‘We are more powerful than Modi’: Indian farmers celebrate U-turn on laws | India | The Guardian

…  Over the loudspeakers booming out across the camps, speeches made by activists and farm union leaders spoke of their deep mistrust in the prime minister. “We are not leaving here until we the repeal papers have been stamped. Modi could be playing us but farmers are not fools,” declared one speaker.

“Why should we believe Modi just because he says something on the television,” said Avtar Singh, 65, a farmer from Ropar in Punjab. “Only when we have seen the official documents repealing the laws will I be happy.”

Like many, Singh spoke of his anger that it had taken Modi a year to repeal the laws, which had never even been implemented due to the backlash. A morbid tally of the number of farmers who had died in the year of unrest hung outside one tent, a figure that now stands at 719 by their count.  …