Sikhs from across Wales demonstrated their support for Punjab farmers in India at the weekend, with more than 250 people attending a rally in Cardiff Bay on Saturday afternoon.
The event that saw Sikhs from across Wales march from County Hall to the Senedd, was held to show solidarity with Punjabi farmers, who have been on a country-wide strike protesting against the Indian government’s new farming and agricultural bills.
The reforms that will loosen rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce has been met with much anger from people in the region, with protests and demands to repeal the laws being lodged.
The Cardiff event coincided with a number of others in Birmingham and London, where protesters gathered holding placards that read "We Support Farmers" and "Farmers Lives Matter," as well as waving orange and yellow flags.
Amarjit Singh of Cardiff was one of the speakers at the event and says he was incredibly proud of how it came together in such a short space of time, with all members of the Sikh community in Wales adhering to social distancing measures.
He said: "We organised this event within a week so we are very happy with the turnout. There were over 250 people here today, and there would have been even more if you included those who came and stayed in their cars.
"We did obviously have restrictions on the number of people that could attend because of Covid, but we worked hard to meet those standards as we felt it was important for us to be here and have our voices heard.
"We understand the Senedd has no jurisdiction in international affairs, though as we live here in Wales, we wanted to come to the home of Welsh democracy and say our piece.
"We have written to our local MPs, and would like it if they in turn wrote to the British government on our behalf, to share our views on what these laws mean for Indian farmers."
Retail consultant, Pawandeep Kaur, travelled from Bridgend to attend the demonstration and says that showing solidarity at this time was very important to her and her family.
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She said: "I am very happy to have been here today, and to have been able to show solidarity and support to the Punjabi farmers.
"This is an issue that not a lot of people know about here in Wales, so to spread awareness about what is going on is something we were all eager to do, and I think this event was very successful in that sense.
"We want to stress that despite everything that's going on we are not against the Indian government, and are only against these farming bills that we feel are heavily weighted in favour of large corporations, and not the working class people.
"As you can see from the turn out not just here but right across the UK, getting these laws repealed is something we are very passionate about."
Amerpreet Singh Khalsa, 43, is a member of the Gurdwara Nanak Darbar Sikh Temple in Adamsdown, and helped organise the demonstration in under a week alongside students from Cardiff University.
He said: "This was very important for us today as there is only a very small Sikh community in Wales, so to have such a big response was amazing.
"It wasn't only from the Sikh community either as there were a lot of others in Wales who showed their support and listened to what we had to say.
"Our aim was to raise awareness about this subject as we don't feel it is being talked about enough at the moment, so hopefully we have done that."
