Cannot treat our ‘annadatas’ like criminals: Bharat Ratna awardee MS Swaminathan's daughter after Haryana police action against Farmer protest

“They are not criminals…” Madhura Swaminathan, daughter of Bharat Ratna MS Swaminathan took the Internet by storm on Wednesday with her sharp commentary on Delhi and Haryana police’s massive bandobast to stall farmer protests from entering into New Delhi. Agricultural Scientist MS Swaminathan has been bestowed with Bharat Ratna, announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.

“The farmers of Punjab today are marching to Delhi. I believe, according to the newspaper reports, there are jails being prepared for them in Haryana, there are barricades, there are all kinds of things being done to prevent them. These are farmers, they are not criminals,” said Madhura Swaminathan, a developmental economist herself during her virtual address to a gathering at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) on Tuesday, an event organised to celebrate the conferment of the Bharat Ratna, which is India’s highest civilian award, to the visionary.

The Haryana Police became the first police force in India to use drones to launch tear gas devices as they dropped the shells from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on protesting farmers at Shambhu Barrier on the Punjab-Haryana boundary on Tuesday. Farmers groups marching towards New Delhi under their ‘Dilli Chalo’ call faced resistance from Haryana police. Along with tear gas shells, rubber bullets and pellets were reportedly fired by Haryana police.

“I request all of you, the leading scientists of India, we have to talk to our annadatas, we cannot treat them as criminals. We have to find solutions. This is my request. I think if we have to continue and honour M S Swaminathan we have to take the farmers with us in whatever strategy we’re planning for the future,” Madhura Swaminathan added during her virtual address.

MS Swaminathan, who is widely regarded as the architect of the Green Revolution in India, was also not in favour of the three farm laws brought by the Modi government in 2020 and later repealed in 2021 after 13 months of farmers' agitation against them.

Mashura is the head of the Economic Analysis Unit at Bengaluru's Indian Statistical Institute.
In a post on X, on Tuesday, she shared a statement released by her father in November 2021, over the repeal of the three contentious farm laws that farmers had termed “draconian. MS Swaminathan passed away at the age of 98 in September 2023. The Bharat Ratna has been awarded to him posthumously. His statement from November 2021 read, “I am happy with the announcement today. I emphasize that C2+50% is the core of the reports of the National Commission on Farmers. The future of our agriculture depends on the impact we can make on three fronts: production, procurement and prices. These should be attended to concurrently.

New Delhi has been fortified with barricades, road blockades, barbed wires and iron mail carpets at crucial entry points to stop the farmers' protest from entering the national capital. All borders across the capital are heavily under the surveillance of security forces. In clashes that ensued in the Shambhu border on Tuesday, several farmers have sustained injuries but farmers belonging to the Samyukt Kisan Morcha and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha have decided to further intensify their protest, not back out from their march to Delhi.