India.

The organisations include Canadian Labour Congress, Alberta Federation of Labour, British Columbia Federation of Labour, British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Manitoba Federation of Labour, National Union of Public and General Employees and many more.

In the statement, they have stated that the farmers’ agitation for the repeal of the pro-corporate farm laws has become the largest and longest sustained non-violent movement in Indian history, surpassing Mahatma Gandhi’s historic Dandi March against the abhorrent Salt Law of the British colonial regime.

The Modi regime rammed the farm laws stealthily through Parliament in September 2020, using its brute majority in the Lok Sabha, resorting to the questionable manoeuvre of a voice vote in the Rajya Sabha where it did not have a majority, and counting on the pandemic to muffle opposition outside Parliament.

These laws were drafted without any consultation with farmers or their representatives, the farmers’ unions.

The farmers have consistently opposed these laws, which go against the promises and commitments made to farmers by different governments over several decades.

For several months the hundreds of thousands of farmers protesting peacefully on the borders of the national capital have faced and withstood brutal repressive policing including water cannons, tear gas and barricades in the near freezing conditions of a Delhi winter.

220 farmers have died as a result of the harsh conditions, a few unfortunately by their own hands as despair overcame them.

We are the organizations that work to extend and defend democratic rights, we recognize that an attack on such rights anywhere is an attack on them everywhere.

The farmers are literally sacrificing their well-being and putting their lives on the line to uphold these constitutional guarantees on behalf of all the people of India and are setting a glorious example to the entire world. Their heroism and their sacrifice deserve our strong support and our undying gratitude.

We salute the heroism of the farmers and pay homage to the departed souls who sacrificed their all to the larger cause.

We demand that the Government of India stop vilifying the movement and criminalising the human and democratic rights defenders and others who are part of the widespread support for it from diverse sections of Indian people.