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Article

7 Mar 2021

Author:
Livemint India

India: Thousands of women farmers take centre stage of protests on International Women's Day

Indian farmers march to Delhi to protest agricultural reform law, 2020

"Women farmers frontline protests at Delhi borders on international women's day", 8 March 2021

On the occasion of international women's day, thousands of women farmers are joining the protests against the three contentious farm laws at the Singhu, Ghazipur, and Tikri borders of the national capital...

Farmer unions have claimed that around 40,000 women from various parts of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh will be part of a congregation at the protest sites.

Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), which has the largest women wing, has arranged 500 buses, 600 minibuses, 115 trucks besides 200 small vehicles to ferry women protestors, according to BKU (Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan.

The women will take the centre stage at the protest site, managing the stage, food and security to sharing tales of their struggles, and the significance of taking part in the farmers’ agitation...

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points -- Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur --- since 26 November last year, demanding the repeal of farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

...The protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that these laws would pave the way for the dismantling of the MSP system, leaving them at the "mercy" of big corporations.

However, the government has maintained that the new laws will bring better opportunities to farmers and introduce new technologies in agriculture.