In November 2020, farmers from the northern states of India rose up and camped on the borders of the nation’s capital Delhi in protest against three new agrarian laws. So began a year-long protest by tens of thousands of farmers, young and old, women and men, braving many difficulties: a chilly winter, the summer’s blistering heat, monsoon floods, plus the Covid-19 pandemic’s second wave.
Setting up resource chains from their villages to enable them to stay put, the farmers resolved to push the government to repeal the laws and ensure a guaranteed minimum price for their produce. The corporate-sponsored media labelled the protests, which had up to 700,000 participants at their peak, as anti-national and separatist. Farmers countered this by setting up their own media channels.
