The Indian Farmers’ Protest of 2020-2021: Agrarian Crisis, Dissent and Identity

The Kisan Andolan or the Indian farmers’ protest is one of the longest, biggest (and victorious) The Kisan Andolan or the Indian farmers’ protest of 2020-21 is one of the longest, biggest (and victorious) social movements in the history of independent India. This book adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to contextualize the movement in the long run. It engages with the historical, social, and religious roots of the Andolan, examining what makes it so unique and transformative for Indian polity. It explores the (dis)continuities with previous resistance and contestation movements in India and globally, and debates the role so far of regional, religious and class-caste-gender identities. Through interviews, the volume also gives a specific voice and platform to grassroots activists and farmers from the movement.

Part of the Social Movements and Transformative Dissent series, the book will appeal to scholars, activists and a wider audience interested in social movements and dissent politics in India and the Global South. It will also be of interest to students of economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, government, agrarian studies, Sikh and Punjab studies, politics, international relations, and diaspora studies.

Christine Moliner is a social anthropologist and an associate professor at O.P. Jindal Global University. Her research and publications have focused on the Sikh Diaspora in France and the UK, the link between the Punjab agrarian crisis and irregular migration patterns, Sikh minority status in India and Sikh responses to Hindu majoritarianism.

David Singh has a Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). His research interests focus largely on territorialisation and land, resource extraction and green energy infrastructures from a political ecology and critical agrarian studies perspective. David’s Ph.D. dissertation analysed the territorial expansion of wind infrastructures in borderland Gujarat, and the underlying extraction, dispossession and destruction dynamics. He also discussed the issue of mediation and caste power in fixing large-scale wind power projects, the reconfiguration of space by identity politics and Hindu nationalism and the emergence of diverse resistance practices. David Singh has published in Contemporary South Asia, Journal of Political Ecology and Journal of Contemporary Asia.