#FarmersFightBack: Artists and academicians join the fight, declare solidarity

Farmers at Singhu border | Amarjeet Kumar Singh

We, the undersigned members of the artists community and academicians, stand firmly in solidarity with the country’s farmers, lakhs of whom are protesting across different states and gathering in strength at the borders of the national capital to express their rejection of the three Farm Acts and the Electricity Amendment Act 2020. These Acts seek to regulate the entire system to promote the corporatization of the agrarian sector and contractualisation of farming to benefit corporate investors. Exploiting the surging Corona pandemic, the central government brought ordinances that speedily received presidential assent, and passed the Acts in a completely undemocratic manner and with no respect for the strong opposition of the farmers and workers.

Further, the Acts themselves are anti-constitutional as agriculture is a concurrent subject and cannot be legislated on without the involvement and consultation of the state governments. However, this shocking behaviour is no longer even a surprise with the present government.

Hence we strongly support the demand of the farmers that the three Farm Acts and the Electricity Amendment Act 2020 must be immediately repealed. We support the call for all citizens to observe “Bharat Bandh” on 8th December 2020.