The AAP-led Punjab state government has accused the government of bowing to corporate powers and the pro-corporate central government
NEW DELHI: The National Coordination Committee of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has called for protests in districts across India on March 28, 2025, against the police repression of farmers’ protests in Punjab. On the directions of the Bhagwant Singh Mann-led state government, the Punjab Police had arrested and sent 350 farmer leaders and activists, including Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher, to jail. The police had bulldozed the tents and stages of the agitating farmers at the Khanauri and Shambhu borders and forcibly removed tractor trailers, trolleys and other equipment.
Similar repression was implemented across Punjab on 3 and 4 March 2025, with over 800 SKM activists arrested and sent to jail to thwart the week-long protest and sit-in announced by the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha in Chandigarh from 5 March. The strong message of this series of police repression is that the AAP-led state government is forcibly violating the right of farmers to protest against corporate policies that have wreaked havoc on their lives and livelihoods. The constitutional right of citizens to protest is the foundation of a democratic society. Facing the arrest of key leaders and activists of the Morcha, the farmers of Punjab had held massive peaceful protests across Punjab on 5 March 2025 and forced the Bhagwant Mann government to release all the activists who were arrested and jailed. The Punjab borders of Khanauri and Shambhu were closed not by the agitating farmers but by the Haryana police and administration on the orders of the Central Government. A section of the farmers’ organizations were then struggling for other legitimate, long-pending demands including MSP@C2+50%, loan waiver and the Narendra Modi-led Central Government is responsible for resolving the farmers’ struggle, by ensuring remunerative price for farm produce and freeing them from debt as 31 farmers are committing suicide every day in India. In the last ten years, the Modi government has waived off corporate loans worth Rs 16 lakh crore but not a single rupee of farmers’ loans has been waived off. Punjab is the epicentre of the farmers’ protest and the strategy of the corporate powers is to suppress the farmers’ movement in Punjab so that there is no obstacle in looting and exploiting farmers across India. However, the history of Punjab, India and the people across the world shows that any attempt to suppress peaceful protests of the people will only provoke more massive and determined struggles, ultimately uprooting the elements of oppression and the United Kisan Morcha believes that the same is true of the Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab government and the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-led Central government. The farmers’ protests are also bent on suppressing them.
SKM alleges that the AAP-led state government is bowing to corporate powers and is bowing to pressure from the pro-corporate Central government. SKM calls upon the people of Punjab to rally against police brutality. Upholding the legacy of Bhagat Singh, Ghadri martyrs and Jallianwala Bagh, the people of Punjab will never allow Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to turn Punjab into a police state. A massive protest will be held across Punjab on March 28 in front of the District Magistrate offices against police brutality.
The United Kisan Morcha appeals to all farmer organizations and platforms to learn from the experiences, engage in issue-based solidarity and come forward to unite and protest against oppression in Punjab as well as across the country. Without protecting the right to protest and pushing back against the authoritarian, neo-fascist tendencies being displayed by those in power in our time, farmers cannot win their real long-pending demands to protect their lives and livelihoods. The United Kisan Morcha declares that farmers will never surrender to corporate powers and the protests of farmers across the country against police repression and NPFAM, MSP@C2+50%, loan waiver are coming, which is essential to resolve the agrarian crisis. The United Kisan Morcha calls upon all its member organizations to prepare for massive and sustained nationwide struggles.