In the weeks that followed the first marches, the protest wave spread across India, from Maharashtra in western India to Bihar in eastern India and down into south India. The massive mobilisations began in Punjab but soon spread to Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. They were blocked at its borders and so set up protest encampments along the national highways. They started a wave of protests that continues months later, despite the pandemic.įarmers and agricultural workers first marched toward Delhi in November 2020. Farmers immediately perceived that these three acts would turn them into semi-serfs of the big business houses in India. There was no prior consultation with farmers’ organisations and no discussion allowed in parliament. In September 2020, India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed three acts that directly impact agriculture. Since many have not been tested for the disease, their deaths are not part of the official numbers. People are dying of ‘fever’ and ‘breathlessness’, the common-sense terms used to describe COVID-19 symptoms. While the spotlight is on Delhi and other urban centres, silent deaths are spreading in rural north India. The spike in the death rate has created queues at crematoriums.

The daily confirmed cases crossed 400,000 in May as the health system convulsed, hospital beds filled up, and medical oxygen canisters emptied. India is gripped by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Women farmers from Punjab and Haryana protest at the Tikri border in Delhi, 24 January 2021. They are portraits of farmers, of a class, and of human beings in a historic revolt. The resulting raw images are portraits of farmers – mainly coming from Haryana and Punjab – in their anger and their joy, braving the chilly winter in their tractors, reading poetry in their trolleys, and celebrating religious festivals. ‘At the beginning, I just wanted to snap pictures for the sake of archiving’, Vikas said. With a basic Xiaomi Note 6 phone camera in hand, he documented the farmers’ revolt. Based in Delhi, Vikas visited two key protest sites at the Singhu and Tikri borders on a weekly basis throughout December 2020 and January 2021. The photographs in this dossier were made by Vikas Thakur, a member of the Art Department of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. These are portraits of a historic protest. These are portraits of human beings with names, struggles, and aspirations, a way of life.

These are portraits of farmers, not ‘thugs, parasites, terrorists, and secessionists’, as mainstream media paints them to be, not a faceless mob. Vikas Thakur / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research A farmer from Punjab protests during a tractor march on Republic Day on GT Karnal Bypass Road in Delhi, 26 January 2021.

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