NEW DELHI (INDIA) – India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday protesters, who surrounded New Delhi’s Red Fort had caused “insult” to the country. This is his first public comments on a months-long farmers’ agitation that aggravated last week.
“The country was saddened by the insult to the Tricolor (Indian flag) on the 26th of January in Delhi,” Modi said in a radio address on Sunday.
“The government is committed to modernizing agriculture and is also taking many steps in that direction.”
Farm leaders say they were not behind the violence, caused by a minority of those on the parade, and the government is pinning hopes that the possibility talks between the two sides will resume.
Agriculture makes for about half of India’s labour force, and to have a situation of unrest among an estimated 150 million landowning farmers is one of the biggest challenges to Modi’s rule after he has come to power in 2014.