Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to a Sikh temple in New Delhi on Sunday, bowed in respect and paused to photograph with visitors while the Sikhs led mass protests against his recent agricultural reforms.
Sikhs in India and abroad are opposed to Modi’s reforms and fear that they would threaten farmers’ livelihoods. The new laws allow farmers to sell products to buyers outside government-regulated wholesale markets, which once guaranteed them a minimum price.
The protesting farmers, most of whom are from the Sikh-dominated states of Punjab and Haryana, have closed highways leading to New Delhi for the past three weeks, demanding the abolition of new laws that the government says expand agricultural markets and are necessary to increase storage capacity and other forms of infrastructure.
Protesters have repeatedly rejected attempts by Modi and his ministers to reach a compromise in the crisis, which has become the biggest challenge posed by farmers during his tenure in power six years ago.
On Wednesday, a 65-year-old Sikh cleric committed suicide at a protest site, and farmers called for a 24-hour hunger strike starting tomorrow Monday between protesters at home and abroad.
Modi, whose personal protection team is keen to keep people away, led prayers at the temple near the parliament and spoke with Sikh religious leaders and insisted on taking pictures with the visitors.
“I felt blessed,” Moody said on Twitter.
While some social media users and members of the ruling party welcomed Modi’s visit to the shrine like a “normal man without any restrictions,” others urged him to seek an end to the protests where tens of thousands of farmers, many of them in their 60s or older, are staying in the open in cold weather. .
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