The protesting farmers on Monday wore as a badge of honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reference to some of them as “Andolan Jeevi” and handed him a lesson in history.

Modi’s comment had come in the Rajya Sabha while he was replying to the motion of thanks to the President’s address.

“Farmers would like to remind the PM that it is andolans that have liberated India from colonial rulers and that is why we are proud to be Andolan Jeevi,” said a statement from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the banner under which the movement is being conducted.

“It is the BJP and its predecessors that had never done any andolan against the Britishers and they were always against the andolans. They are still scared of public movements.”

The government’s “adamant attitude” is creating more “Andolan Jeevi”, the SKM said, adding that the agitating farmers would be more than happy to return home.

But, as Rakesh Tikait has said, there could be no “ghar wapsi (return home)” without a “kanoon wapsi (law repeal)”.

The farmer union leaders see not even a sliver of hope in the Prime Minister’s speech. They said he had again talked only about tweaking the contentious farm laws and not about repealing them, and seemed to be addressing only his own supporters and not the farmers.

Gurnam Singh Chaduni of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Haryana) said Modi had declared several days ago that he was only a call away. “Farmers are sitting at Delhi's borders. Why doesn't he call the farmers if he wants to talk?”

Given the pace of mobilisation and the farmers’ anger at the enemy-like treatment being handed out to those protesting at Delhi’s borders, union leaders say it’s impossible to back down now as the Prime Minister is suggesting.

“We cannot just pack up and leave on the basis of what he said in Parliament, which is just empty words,” a union leader said.

Referring to Modi's assertion that “MSP (minimum support price) was there, MSP is there, MSP will remain in the future,” Tikait asked at a rally: “Why not then enact a law guaranteeing MSP?”

While this has been a longstanding demand of the farmers, it has assumed urgency in the context of the three new farm laws. The fear is that private players will first offer attractive prices to wean farmers away from the government mandis, and once the mandi system is weakened the companies will determine the price, pushing it down.

What the farmers, therefore, want is a legal guarantee that even corporate groups will buy their produce at the MSP.

Reacting to Modi’s refrain on the MSP, Yogendra Yadav of the Jai Kisan Andolan -- an SKM constituent -- said that if a farmer was denied the MSP tomorrow, what would he do with the Prime Minister’s speech or tweets?

“Government officials function only on the basis of laws, not tweets and speeches,” Yadav said.

The SKM described Modi's new formulation for “FDI” – “Foreign Destructive Ideology” -- as dangerous while reaffirming that all the charges levelled against the farmers’ movement by the government's supporters were baseless.

It said it subscribed to constructive democratic processes that upheld the basic human rights anywhere in the world, and expected similar reciprocation from all like-minded people across the world because “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

A message of support for the farmers’ protest was aired in the Fresno County of California during Sunday's Super Bowl -- one of the most watched sporting events in the US.

Abhimanyu Kohar of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh told The Telegraph that instead of maligning the entire movement, why did the government not act against those it thought were doing something wrong. “Why this name-calling all the time?” he asked.

Kohar contended that Modi was reaching out to his core constituency in his speech. “The speech was not for the farmers, otherwise why would he mislead and say we have not explained why the farm laws are ‘black’?” he said.

“All he has to do is read the minutes of the meetings between the farmer unions and the ministers and see the video recordings, which are available with the government.”