Scores of people were injured after police attacked farmers protesting the establishment of an ethanol factory in Hanumangarh in India’s Rajasthan province on Wednesday, December 10.

Security forces carried out baton charges and fired tear gas on the farmers when they tried to march to the factory site, after failing to get any formal agreement on the demands they had raised to the local administration.

The farmers have been agitating against the proposed ethanol factory for over a year now. They believe that scarce canal water would be diverted to the factory due to its high water demand.

The ethanol plant will be Asia’s largest such plant when completed. It is being built by a private firm called Dune Ethanol Private Limited, in a region which is categorized as arid. Thousands of farmers in the region heavily depend on canal water for irrigating their farms and do not want to share the scarce water with the factory.

Farmers are also apprehensive about the possible impact of the factory on the crops in the nearby areas. The plant may cause the further depletion of ground water in the region, the industrial waste can contaminate the soil and cause pollution, as has happened in several other parts of the country.

Instead of addressing farmers’ concerns, the state government, led by the ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has forced the implementation of the project. In response to their protests, farmers have already been removed from the factory site and a wall was erected to prevent them from reaching it.

The enraged farmers breached the wall on Wednesday with tractors and set fire to some vehicles inside the compound. One of their representatives, a local member of the state legislature, was injured in the police attack.

The administration has imposed restrictions on future gatherings and suspended the internet in the region. It arrested several leaders of the movement, including Balwan Poonia, district president of the left-wing All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and former member of the state legislature.

Call for further protests

Various organizations, including AIKS, condemned the police attack on the farmers in Tibbi village in Hanumangarh, accusing the state government and the local administration of failing to address the legitimate concerns raised by the farmers and provoking the peaceful protesters to violence.

The AIKS Rajasthan unit accused that the BJP-led government is insensitive towards the concerns of thousands of farmers and compromising people’s rights just to implement policies, which makes big capital happy.

Poonia, who is also a part of the joint movement against the plant, claimed in a public meeting on Thursday that the state government deliberately sabotaged the talks after making the farmers wait for hours on Wednesday, in an attempt to provoke violence and curb the movement by force.

Several other leaders, including the leaders of the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), also condemned the police action against the farmers and demanded the government resolve the issue through talks and address farmers’ concerns.

The Rajasthan state committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also condemned the attack on farmers, calling it “barbaric”.

The state government, however, continues to accuse the opposition parties, including the left, of misleading the people. It also reiterated the possible benefits of the factory, claiming it will create new employment opportunities for the people in the region.

The AIKS and the joint platform against the ethanol factory have called for further protests in the coming days, demanding concrete assurances from the government on the issue of water and possible pollution.

Clean water and clean air are fundamental rights of all people and the government must respect these rights, claimed Poonia. If the government tries to suppress the genuine demands of the people it will further agitate people, he warned the state.

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