Roots of the Unrest: New Farm Laws and Economic Stakes
In September 2020, India’s Parliament pushed through three sweeping farm bills with little public debate, triggering alarm among rural communities. The laws were said to deregulate key aspects of agriculture – allowing farmers to sell produce directly to private buyers beyond the traditional government-controlled markets, and permitting traders to stock and trade commodities.
Proponents in Prime Minister Modi’s government argued these reforms would modernize farming, encourage private investment, and free farmers from middlemen restraints. However, the widespread Farmers Protest India underscored the deep discontent among the farming community.
Modi himself claimed the bills “liberate the farmers from such adversities,” citing decades of restrictive rules and middlemen that had “bullied” growers.
But farmers saw a very different picture. Under long-standing laws (the APMC Act) most grain sellers were guaranteed a Minimum Support Price (MSP) at state-run markets. The new bills, although not explicitly eliminating MSP, created alternate channels outside the mandis, igniting fears that corporate buyers would undercut guaranteed rates.
Critics warned the changes would leave smallholders “at the mercy of big corporations,” stripping them of bargaining power. As one Punjabi farmer warned, “It is preposterous to believe that farmers who have small land-holdings will have any bargaining power over private players,” adding that the government had effectively abandoned them to corporate whims.
Legal scholars and policy analysts noted that the laws represented a major shift toward free-market policies in a sector where millions live hand-to-mouth. In December 2021, after months of Farmers Protest India, farmers forced the repeal of these “controversial Farm Laws” that had “attempted to deregulate India’s agricultural sector in service of corporate interests,” as Columbia law professor Smita Narula explains.
Many farmers had feared the laws would “dismantle price supports for key crops, jeopardize their livelihoods, and facilitate a corporate takeover of India’s agrarian economy”. Economists warned that without guaranteed MSPs or strong cooperatives, tiny landowners could be squeezed by private buyers.
Supporters of the bills countered that farmers would gain more freedom to sell anywhere, but opponents noted that without ample storage or negotiation power, poorer farmers could be forced to sell at rock-bottom prices or see state-supported grain programs weakened.
The 2020 farm laws thus became a lightning rod. For farmers in India’s “grain bowls” – Punjab, Haryana, and neighboring states – the specter of losing stable incomes rekindled long-simmering agrarian despair: decades of debt, failed crops, and high suicide rates.
Nationwide, an estimated half of India’s 1.3 billion people work in agriculture, yet poverty is rampant in the fields. In 2019, nearly 10,300 farmers took their own lives amid crises of debt and drought.
The new laws, passed by voice vote without parliamentary debate, were seen by many as a betrayal by a government that had promised to double farmer incomes. One opposition politician even called them “pro-corporate” and warned they would turn India’s farmers into “slaves of capitalists”.
The economic implications were stark and immediate. Rural leaders pointed out that only about 7% of farmers even access MSP purchases (mainly for wheat and rice) – leaving most at market whims anyway.
But the bills risked unraveling that small safety net entirely. State governments feared loss of mandi fees, and rural India braced for a wave of cuts and consolidation in agriculture markets. International markets took notice: the farm bills became a focal point in global reporting, as growers by the hundreds of thousands vowed never to retreat until the laws were rescinded.
The March to Delhi: Mass Mobilization and Protests Erupt
Early on, protests were largely confined to Punjab and Haryana, where farmers have historically been well-organized. In mid-2020 local unions staged a “tractor rally” with hundreds of tractors, initially in cities across Punjab. By November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers had started marching toward India’s capital.
Police at the Delhi border town of Singhu and nearby Tikri soon blocked roads with barricades, prompting many protesters to set up permanent camps. They erected tents and kitchens in fields and highway medians, planning to stay through winter.
By late 2020, these camp sites had become sprawling encampments. As one profile noted, “They built tents and homes in their tractor trailers, set up kitchens, shops and libraries, and have vowed not to move until the farm laws are repealed.”.
Protesters established three main camp zones at Delhi’s entry points: Singhu Border (Punjab-Haryana), Tikri (Haryana-UP), and Ghazipur (Uttar Pradesh-Delhi).
These demonstrations were unprecedented in size and coordination. Organizers formed the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) alliance, bringing together over 40 unions from across India to present unified demands. Major rallies drew hundreds of thousands.
Union leaders called one nationwide strike in September 2021, and on the first anniversary of the laws an estimated half-million farmers rallied in Uttar Pradesh alone.
Nationwide road and rail blockades caused periodic traffic chaos as farmers spread out to every district. “Thousands of farmers have spread out to different districts to ensure a complete nationwide strike…so that every group, classes, young and old farmers, and traders unite” against the laws, explained farmer leader Rakesh Tikait.
They saw themselves not as breaking the law but defending the national food supply; one Punjabi woman at the Singhu camp pleaded, “If farmers stop working, where will you get your food from? The entire country will be without food.”.
Indeed, even residents far from the fields often sympathized: one Delhi commuter stuck in traffic at a barricade told reporters he supported the strike “for the larger cause”, saying people should “cooperate” rather than blame the farmers.
In the pre-dawn hours at Singhu Border (pictured above at sunrise), thousands of farmers braved freezing mornings and swirling smog. Each dawn at these camps brought meals cooked on wood stoves, warm tea, and renewed resolve among the protestors.
Many were elderly or whole families, and they endured bone-chilling cold and record rains in 2020-21 while camping on highways.
Despite being cut off from their lands for months, farmers said they felt driven by duty. A 50‑year-old protester at Singhu declared, “We are mothers, wives and daughters of farmers. We are not going anywhere until the laws are withdrawn.”.
The movement quickly spread beyond Punjab. Support rallies sprang up in other states. In Maharashtra, UP, and even Karnataka (where the BJP held power), local farm unions held demonstrations, blockades, and tractor rallies in solidarity.
On Sept 27, 2021, for example, farmers in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu joined a nationwide bandh (general strike) blocking roads and railways.
Delhi’s borders were the epicenters, but rural communities from Kashmir to Gujarat and Tamil Nadu held parallel protests with slogans and black flags, showing that the issue had become pan-India.
Even Indian diaspora communities rallied abroad: in New York City a Sikh group paraded down a Manhattan street with signs reading “No Farmers, No Food” and flying the orange Sikh flag, connecting the global Punjabi diaspora to the farmers’ cause.
A Year of Resistance: Standoff and Small Victories
The government responded to the protests with a mix of dialogue and suppression. Union leaders and ministers met in dozens of negotiation rounds throughout late 2020 and 2021, but mistrust ran high. The SGPC (Sikh religious body) and other groups accused the central government of dragging feet.
After six months of stalemate, India’s Supreme Court in January 2021 ordered an indefinite stay on implementing the farm laws, even proposing a committee to examine them (a panel farmers later rejected). But this did not end the sit-in; protesters insisted only a repeal would satisfy them.
Public sympathy remained with farmers for much of the year. Media coverage was mostly supportive or neutral – except for some TV channels that echoed government slogans. Internationally, social media campaigns (including by figures like Rihanna and Greta Thunberg) brought attention and diplomatic rebukes from India’s foreign ministry. Nevertheless, the months dragged on.
Protests were largely peaceful: farmers often sang hymns, held poetry readings, and ran schools for children in their camps. They were known for their disciplined conduct, especially given that many had traveled in large groups to a city coping with a pandemic surge and strict lockdowns.
By early 2021, with colder months behind them, farmers broadened their strategy to sustain pressure. One common refrain was that this was a fight for everyone’s food security.
As a protester at Singhu put it bluntly, “If farmers stop working, where will you get your food from? The entire country will be without food. The farmers have not been getting their due rates.”.
Such appeals resonated beyond Punjab. In cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, small farmers organized solidarity pickets. In the United Kingdom, South Asian immigrant communities hosted events with tractor convoys. Each demonstration carried echoes of the main demand: a legal guarantee of MSP and reversal of the farm laws.
Even as 2021 dragged on, the protest showed signs of weakness: hunger strikes by leaders, family pressures on campers, and government officials counting on fatigue. But it also won small wins.
The Modi government repeatedly offered to amend or “clarify” the laws (for example, promising MSP would not be abolished), but farm leaders rejected anything less than repeal. In October 2021, a brutal incident in Lakhimpur Kheri (UP) shocked the country: a clash around a BJP minister’s convoy left four farmers and four others dead when a vehicle allegedly ran them over, and militants among protesters opened fire.
The killings sparked outrage and a brief escalation, but also a wave of support for the protestors. By late November 2021, Modi announced in parliament that the government would withdraw the laws in the next session.
On 29 November 2021, both houses of Parliament passed a repeal bill by voice vote.
The historic reversal was hailed by farmers’ groups as a major victory. In one telling image on December 19, 2021, thousands of protestors celebrated by dancing in the streets as news broke that the laws were being rolled back. The government claimed it acted out of sympathy before looming elections, and even promised to remove legal cases against protestors.
Farmers, however, remained cautious: many had lost trust, and some stayed in camp a while longer to see written assurances on MSP and compensation for the dead.
The Human Cost: Lives Lost and Scarred
Behind the political drama lay a grim tally of suffering. The year-long standoff exacted a heavy toll on individuals and families. Farmers’ unions counted nearly 700 deaths among protest participants – more than 300 in 2020 and over 300 in 2021 – as they endured freezing winters, monsoon floods, smog, and COVID-19.
Of these, at least nine were suicides directly linked to the frustration of the impasse.
Many victims were poor or landless: a Punjab university study found almost all the dead were “landless or small farmers who owned less than 3 acres”.
One example is Gurpreet Singh, a 45-year-old farmer from Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab. On November 10, 2021, Gurpreet was found hanged at the Singhu camp. A photo he had tweeted earlier showed him looking exhausted and anxious. He left no suicide note, but carved the word “zimmedar” (“responsible”) on his hand – a chilling sign of despair.
His 20‑year-old son, Lovepreet, later told media in tears, “No one thought he would take that extreme step… It crushed me. I could not believe my eyes.”.
Gurpreet’s widow, Mandeep Kaur, said that while officials would now call him a “martyr,” she was a grieving wife without a source of income. “Everyone calls my husband a martyr,” she said, “but what about us? What will we do without him?”.
The family, once owning 4 acres, had been driven into debt after crop failures; Gurpreet had even given up land years earlier to repay loans, and was renting farmland to earn a living.
His death was one of many that underscored the protest’s human cost.
Several farm leaders noted that the casualties were disproportionately the poorest farmers – those with no land or a few acres.
In December 2020, 75-year-old Karnail Singh died after falling ill at the Tikri site; in January 2021, 45-year-old Nirmal Singh (with two young children) took his life at Ghazipur; in March 2021, 40-year-old Sukhpal Singh died of suspected food poisoning at Singhu.
The Bhartiya Kisan Union reported that compensation was paid to some families (such as 10 million rupees for one victim), but many kin were left to struggle alone. Researchers point out that hundreds of families are now destitute or in crushing debt because their sole breadwinner died on the protest lines.
Violence on the ground claimed additional lives. On January 26, 2021 (India’s Republic Day), some farmers broke through police lines to take their demands to Delhi’s ceremonial streets. The confrontation led to stone-throwing and a few police firing, and one protester, Navreet Singh, was shot dead.
Dozens of protesters and hundreds of police officers were injured. Police used tear gas, batons, and water cannons to disperse crowds. In Lakhimpur Kheri (UP) in October, four farmers and four BJP affiliates died in a single chaotic incident.
Experts say such clashes are rare in India’s rural protests, but the tragedy illustrated how the peaceful movement could dangerously escalate.
Overall, farmers’ unions estimate nearly 700 deaths among participants during 2020–21, many from hypothermia, heart attacks, accidents or even random violence.
The Indian government, for its part, claimed only a few dozen deaths were related and insisted most fatalities were from natural causes unrelated to protests. This discrepancy remains a bitter point: families of the deceased have demanded official recognition and aid, calling the martyrs’ demands “a law for MSP and [justice] for those who died”.
At the Singhu and Tikri sites, some kin have even begun building informal memorials and planting trees in the victims’ memory, hoping that India will someday codify MSP guarantees “at least so their sacrifice was not in vain.”
Crackdown and Controversy: Policing the Protest
Despite the protesters’ largely peaceful discipline, authorities responded with aggressive policing and broad restrictions. In the capitals of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, governments deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary troops to fortify the Delhi borders.
Barricades and razor wire cut off the highways; in January 2021 alone, more than 500 commuter buses and trucks were seized to enforce curfews. Journalists reported soldiers patrolling the camps at night and plainclothes officers observing demonstrators.
Riot police in riot gear set up checkpoints and blockades along the Delhi highways where farmers massed.
Video footage and eyewitness accounts show troopers standing shoulder-to-shoulder behind metal barricades, holding shields and batons, watching as crowds waved flags and chanted slogans.
On several occasions, they fired tear gas and water cannons to repel surges. In late January 2021, farmers attempting to march on New Delhi’s Parliament were tear-gassed and beaten back by canine units.
Local media noted that police often targeted young protestors with rubber bullets and lathi (baton) charges, inflicting bruises and broken bones. Even moving the dead and sick was fraught: ambulances carrying injured farmers were sometimes stalled or harassed at checkpoints.
Authorities also attempted to curtail information. In February 2021, the Delhi government imposed a media blockade at three protest sites: cellphone service and mobile internet were cut off for several days, ostensibly citing security, but effectively isolating protesters from the outside world.
Journalists covering the rallies faced intimidation. Human Rights Watch documented eight journalists and social media editors who had their homes raided or phones confiscated, and who were even charged with sedition for reporting on the movement.
Cases were filed against celebrities and politicians for their protest-related tweets. One senior HRW official noted that the government was “focused on discrediting peaceful protesters, harassing critics of the government, and prosecuting those reporting on the events.
“News outlets that aired farmers’ perspectives risked lawsuits and IRS audits. Even public events supporting the farmers, such as literary festivals hosting rural activists, were muted by official pressure.
At the camps themselves, the state signaled it would tolerate no permanent encampments. On March 20, 2025 (after the laws had been repealed but fresh protests had resumed), Punjab police abruptly cleared one of the main camps. Bulldozers were filmed leveling hundreds of tents and huts while officers herded sleeping farmers toward transport busesdawn.com.
Hundreds of people were detained. Among those taken were prominent elderly activists – for instance, 65-year-old Sarwan Singh Pandher, a veteran union leader, was bundled into a vehicle even while fasting for reform.
BKU organizer Rakesh Tikait denounced the action: “On one hand the government is negotiating… and on the other hand it is arresting them,” he tweeted.
Such heavy-handed clearances (using cranes and trucks to seize belongings) only deepened farmers’ anger.
Central authorities also quietly monitored and booked protestors under strict laws. Several state governments invoked the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), normally used against terrorists, against a handful of agitators. Delhi police designated parts of the farmers’ protest as a “naxalite” (Maoist rebel) threat, enabling surveillance of the SKM leadership.
Independent reports revealed that police used facial recognition software near Delhi’s borders to identify protestors, a technology more commonly associated with China’s surveillance state.
Activists noted that protesters were now covering faces and using burner phones to avoid this new tactic – evidence, they said, of a “crackdown on dissent under Modi.”. At protest rallies, the presence of cameras and undercover agents was a common complaint. Many demonstrators began suspecting neighbors of being spies.
Global human rights observers expressed alarm at these measures. Amnesty International India, for example, condemned a protester’s death in 2024 and warned that “the price of protest must not be death.”
Non-government organizations criticized the use of sedition charges and internet shutdowns as disproportionate to the largely peaceful nature of the movement. Still, unlike in fully authoritarian countries, India’s vibrant media and judiciary allowed these issues to be publicly debated, even as farmers’ speeches were occasionally muted by officials.
Life at the Borders: Daily Struggle and Community
Despite hardship, the farmer camps became self-sustaining communities. Volunteers organized kitchens feeding thousands thrice a day. Doctors and paramedics staffed clinics treating everything from colds to COVID-19. Protesters built workshops to repair vehicles and even study-tents for their children.
Local businesses from Punjab set up langar (community meals) at the camps. Sikh prayer leaders led religious services each evening. Yet every inch of comfort reminded them of what they’d sacrificed: winter treks home were canceled, weddings postponed, harvests unharvested.
Personal stories emerged daily. One Punjab farmer in his sixties told a reporter he had chosen to stay in the camp rather than risk a “one extra day’s snow” to see his granddaughter’s wedding.
Another recounted that he raised his tractor’s plow in defiance of police orders to clear a road, shouting that he would not let democracy be bulldozed. Families crammed into tents found solace in shared stories and communal meals, but they also lived in perpetual anxiety: fear of disease in cramped quarters, worry about running out of savings, and the tension of uncertain future.
Meanwhile, cities felt the strain too. Delhi’s outskirts saw heavy vehicular congestion. Electricity and sanitation services at the camp areas were stretched thin. Hospitals reported some protester casualties.
On the flip side, many rural market towns near camp sites saw business from thousands of campers buying supplies, boosting local economies at least temporarily.
Overall, the protest introduced an uneasy peace: many urban Indians expressed empathy, but complained of traffic jams or delayed supplies, a friction that government media tried to exploit by asking “When will it end?” to sway public opinion.
Global Parallels: Democracy and Dissent
India’s farm protest fits into a larger global pattern of citizen movements confronting authority. In many democratic countries, farmers and rural workers periodically mobilize over grievances of market pricing or subsidies.
For example, in Canada in 2022, a “Freedom Convoy” of truckers blockaded Ottawa to protest COVID mandates, forcing the government to invoke emergency powers and resulting in mass arrests and vehicle seizures.
Similarly, France’s recent gilets jaunes(“yellow vest”) protests over fuel taxes saw strict policing and hundreds detained, with authorities banning some demonstrations deemed violent. By contrast, democratic norms in India allowed a negotiation process and eventual repeal – an outcome unthinkable in more authoritarian regimes.
Nevertheless, the techniques of surveillance and control show authoritarian echoes. Reuters reported that protesters in India began covering their faces with scarves and masks to avoid a nascent facial-recognition campaign – a method reminiscent of how activists operate under China’s strict policing.
Iran, likewise, has seen brutal crackdowns on public protests (such as recent farmers’ and environmental demonstrations), with extensive arrests and lethal force, a scenario rights groups warn India narrowly avoided. Human rights experts note that even as a democracy, India under Modi has trended toward less tolerance for dissent, enacting internet blackouts and stringent laws – trends more common in autocracies.
An analyst with Human Rights Watch observed India’s response “mirrored” tactics seen elsewhere: intimidation of critics, filing of spurious charges, and media censorship.
Still, observers emphasize differences: unlike China’s outright ban on independent protests or Iran’s harsh judicial reprisals, India’s judiciary remained open to some challenge (as seen in the Supreme Court’s farm law stay), and public sympathy largely stayed with the farmers.
The eventual repeal, widely seen as a concession, underscored that in India, sustained civilian movements can yield results. By one measure, the farmers’ campaign was extraordinary: tens of thousands were arrested over 2020-21, and dozens charged with serious offenses, yet the core leaders remained free to speak and travel. International watchdogs contrasted this with truly authoritarian responses, where such a mobilization would be swiftly crushed by force.
In summary, the 2020–21 farmers’ agitation was a watershed in India’s contemporary history. It highlighted the vulnerability of India’s agrarian backbone and the lengths to which citizens will go to defend livelihoods. It also exposed deep divisions over economic policy and governance style.
The streets of Delhi that once saw protesters standing in snowdrifts and monsoon rains now lie quiet; but the debates they sparked over economic justice and democratic space will outlast the tents. As families of the fallen farmers organize memorials and new protests pop up in states like Maharashtra and West Bengal, the “bhumi puja” (groundbreaking) of India’s farm policy remains contested. In the words of protest leader Harnek Singh, “We saved our land today. But our spirits and demands will live on.”
This reporting about Farmers Protest India draws on a wide range of trusted data, sources and references highlighted and cited below..
- Reuters, “India’s parliament passes bill to repeal controversial farm laws” (Nigam Prusty, Nov 29, 2021).
- Narula, Smita. “Confronting State Violence: Lessons from India’s Farmer Protests”, Columbia Human Rights Law Review (Dec 2022).
- Al Jazeera, “Why Indian farmers are protesting against new farm bills” (23 Sep 2020).
- The Guardian, “Farmers’ protests in India: why have new laws caused anger?” (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Feb 12, 2021).
- Al Jazeera, “The human cost of India’s yearlong farmers’ protest” (Srishti Jaswal, Nov 30, 2021).
- Human Rights Watch, “India: Journalists Covering Farmer Protests Charged” (Feb 2, 2021).
- Reuters, “Protesting Indian farmers burn effigies of Modi and other ministers” (23 Feb 2024)
- Reuters (2020), “India’s use of facial recognition tech during protests causes stir”.
*You May Be interested in Reading this investigative piece by the same author, “Pegasus Spyware India: Exposing the Silent Crackdown on Press Freedom“.
*Learn More About The Author Here.
