Not even worry of COVID-19 can disrupt protest, say agitating farmers

The alarming rise within the variety of COVID-19 circumstances in Delhi however, farmer leaders on Thursday stated that nothing, not even the worry of coronavirus, can disrupt their protest towards the agri legal guidelines.
Over the previous 4 months, the farmers have managed to maintain their agitation going, withstanding excessive chilly, rains, and warmth.
They devised some ways to take care of these points – for chilly there was ample provide of winter put on, for rain they elevated their beds, and to organize for the warmth, they’ve began constructing homes, and arranging for ACs, coolers and followers.
Tackling the second wave of COVID-19 received’t be very totally different for them, they stated, including they’re ready with sure fundamental precautions in place.

“We have been making announcements from the stage at the Singhu border about the necessity of wearing masks, and washing hands frequently. We are also encouraging the protestors to get vaccinated,” stated Lakhbir Singh, vice chairman (Punjab) of All India Kisan Sabha.

With a number of well being camps at these protest websites, fast medical help is all the time on the farmers’ disposal in case a protestor develops signs like fever or breathlessness.
“If somebody has fever or cold, or any other COVID-like symptoms, then the doctors here take a call. The patient is either admitted to a hospital, or sent back to their village for 8-10 days,” stated Jagmohan Singh, normal secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Dakaunda).
On Friday, India registered a file single-day spike of 1,31,968 new COVID-19 circumstances. Delhi too, recorded 7,437 contemporary circumstances in its highest single-day spike this 12 months, with the capital’s dying roll reaching 11,157 on Thursday.
According to Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav, farmers do deal with the pandemic with a “certain indifference”, but in addition identified that not one of the protest websites had been COVID-19 hotspots both, making it tough to problem the farmers’ angle.
“If you’ll discover, every of those locations has docs, clinics. They should not doing COVID testing, but when many individuals are reporting fever and so forth, they might get to know as a result of certified docs are there in each single morcha.
“Some of them have proper hospitals. If there was a surge in fever and breathlessness that would have been noticed immediately,” he stated.
He added that whereas the behavior of carrying masks and washing arms was being cultivated among the many farmers, “distancing has not worked”, which, he added, was true for many locations within the nation.
“Farmers are just like any ordinary Indian citizen they are just about as careful as other citizens are, or about as careless, as most Indian citizens are,” Yadav stated.
One of the main threats that appears to loom over the farmers motion with the rising variety of COVID-19 circumstances, is the repeat of what occurred to the Shaheen Bagh protest final 12 months – they had been compelled to finish the agitation fearing the unfold of the illness.

This 12 months, Yadav stated, nonetheless, the scenario was totally different.
“That time, there was a way of doom, a way of ‘you don’t know what would occur’ with corona. It was just the start we didn’t know something at that time.
“Now, that unspecified sense of doom is not there, and therefore, while at that time the government could use that as a pretext to get the protestors to move away, using that now would be utterly cynical,” he stated.
He added that if the federal government makes use of the coronavirus as an excuse to take away the protesting farmers, it could solely expose their “hypocrisy” with the election campaigning underway in West Bengal.
“In that case they should ban election campaigning in Bengal. The first thing they should do is to ban BJP’s own rallies, where the home minister is addressing the crowds. The hypocrisy of that would obviously be seen,” Yadav stated.
Thousands of farmers from totally different components of the nation have been protesting towards the three farm legal guidelines because the final week of November, 2020. While the federal government has been projecting these legal guidelines as main agricultural reforms, farmers have expressed apprehension that the transfer would result in the elimination of the Minimum Support Price system, and go away them on the mercy of huge corporates.
Ask Paramjit Singh if the farmers are afraid of contracting the illness that has already claimed over 1.6 lakh lives within the nation, and he stated, “what choice do we have?”

“Our lives are already on the road. We had been afraid of the biting chilly, and are afraid of the warmth that awaits us, so sure we’re afraid of the illness however there is no such thing as a different possibility.
“We are taking precautions at individual levels by wearing masks and avoiding shaking hands with people, but the movement has to and will continue,” the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) Punjab normal secretary stated.