Abstract
As the world grappled with the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19, the farmers in India launched a massive protest movement (2020–2021) against the three farm laws enacted by the central government. This farmers’ movement emerged as one of the most significant mass mobilisations in contemporary Indian history. With more than 200 million people employed in agriculture and millions of others indirectly dependent on it for livelihood, agriculture forms the largest sector of the economy, where even the smallest of interventions affect majority of the population. The manner in which the union government introduced the three farms laws, namely the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020, was unconventional (without discussion or debate, through the ordinance route) and thus the agitations by the farmers.
A People’s History of the Farmers’ Movement, 2020–2021, edited by Shamsher Singh and Sabah Siddiqui, is among the first comprehensive scholarly efforts to document the anti-farm laws protest that continued for more than 15 months and ended in a triumph where the government was compelled to take back all the proposed farm laws. The 15-chapter volume situates the movement not merely as an economic contestation over agrarian reforms, but as a broader political and cultural phenomenon that redefined collective action in India.
The authors have carefully curated this anthology by bringing on board a varied group of chapter contributors, ranging from sociologists to political scientists to cultural theorists and activists, to agricultural economists to peasant leaders who themselves were part of the farmer struggle. The strength of the volume lies in the amalgamation of veteran academicians like Zoya Hasan and Pritam Singh with young research scholars, along with artists such as Debanjan Roy, who impeccably capture the life of farmers during the protest, through their timeless sketches. Chapters in the edited volume can be classified as rich, grounded field-based (Chapters 6, 8, 11, 12, 13 and 15) and those that are more theoretical (mainly Chapters 1, 2 and 3), engaging in the agrarian question and the macro-political analysis of the protest.
Chapter 1, authored by the editors themselves, sets the context by clearly specifying the background of the farmers’ protest, giving a detailed overview of what to expect from each chapter. The book is organised thematically. The early chapters examine the agrarian crisis underpinning the protests, especially in Punjab and Haryana, where declining farm incomes and debt distress intersected with long-standing distrust of neoliberal policies, followed by the chapters on the sociopolitical landscape in Uttar Pradesh and the protests in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Essays on the infrastructure of protest highlight how encampments at Delhi’s borders became self-sufficient spaces of resistance, complete with kitchens, libraries and cultural stages. These sites, the contributors argue, transformed into laboratories of democratic practice.
Chapter 2 by Zoya Hasan is an engaging piece that introduces and narrates the rapid escalation of the 2020–2021 farmers’ protests. It acts as a bridge between Chapter 1 and the later chapters, which give regional and state-specific analyses, by giving a national description of the inclusivity of the protests, the support across classes and regions and how the protesting farmers were faced with ‘every effort to prevent them from assembling’ (p. 24). The measures ranged from blocking of internet services to police barricading to water cannons and gas shells. Through relevant literature, she compares the treatment meted out to the protesting farmers with that to the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 protesters (in 2019–2020), with the difference that this time the government was willing to hold negotiations with the farm unions. The chapter concludes with how the government, in ‘a rare climb down’ (p. 25), agreed to repeal the farm laws and even provide compensation to the families of bereaved farmers.
Another chapter that stands out is Chapter 4 by Pritam Singh, which moves to a transnational dimension on how the Sikhs in the United Kingdom engaged with the movement through funding, solidarity and mobilisation, linking homeland agrarian issues with diaspora activism. The chapter highlights how globally there was ‘open expression of support’ (p. 50) through rallies and protests in major cities in the United Kingdom, including several universities, as also in cities with substantial Sikh populations in the United States, Canada and Australia. The chapter talks about the varied ways in which international support was extended. While the funding ensured that there was continuous availability of food at the protest sites, it also contributed musically by means of composing songs that were particularly important for the connection of the youth with the movement. Moreover, the technical support of doctors, engineers and technicians, who took a long leave or quit jobs to be at the farmers’ protest sites, also finds a mention in the chapter. The academics and global media, along with those involved in the political life of the Western countries, set the narratives on the farm laws by providing intellectual critique of the proposed laws and defending the farmers’ unions’ demands. This, according to the author, played a significant role in forcing the Indian government to ‘finally repeal the controversial farm laws’ (p. 60).
Equally noteworthy is the focus on gender and marginalised voices. Several chapters foreground the contributions of women, who organised kitchens, spoke at rallies and challenged patriarchal assumptions about agrarian politics. Others highlight dalit farmers and migrant workers, showing how their participation complicates the homogenised image of the kisan [farmer] as a male, land-owning Sikh farmer (Chapters 3, 6, 7, 9 and 12). Chapters 6–10 provide regional details of the protests, particularly in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The underscoring feature of the protest was the use of digital media (Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp) used by farmers’ collectives to coordinate, document and counter misinformation and challenge the state and corporate storytelling, which is beautifully captured in Chapters 14 and 15. The book offers visually appealing sketches of the protest sites, which bring to life what unfolded in this historic farmers’ movement.
The book’s interdisciplinary character is both its strength and a minor weakness. While the diversity of perspectives yields a textured picture of the movement, the analytical coherence across chapters is uneven. Some essays are richly ethnographic but theoretically thin, while others lean on abstract concepts without sufficient empirical grounding. The regional emphasis also tilts heavily towards north India, with less attention to states like Karnataka or West Bengal, where smaller but significant mobilisations occurred.
Nonetheless, the scholarly contributions of this volume are substantial. In sum, the edited volume is an essential resource for scholars of agrarian studies, South Asian politics and social movements. It preserves a people’s history at the risk of being forgotten and highlights how protest, culture and identity amalgamated to reshape India’s democratic landscape. It underscores the reclaiming of public spaces into democratic space (Tikri, Singhu and Shahjahanpur sites), bringing together people from different castes, regions and religions and reshaping the relationship between the state and citizens of India.