INDIAN farmers scored a spectacular victory today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi repealed three marketising farm laws after 14 months of mass struggle.

Mr Modi made the announcement on national TV on the day of the Guru Purab festival, when Sikhs celebrate the birthday of the religion’s founder Guru Nanak. Sikhs from Punjab made up many of the farmers whose roadblocks and rallies have besieged New Delhi for almost a year.

He appealed to the demonstrators to return to their homes, saying the formal repeal of the laws would go through parliament in December. He said he was “apologising to the nation” — but for failing to convince farmers of the benefits of the laws, rather than for pushing them through in the first place.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha — an umbrella group of mass farmers’ organisations which co-ordinated the protests — said it would remain mobilised and continue to surround the capital until the laws had actually been repealed. 

“Nearly 700 farmers have been martyred in this struggle,” it noted, pointing out that farmers had perished from cold and been assaulted by police over the course of their long ordeal. “The central government’s obstinacy is responsible for these avoidable deaths, including the murders at Lakhimpur Kheri” (where a car carrying employees of the far-right ruling BJP mowed down four farmers, and the crowd set upon the driver and passengers, killing three. A journalist was also killed).

The group added that the government had not addressed another key demand — a guaranteed minimum support price for crops above the cost of production.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Brinda Karat saluted a “historic victory against a regime that believed its brute majority in parliament could be wielded against the people of this country.

“The farmers have taught the Modi government a lesson it should not forget. Dictatorship in India does not work.”

The BJP rammed the three laws through parliament in September 2020, and opposition parties said they were prevented from debating them and many had their microphones cut off during a controversial “voice vote.”

They deregulated the sale of food across state borders, legalised private stockpiling and speculation in foodstuffs and removed price controls, effectively marketising the sector and threatening food security for hundreds of millions of Indians.

The Modi government faces upcoming elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, which has been cited as one reason it decided to retreat in the face of the ongoing resistance.