Not only is the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment fac­ing flak within In­dia from the com­mon man, farm­ers, thinkers, un­bi­ased me­dia and the op­po­si­tion, for the first time in many decades, but In­dia is also fac­ing a vol­ley of ques­tions put for­ward by op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in var­i­ous parts of the world.  In re­sponse to the starred query of Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don -In­dar­jit Singh seek­ing to know what in­ter­ven­tion, if any, has the United King­dom made in the Farm­ers Protest in In­dia, the Boris John­son gov­ern­ment has ad­mit­ted that “the right to gather law­fully and demon­strate a point of view is com­mon to all democ­ra­cies.”

FOL­LOW­ING THE MAS­SIVE PEACE­FUL PROTESTS BY FARM­ERS of Pun­jab, joined now by the farm­ers of Haryana, Ra­jasthan, West­ern Ut­tar Pradesh and Ma­ha­rash­tra, Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don asked the For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice a par­lia­men­tary ques­tion on 8 De­cem­ber 2020, to which Lord Ah­mad of Wim­ble­don replied on 22 De­cem­ber 2020.

As the farm­ers were shelled with tear gas and wa­ter can­nons, ba­ton-charged and ha­rassed, not only the Sikh com­mu­nity but con­sci­en­tious peo­ple world­wide were shocked to see the bru­tal­ity of the po­lice and para­mil­i­tary forces act­ing on or­ders of the right-wing gov­ern­ments of Haryana and the Union of In­dia.

Shar­ing his pain and agony for the farm­ers of Pun­jab, Lord In­dar­jit Singh had asked as to what as­sess­ment has the gov­ern­ment of the United King­dom made of the gov­ern­ment of In­di­a’s re­sponse to the protests against the pro­posed re­forms on the sale, pric­ing and stor­age of farm pro­duce; and what rep­re­sen­ta­tions they have made to that gov­ern­ment about its re­sponse.”

In a typ­i­cally haughty British re­ply, on 22 De­cem­ber, Lord Ah­mad of Wim­ble­don, on be­half of the British gov­ern­ment, sent a terse writ­ten re­ply, say­ing,  “Our po­si­tion is that the right to gather law­fully and demon­strate a point of view is com­mon to all democ­ra­cies. De­mo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ments also have the power to en­force law and or­der if a protest crosses the line into il­le­gal­ity.”

Our po­si­tion is that the right to gather law­fully and demon­strate a point of view is com­mon to all democ­ra­cies. 

He fur­ther added that “The Gov­ern­ment is con­scious of con­cerns in In­dia, and from com­mu­ni­ties in the UK, about In­di­a’s agri­cul­tural re­forms. The For­eign Sec­re­tary dis­cussed protests on this is­sue with his coun­ter­part, Min­is­ter of Ex­te­rior Af­fairs Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, dur­ing his visit to In­dia 14-17 De­cem­ber.”

Re­act­ing to the re­ply, Lord Singh tweeted sat­is­fac­tion that the UK gov­ern­ment ac­cepts “that the farm­ers have a right to protest.”

Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don wrote to the Gov­ern­ment on 8th De­cem­ber, and to­day has re­ceived an an­swer from @tariqah­madbt

“At least the U.K Gov­ern­ment ac­cepts the fact that the farm­ers have right to protest. Let us see if the In­dian Gov­ern­ment heeds this” – Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don pic.twit­ter.com/​HRBG8O6f3f

— Lord In­dar­jit Singh CBE (@LordIndar­jit) De­cem­ber 23, 2020

The rider in the re­ply, “De­mo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ments also have the power to en­force law and or­der if a protest crosses the line into il­le­gal­ity,” be­speaks of the sway that In­dia has over the United King­dom that they al­most en­dorsed the In­dian an­gle of re­duc­ing the peace­ful strug­gle into a law and or­der prob­lem.

This of­fi­cial British re­sponse shows the im­pact of the farm­ers protest, that the gov­ern­ment also ad­mit­ted that the mat­ter was dis­cussed by the Sec­re­tary of State for For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Af­fairs -Do­minic Raab dur­ing his re­cent visit to In­dia.

“Given that mem­bers of the In­dian di­as­pora had joined protests in the U.K. over the farm Bills, this was now an is­sue in British pol­i­tics as well.”

Do­minic Raab, British For­eign Sec­re­tary, dur­ing his re­cent visit to In­dia

On In­dian soil, the British For­eign Sec­re­tary is re­ported to have said, “In­dia has a vi­brant her­itage of peace­ful protests and vig­or­ous de­bate”, which the UK has “watched…with in­ter­est.”

Do­minic Raab added,  “given that mem­bers of the In­dian di­as­pora had joined protests in the U.K. over the farm Bills, this was now an is­sue in British pol­i­tics as well.”

In­ter­est­ingly, In­di­a’s Min­istry of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs chose not to re­act to the state­ment of the vis­it­ing British For­eign Sec­re­tary, as it did when the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter en­dorsed the farm­ers’ peace­ful protests.