Thousands of Indian farmers protest government plans on land reforms

Farmers cheer as they listen to a speech by India's Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi (not pictured) at a farmers rally at Ramlila ground in New Delhi on April 19, 2015. Anindito Mukherjee/ReutersShow less

NEW DELHI // India’s beleaguered opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday led thousands of angry farmers in a protest in the capital against prime minister Narendra Modi’s controversial overhaul of laws on land-buying.

The Congress leader accused Mr Modi of being beholden to big business at the expense of struggling farmers during the protest in New Delhi against the government’s contentious land bill.

“The Modi government wants to weaken farmers to such an extent that they are rendered helpless and forced to sell their land,” Mr Gandhi said.

Dressed in all white and waving Congress party flags, thousands of farmers poured into Delhi for the rally against the bill, which makes it easier for businesses to purchase farmland.

But anger has been mounting in rural areas over the move, seen as favouring big business and compounding the misery of debt-laden farmers. Many of them have already suffered extensive unseasonal rain damage to winter crops.

Shortly before the protest was set to start, Mr Modi launched a staunch defence of his government’s initiatives to help India’s tens of millions of poor, including lowering high inflation.

“This is a government for the poor. We are dedicated to the poor,” he told lawmakers from his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Instead, anything we say is ripped and twisted by the opposition.”

Congress mobilised thousands of supporters for the nationally televised protest, seen as a chance for the 44-year-old Mr Gandhi to relaunch himself as a strong head of the party and eventually replace his mother.

The ailing Congress party is hoping to harness anger against the bill after a series of electoral defeats that followed its humiliating defeat in last year’s national polls.

The rally comes days after Mr Gandhi returned from a two-month sabbatical to “reflect” on his party’s defeats, which had led to ridicule of his leadership skills.

Mr Gandhi is often seen as a reluctant and reclusive scion of the famous Gandhi family, even though his father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers.

“A whole generation is depending on him [Gandhi] to take on this Modi government and its anti-poor policies,” Congress leader Madhu Goud Yaskhi told the NDTV network from the Ramlila Maidan protest ground.

Chanting “Gandhi is our leader”, farmers packed into the Ramlila protest ground after catching specially organised buses from a string of northern states. A crowd control officer estimated the number at 100,000.

“The Modi government has failed people like us. How can he take away our land, our main source of income?” Kalu Ram Honjar, a 40-year-old farmer from neighbouring Haryana state, said.

The bill exempts projects related to defence, rural housing and power, along with industrial corridors, from the current requirement that 80 per cent of affected landowners must agree to a sale.

It also scraps the need for a “social impact assessment” to find out how many people would be affected by the loss of land.

While the government has issued a temporary order making it easier to buy land for projects, the changes need approval in parliament to be made permanent.

The rally comes on the eve of parliament’s reopening on Monday when Mr Modi’s government is expected to push ahead with efforts to pass the bill despite lacking the numbers in the upper house.

* Agence France-Presse