India Tightens Security Measures Amid Farmers' Demonstrations

The Indian authorities have strengthened security measures around the government institutions and embassies in the capital, New Delhi, in anticipation of a security emergency that may occur based on intelligence information warning of attacks by "separatists."

The authorities based their decision on the security services' warnings of the possibility of the "Khalistan" movement led by the Sikhs, which it describes as "separatism", behind the violence that interrupted, on January 26, the demonstrations of peasants rejecting government agrarian reform, leaving at least one dead and dozens of wounded.

The Khalistan movement, according to the Indian security sources, seeks to separate the Punjab region from India and make it an independent Sikh homeland.

Government security concerns come in light of the continuing marches organized by peasant protesters in several regions, who say that they “will not return to homes before the demands are met.”

The farmers' protests in India have lasted for more than two months, as they began last November to demand the abolition of the agrarian reform laws that the government wants to implement despite the farmers ’rejectionist position.

The farmers see that those reforms serve the interests of companies and put them at their mercy in determining the prices and marketing of their agricultural products.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last Sunday that farmers who attacked the historic "Red Fort" in New Delhi during their protest against land reform this week had insulted the entire country.

In a radio address, Modi said, "The insult of the tricolor flag (the Indian flag) saddened the country on January 26th in Delhi."

He stressed that "the government is committed to modernizing the agricultural sector and is taking many steps in this direction."

Modi's criticism of the protesters comes at a time when they are waiting for a response to their demands to abandon the land reform law, which they consider designed by the government according to the interests of companies specializing in the distribution of agricultural products that they buy from them and not in their interest as producers.