1st Edition
A People's History of the Farmers' Movement, 2020–2021
In the annals of India's history, a monumental uprising unfolded in 2020, echoing the resilience and coming together of large sections of its agrarian base. Instigated by the contentious farm laws of 2020, the Farmers' Movement burgeoned into a year-long saga of protest and perseverance, ending only with the withdrawal of the laws on December 13, 2021. From the initial demand for law repeal to the multifaceted growth of the movement, the book traces the journey of the Farmers' Movement, as each essay dissects the socio-political dynamics, cultural nuances, and mass solidarity that underpinned the protests, including focussed analyses from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and the Sikh diaspora in the UK.This anthology chronicles the ebb and flow of a nation's spirit, encapsulating the symbiotic relationship between theory and praxis, between change and continuity. It serves as a testament to the power of collective resistance and a roadmap for future struggles, ensuring that the legacy of the Farmers' Movement endures beyond the pages of history.
This volume is an interdisciplinary project and will be of interest to scholars from diverse fields such as economics, sociology, public policy, political science, history, political geography, gender studies, cultural studies, international studies, architecture, media studies, psychology, and ethnomusicology.
1. Why do we need a people’s history of the Farmers’ Movement?
Shamsher Singh and Sabah Siddiqui
2. Farm protests take the country by storm
Zoya Hasan
3. The Anti-Farm Law Movement and the Agrarian Question in India
Shamsher Singh and Paramjit Singh
4. Deepening ties with the homeland: Multiple dimensions of the UK Sikh diaspora’s role in the farmers’ protest
Pritam Singh
5. Farmers’ Morcha 2020-21: Background, Achievements and Challenges
Balwinder Singh Tiwana
6. Protest-landscape of Farmers’ Movement in Haryana
Mahabir S. Jaglan and Rajeshwari
7. Acquiescence and Assertion: The Kisan Andolan and a changing Socio-political landscape in Uttar Pradesh
Vishal Singh Deo and Akram Akhtar Choudhary
8. Making of Farmers' Resistance in Northern Rajasthan: A Study of Shahjahanpur Border Protest
Sudhir Kumar Suthar, Ankit Kumar and Lokesh Swami
9. Farmers’ Protests in Rajasthan: Continuing a Historic Legacy
S.Mohanakumar, Sanjay Madhav and Prem Kumar
10. The Farmers’ Protests in Maharashtra
Ashok Dhawale and Amit Narkar
11. Loh langar tapde rahen: Revolution and food in the Farmers’ Movement
Sabah Siddiqui and Sarabjeet Dhody Natesan
12. Women and Songmaking in the Anti Farm Laws Movement: A Case Study of the Badowal Toll Plaza in Haryana
Kopal
13. Re-appropriation of Space: Creation of temporary counter space for protest at Tikri
Vaidehi Lavand, Onkar Khebudkar, Ninad Revatkar and Ramiya Gopalkrishnan
14. Uploading Tractor to Twitter: How protesters used media during farmers' movement
Harinder Happy and Shivam Mogha
15. Protest Songs of Identity and Existence in the Peasants’ Movement
Prateek
Biography
Shamsher Singh teaches Sociology at FLAME University, Pune, India. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA), Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has been involved in conducting village studies on agrarian relations and conditions across different agro-ecological regions in India and has worked on rural housing, living standards, and residential segregation. He has written on different aspects of the anti-farm law movement of the 2020-21 and has curated the People's Archive of Farmers’ Protests in India that documents the mobilisations and protest actions of the farmers’ movement.
Sabah Siddiqui is Assistant Professor at School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University, Sricity. She received her doctorate from the University of Manchester, and is currently Honorary Research Fellow there. She has worked on the psychology and sociology of religion through a psychoanalytic and anthropological lens in her monograph Religion and Psychoanalysis in India (2016). Most recently she has co-edited a special issue on Psychoanalytic Perspectives on South Asia (2024) for the Journal of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society.
