Overseas groups trying to hijack farmers’ stir: Indo-Canadian bodies

Toronto, Feb 24  Various Indo-Canadian organisations, in a joint letter to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have supported his handling of the farmers’ agitation against the three farm laws.

Blaming “forces inimical to India” for trying “to hijack these protests to push their vested agenda,” the letter on Tuesday said, “We particularly condemn the attempt by overseas groups and vested interests to push a nakedly anti-India agenda in the guise of support for farmers.”

Condemning “violent attacks and desecration of Indian national symbols by the protesters,” the letter commended the Modi government “for its mature and restrained handling of the motivated and political opposition to these reforms.”

The letter supported Modi’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat mission and his laudable goal of doubling the farmers’ income in the near future.

“The three farm reform laws will break the monopolistic powers of entrenched interests, allow contract farming which will encourage greater inputs and use of technology and liberalise the stocking regime of commodities, while providing due safeguards to the farmers’ interests,” the letter said.

The lndo-Canadian organisations also welcomed the Modi government’s promise to continue the minimum support price (MSP) and its “efforts to negotiate with those opposing the laws in the spirit of cooperation with the ultimate aim of improving the welfare to India’s farmers.”

The Indo-Canadian bodies which have sent the joint letter to Modi include Canada-India Global Forum, Overseas Friends of India and Canada, the Bharat Bhavan Foundation, the India-Canada Association of Montreal, Shri Ramji Temple Mandhata Montreal, the Gujarati Senior Citizens Association of Montreal, India Community Services and the Indo-Canadian Alliance.