'How Injustice Can Be Defeated': UK MPs Hail India's Decision to Repeal 'Controversial' Farm Laws

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government would withdraw the three new farm laws and asked protesters to end their year-long-campaign, farmer leaders said that they would continue to agitate at Delhi’s borders until the laws are formally repealed.

Several British lawmakers have hailed India’s decision to repeal three farm laws that have mobilised thousands of the country’s farmers in protest at the borders of the capital New Delhi since the legislation was cleared by the federal parliament in September last year.

In a surprise announcement on Friday morning, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a widely broadcast video address that his government would withdraw the three legislations in the upcoming Winter Session of the parliament, slated to take place later this month.

Modi said that he was prompted to withdraw the laws—which his government says would have boosted the income of Indian farmers—because he wasn’t able to properly communicate the benefits to the agricultural community.

The three contentious farm laws are: the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020.

The protesters have, however, refused to buy into the government’s claims about the new laws, which were perceived by them as being aimed at liberalising the Indian agriculture market by facilitating the entry of private companies.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, a Labour lawmaker in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, said that he was “glad” that the “controversial” laws were being retracted by the Indian government.

Given #FarmersProtest valiant struggles, glad the controversial farm laws being repealed.

Sections of media and establishment busy labelling farmers and those standing in solidarity with them as terrorists and separatists may well want to apologise.https://t.co/e0FceaUBAn

— Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP (@TanDhesi) November 19, 2021

The British Sikh politician also called for an apology from “sections of Indian media and establishment” who had branded the protestors as “terrorists” during the protests.

Modi’s party colleague and Haryana state chief Manohar Lal Khattar last year said that the farmer protesters had possible links to separatists. Jaskaur Meena, a parliamentarian from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), described the farmers as “terrorists”.

The Indian prime minister himself once claimed in parliament that some of the farmers present at the protest site were “professionals” and were guided by a “Foreign Destructive Ideology”. The comments came days after farmers stormed into the heart of India’s national capital from their protesting sites and clashed with police on 26 January, which is a national holiday.

In the ensuing crackdown, Indian authorities not only booked farmers for violence, but also charged several journalists with sedition after their social media posts were viewed as supporting the protestors.

Claudia Webbe, an independent British lawmaker, has said that the Indian farmers have shown the world how “injustice could be defeated”, while commenting on Modi’s decision to roll back the legislations.

Victory to the Indian Farmers.

Your cause was a righteous one & your moral authority shines bright.

Your protest is an example to the world how injustice must be defeated.

— Claudia Webbe MP (@ClaudiaWebbe) November 19, 2021

Labour MP Sam Terry said that Modi’s Friday’s announcement represented a “massive victory” for the farmers’ protest and showed the “power of grassroots activism in the face of oppression”.

This is a massive victory for the #FarmersProtest and shows the power of grassroots activism in the face of oppression.

Solidarity with all those who stood up against these awful laws and with those who lost loved ones in this struggle ✊🏻https://t.co/TJAxQj5UUh

— Sam Tarry MP (@SamTarry) November 19, 2021

Seema Malhotra, another British Labour MP, described the development as a “hugely welcome news”.

This hugely welcome news that India will be repealing its three controversial farm laws, more than a year after the start of widespread protests against them is a huge victory for the farmers and families who protested against them and sacrificed so much.https://t.co/okNedwxkMt

— Seema Malhotra MP 💙 (@SeemaMalhotra1) November 19, 2021

All the four British MPs—Dhesi, Webbe, Terry, and Malhotra—have been lobbying the Boris Johnson government to take up the farmer protest issue with the Indian government, arguing that it was of particular concern to British Sikhs and the Indian community in general.

The MPs were also a part of a group of 36 British lawmakers, who in October last year wrote to then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on the matter.

Farmers from the Punjab and across India are peacefully protesting against #FarmersBill2020.

Following our October meet, further discussions and given strong sense of injustice felt by many constituents, cross-party letter from British MPs has been sent to the Foreign Secretary. pic.twitter.com/l8aZWiekor

— Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP (@TanDhesi) December 4, 2020

In March this year, the British Parliament also held a debate on the “safety of farmers” and “press freedom” in India, which triggered strong criticism from the Indian High Commission in the United Kingdom.

"We deeply regret that rather than a balanced debate, false assertions – without substantiation or facts – were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions”, India’s official statement at the time read. Subsequently, New Delhi also summoned the British high commissioner to New Delhi to lodge its protests against the British parliamentary debate.