After a lull of three months, several members of academia, intelligentsia, legal fraternity, civil society, and media have made an appeal to the Central Government and also to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha — a pan-India umbrella body of protesting farmers — to resume the dialogue to break the prevailing stalemate over the ‘contentious’ farm laws.
Urging the Centre to be fair to the farmers, an appeal has been made to the Government to “immediately invite the farmers’ leaders” and find an amicable solution to end the stalemate. At the same time, the farmers’ leadership have also been urged to “respond positively” to the Government’s invite.
“…we earnestly appeal to the Government of India to be fair to the farmers who are providing food security to the nation.
The Government is urged to immediately invite the farmers’ leaders and find an amicable solution in order to end the stalemate. We also appeal to the leadership of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha that they should respond positively to the Government’s invite as and when such an invitation is extended,” read the “Appeal”, made by total 58 signatories from the north India, mainly Punjab.
“The adamant attitude of the Union Government is causing unprecedented psychological and physical sufferings to lakhs of agitating farmers consisting of women, children, old people, and youth, who have been camping in the open on the outskirts of Delhi for the last more than 140 days and are facing numerous problems.
Their families at home are undergoing a traumatic situation and are living under an atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty,” it read adding that already more than 300 persons have died, several hundred have suffered injuries and detentions in the ongoing struggle and there does not seem to be an amicable solution in sight.
Among the signatories include former Union Minister of State for Agriculture and ex-member Planning Commission of India Som Pal Shastry; retired IAS and Punjab’s former chief secretary TKA Nair; former Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, Dr Sudarshan Iyengar; PAU-Ludhiana Vice-Chancellor Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon; Supreme Court Lawyers’ Conference president Ashok Arora; former Director General of CRRID Dr Sucha Singh Gill; among others.