Monitoring Desk: Indian Army veterans have decided to return 5,000 gallantry medals in protest against new Farm Laws, reports The Hindu.
According to the newspaper, Indian Army veterans who have been camping at the Singhu border since November 26, 2020, in support of Farmer Movement in India have collected 5,000 gallantry medals that they seek to return “in lieu” of the Centre’s decision to repeal the three farm laws.
The majority of Indian Army veterans belong to the agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana.
“I come from a family of both jawans (soldiers) and kisans (farmers) from which eight men have been martyred either in war or at the border. I was proud of that fact but because of what the government is doing to us now, it has begun feeling like this country is no longer worth living in, leave alone to die for,” said 80-year-old retired Havaldar Balwant Singh from Jhajjar in Haryana, reports The Hindu.
Indian Punjab is on halt due to roadblocks on major highway junctions, on the other hand, shopping malls and petrol pumps are forcefully closed by the public. All this escalated by three parliamentarian bills providing blanket rights to the Centre to decide the fate of farmers. These bills say that the agricultural land could be leased to corporates and corporate can re-lease it, take a loan on that, or even leave it as it is without producing any crop. So basically, it is all about giving control of the food chain to the mega-corporate sector and powerful businessmen.
