32 mem­bers of the British Par­lia­ment led by Slough MP Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi has writ­ten a let­ter to the British Sec­re­tary of State for For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment, For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice -Do­minic Raab ex­press­ing deep con­cern on the de­vel­op­ments in the Pun­jab and on farm­ers rights in In­dia and its wider po­lit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions.

Seek­ing an ur­gent meet­ing with the British For­eign Sec­re­tary Do­minic Raab to dis­cuss the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion in the Pun­jab and its re­la­tion­ship with the Cen­tre and to share de­tails that could be shared by him with his In­dian coun­ter­part about the im­pact on British Sikhs and Pun­jabis, with long­stand­ing links to land and farm­ing in In­dia and to ac­quire de­tails of an up­date of any com­mu­ni­ca­tions the For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice has had with the In­dian Gov­ern­ment.

As the rage over the re­pres­sion on Pun­jabi farm­ers spreads through­out the globe, as many as 32 mem­bers of the British Par­lia­ment have writ­ten a let­ter to their For­eign Sec­re­tary and to the In­dian High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don ex­press­ing grave con­cern over the “im­pact of three new In­dian laws on ex­ploit­ing farm­ers and those de­pen­dent on farm­ing in In­dia.”

“The in­tro­duc­tion of these new laws by the In­dian gov­ern­ment (Cen­tre) has, de­spite the Coro­n­avirus, trig­gered wide­spread farm­ers’ protests across the coun­try for fail­ing to pro­tect farm­ers from ex­ploita­tion and to en­sure fair prices for their pro­duce.”

Farm­ers from the Pun­jab and across In­dia are peace­fully protest­ing against #Farm­ers­Bil­l2020.

Fol­low­ing our Oc­to­ber meet, fur­ther dis­cus­sions and given strong sense of in­jus­tice felt by many con­stituents, cross-party let­ter from British MPs has been sent to the For­eign Sec­re­tary. pic.twit­ter.com/​l8aZWiekor

— Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi MP (@TanD­hesi) De­cem­ber 4, 2020

The protest note led by the first tur­ban-wear­ing Sikh British Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi says, “This is an is­sue of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to Sikhs in the UK and those linked to the Pun­jab, al­though it also heav­ily im­pacts on other In­dian states. Many British Sikhs and Pun­jabis have taken this mat­ter up with their MPs, as they are di­rectly af­fected with fam­ily mem­bers and an­ces­tral land in the Pun­jab. Be­ing fa­mous as “In­di­a’s bread-bas­ket”, many Pun­jabis rely on farm­ing for their ex­is­tence. About three-quar­ters of the state’s 30 mil­lion-strong pop­u­la­tion is in­volved in agri­cul­ture. There­fore, these new laws pre­sent the Pun­jabis with a huge prob­lem, with some de­scrib­ing it as a “death war­rant”.

The joint let­ter signed by 32 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in­clud­ing by Tan Dhesi, Deb­bie Abra­hams, Ap­sana Be­gum, Sir Pe­ter Bot­tom­ley, Sarah Cham­pion, Je­remy Cor­byn, Jon Crud­das, John Cryer, Geraint Davies, Mar­tin Docherty-Hughes, Al­lan Do­rans, An­drew Gwynne, Afzal Khan, Ian Lav­ery, Emma Lewell-Buck, Clive Lewis, Tony Lloyd, Khalid Mah­mood, Seema Mal­ho­tra, Steve Mc­Cabe, John Mc­Don­nell, Pat Mc­Fad­den, Gra­hame Mor­ris, Car­o­line Nokes, Kate Os­borne, Viren­dra Sharma, John Spel­lar, Zarah Sul­tana, Sam Tarry, Al­i­son Thewliss, Stephen Timms, Va­lerie Vaz, Clau­dia Webbe, Na­dia Whit­tome, Mu­nira Wil­son, Mo­ham­mad Yasin, touches the roots of the Sikhs in the UK and men­tions that a large cross-sec­tion of British Sikhs has close ties with the agri­cul­tural lands in Pun­jab and other parts of In­dia.