The strike took place following months of protest from Indian farmers, a response to three farm acts passed by the Parliament of India in September 2020. According to protesters, the farm acts would leave small farmers, the vast majority, at the mercy of large corporations. Poor farmers were already desperate before the laws were passed - in 2019 alone, 10,281 agricultural workers committed suicide.

Dozens of farm unions began organizing protests demanding the repeal of these laws. After failing to get the support of their respective state governments, the farmers decided to pressure the Central Government by marching to Delhi en masse.

The farmers arrived at Delhi on November 25th, 2020 and were met by police, who employed the use of tear gas and water cannons, dug up roads, and used layers of barricades and sand barriers to try and stop their march.

On November 26th, 250 million workers from all over the country initiated a general strike in solidarity with the farmer's struggle. According to Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, trade unions issued a twelve-point charter of demands which included "the reversal of the anti-worker, anti-farmer laws pushed by the government in September, the reversal of the privatisation of major government enterprises, and immediate [Covid] relief for the population".

Farmer protests continued for more than a year, featuring mass marches, clashes with police, and many failed negotiations between farmers' unions and the government. Rakesh Tikait, a leader with Bharatiya Kisan Union (English: Indian Farmers' Union) stated in October 2021 that approximately 750 participants have died in the protest.

Among the dead was a Senior Superintendent of Police in the city of Sonepat, who committed suicide, saying he could not bear the pain of the farmers. His suicide note read "Bullets fired from the guns kill only those whom they strike. The bullet of injustice, however, kills many with a single stroke... It is humiliating to suffer injustice."

In a televised address on November 19th, 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that his government would repeal the three acts in the upcoming winter parliamentary session in December. The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, Rakesh Tikait, stated the protests would only cease once the laws were repealed.

The film actor Deep Sidhu also joined the protests, and was quoted as having told a police officer the following: "Ye inquilab hai. This is a revolution. If you take away farmers' land, then what do they have left? Only debt."

We Are Grass. We Grow on Everything: The Forty-Ninth Newsletter (2020).

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    • GinAndJuche
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m sorry to hear that and hope things are better now.

      According to the recent pew poll that’s for all Catholics, self-ID. The sample sizes are fucked though so I’m taking every part with a grain of salt.

      I have other objections to the way it was conducted (not accounting for marriage rates, conversion to/away, and so on).

      This is all in America, limiting the conversation to countries with humane divorce laws is also important to consider.

      Catholic numbers plummet in any study that include the Philippines.

      I am yet to see a study on self-trads. It’s a new enough phenomenon I suppose, unless you include the ultra groups like sedavacs and sspx.

      Hypocrisy within religion is going to be difficult to find honest polling on probably anyways. The way some of these are conducted, me an ironic satanist, would count as Catholic because I was baptized.