Intelligence agencies are keeping an eye on the tractor movements happening around the world
Last week, police in Belgium were struggling to handle large numbers of tractor-riding protesters who stormed the streets of Brussels, setting fires and toppling a statue in front of the European Parliament. Police wearing anti-riot gear had to use barbed wire and water cannon to disperse the crowd. In such a situation, the authorities had suggested tele-working.
It is not just Brussels or Delhi and neighboring states where protesters riding on tractors have become a cause of concern for law enforcement authorities or the government. Currently, tractors are being used in protests in Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Romania and Greece, which also appears to be tipping the balance in the EU in an election year.
According to sources, Indian intelligence agencies are keeping a close watch on these movements happening around the world. The patterns emerging from these protests are being observed and understood. On the basis of these, ways to deal with them are being suggested to the police. A report in this regard is being prepared and shared with the concerned authorities. It seems that not only our agencies are studying the protests taking place in other countries of the world, but protesting groups are also taking cues from the movements taking place in other countries.
In many protests in Western countries, modified tractors were used to remove barricades and bollards set up by law enforcement agencies. Many pictures of modified tractors have also surfaced in the protest of farmers of Punjab. Not only this, inspired by the tractor movements of those countries, many have also installed tire protectors.
What has surprised the intelligence agencies is the level of coordination and unity of the agitators. For example, in Poland 1,400 tractors recently took part in a protest and blocked roads throughout the country. Tractors also stopped traffic in many areas of Spain, which troubled the authorities. Similar protests also took place in Germany last month, where thousands of tractor-riding protesters marched on Berlin. Due to this, all the activities there came to a halt, because the farmers expressed their protest in front of the Parliament regarding the rising costs of farming and fuel subsidy.
Additionally, tractor protests have been held in Paris over regulations, salaries and taxes, while farmers in Romania have registered their protest with tractors over grain prices.
In this regard, investigative agencies said that tractor protests or ‘Tractorcades’, became aggressive in the late seventies during the economic recession in America. Government schemes like the Agriculture Bill had increased production, but the demand for commodity price support had given rise to large-scale movements. News reports from the time show that in 1978, about 3,000 farmers took out a march, bringing with them even goats. These goats were released on the Capitol grounds, causing an uproar.
