Farmers’ Protest 2020–21: The Year India’s Farmers Camped at Delhi’s Gates

On the morning of 26 November 2020, the highway from Punjab to Delhi looked like a battlefield laid out overnight. Haryana Police had dumped mountains of sand across the road and lined up water cannons. In places, trenches had been dug across the national highway in the dark.

Behind the sand stood thousands of tractors, each pulling a trolley covered in tarpaulin and lined with hay, loaded for a long stay. The farmers called it Dilli Chalo: on to Delhi.

At the Shambhu border near Ambala, police fired water cannons and tear gas, and farmers tipped some of the steel barricades into the Ghaggar river below the bridge. A day earlier, a young farmer named Navdeep Singh had climbed onto a police water cannon and switched it off. Social media made him a hero. Police charged him with attempt to murder, alleging he had tried to run his tractor at officers.

On 27 November, Delhi Police gave way. Farmers could enter the city and protest at the Nirankari ground in Burari. Yes, that Burari.

Most refused, calling it a way to pen them in. They sat down where they were: on the highways at Singhu and Tikri, and soon at Ghazipur on the Uttar Pradesh border. Nobody guessed they would stay for more than a year.

Rewind to 5 June 2020. India was in a Covid lockdown when the Union government issued three ordinances, laws made by the Cabinet that Parliament approves later.

• The trade law let anyone buy crops outside the state-run APMC mandis, with no market fee or cess.
• The contract farming law set rules for deals signed before sowing. Disputes would go to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), not a civil court.
• The Essential Commodities amendment lifted routine stock limits on cereals, pulses, potatoes, onions and edible oils, except in war, famine or a steep price rise.

On 20 September, the Rajya Sabha passed two of the bills by voice vote while opposition MPs demanded a recorded vote. MPs tore papers, climbed on tables and threw a rule book towards the chair; eight were suspended the next day. The government said the opposition broke the rules; the opposition said the laws were rammed through. President Ram Nath Kovind signed them on 27 September.

Punjab erupted first. Harsimrat Kaur Badal quit the Union Cabinet, and on 26 September the Shiromani Akali Dal, the BJP’s oldest ally, left the NDA, though less than a month earlier Sukhbir Singh Badal had said the ordinances would not end MSP. From 24 September, farmers sat on railway tracks across Punjab, stopping trains for two months. Delhi was next.

Walk into a Punjab grain market in April and you see what the farmers were defending. The farmer tips his wheat onto the mandi floor. An arhtiya, the commission agent, weighs it and handles the sale, mostly to government agencies at the Minimum Support Price (MSP), for a 2.5% commission. Punjab and Haryana are where this system works best. That is why they were scared.

• A fee-free zone. Mandi fee, cess and commission came to about 8.5% on wheat in Punjab. Unions argued private buyers outside, paying none of it, would drain the mandis, and government buying would wither with them.
• No MSP in the laws. MSP has never been a legal right, and the laws did not make it one.
• No civil courts. The Bar Council of Delhi objected that officials answering to the government would decide commercial disputes.
• States’ rights. Agriculture and markets are state subjects. Punjab said nobody asked it, and its mandi income was at stake.
• Bihar. Bihar scrapped its mandi law in 2006. A study found grain there was mostly bought below MSP, though it could not pin a clear change on the repeal itself.

Government supporters said the loudest losers were the arhtiyas, and much of the anger was theirs. Both can be true: the arhtiyas had a business to protect, and the farmers trusted a system more than a promise.

The government’s pitch was freedom. Farmers could sell to anyone, anywhere, outside the mandi and its middlemen, and lock in prices before sowing. MSP and the mandis would stay.

MSP tha, MSP hai aur MSP rahega.PM Narendra Modi in the Rajya Sabha, 8 February 2021 (MSP was, is and will remain)

Respected voices agreed. Economist Ashok Gulati, a former head of the government’s farm-price commission, called the reforms a possible ‘1991 moment’ for agriculture. Some farm groups backed them, such as Anil Ghanwat’s Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra. And the BJP pointed out that the Congress’s 2019 manifesto had itself promised to repeal the APMC Act; P. Chidambaram replied that the promise came only after building farmers’ markets first.

The government also moved. On 9 December 2020 it offered a written assurance on MSP and amendments. On 20 January 2021 it offered to put the laws on hold for up to 18 months. The unions said no each time: they wanted repeal, and MSP by law.

By Christmas 2020, Singhu looked less like a protest than a town. Trolleys stood in long rows as bedrooms. Langars ran day and night and fed anyone who walked up. There were solar panels, geysers, chapati machines and a library. Khalsa Aid set up foot-massage machines for the elderly in the cold, and volunteers launched their own paper, Trolley Times, because they did not trust TV to tell their story.

Government supporters mocked the pizza langar and massage chairs as a five-star spa. The farmers shrugged: if you sit on a highway through a Delhi winter, you might as well eat well.

Women cooked, spoke from the stages and kept the camps going. When Chief Justice S.A. Bobde suggested in January 2021 that women and old people be persuaded to go home, women at Tikri said more of them came. In March, TIME put the women of Tikri on its cover.

Kangana Ranaut tweeted a photo of an elderly protester and wrongly called her Bilkis Bano of Shaheen Bagh. The woman was Mahinder Kaur from Bathinda, and she sued. In October 2025, Ranaut appeared in a Bathinda court, expressed regret and got bail.

Diljit Dosanjh took Ranaut on over that tweet, then came to Singhu on 5 December and urged the government to accept the demands. Singer Singga later revealed Diljit had quietly given ₹1 crore for warm clothes. Songs like Kisan Anthem, Sidhu Moose Wala’s Punjab and Gippy Grewal’s Zaalam Sarkaran kept the camps going. In February 2021, YouTube blocked Kanwar Grewal’s Ailaan and Himmat Sandhu’s Asi Vaddange in India after a government complaint. Fans uploaded them again.

Abroad, Punjabis rallied in Canada, Britain and the US. When Justin Trudeau backed the right to protest, India summoned Canada’s envoy over what it called unacceptable interference. British MPs debated the protest in March 2021 after a petition crossed 100,000 signatures.

Within days, the protest had labels. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar spoke of ‘unwanted elements’, citing a video in which, he said, a protester threatened Modi with Indira Gandhi’s fate. Union minister Raosaheb Danve said China and Pakistan were behind it; minister Piyush Goyal said Maoists had taken it over. In January 2021, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the Supreme Court Khalistanis had infiltrated it and promised an Intelligence Bureau affidavit. Newslaundry counted more than 20 Zee News debates on ‘Khalistan infiltration’.

On 8 February, Modi warned the Rajya Sabha about ‘andolanjeevi’, people who cannot live without protest. The Morcha said it was proud to be andolanjeevi: protest had freed India from British rule.

What does the record show? Some protesters carried posters of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The banned Sikhs for Justice announced a $250,000 reward for a Khalistan flag at India Gate on Republic Day. The NIA summoned about 40 people, including union leader Baldev Singh Sirsa, in a case against that group, but called them witnesses.

Much of the ‘evidence’ was fake. Fact-checkers found viral ‘Khalistan’ photos from an old US protest and from Amritsar in 2013. Researchers at DisinfoLab traced early ‘Khalistan’ posts to accounts linked to Pakistan’s military media wing. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posted a clipped video suggesting a police baton missed an old Sikh farmer; Twitter labelled it ‘manipulated media’, and the farmer, Sukhdev Singh, said he was bruised.

On 3 December 2020, at talks in Delhi’s Vigyan Bhawan, union leaders refused the government’s lunch. They ate langar brought from Singhu, sitting on the floor. At a later round, ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Piyush Goyal joined them for it.

Eleven rounds ran until 22 January 2021. The government offered to fix clauses; the unions wanted the laws gone. On 11 January, the Supreme Court lost patience.

We are extremely disappointed at the way government is handling all this.Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, 11 January 2021

The next day it stayed the laws and named a four-member committee, all of whom had backed the reforms; farm leader Bhupinder Singh Mann quit within two days. The unions boycotted it, rejected the 18-month offer on 22 January, and the talks ended.

Republic Day 2021 was meant to be a tractor parade on three routes agreed with Delhi Police. Some groups set off early and left the routes; the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee had openly rejected them. At ITO, protesters broke barricades and police fired tear gas and charged with batons.

Near ITO, a tractor overturned and its driver, Navreet Singh, from Rampur in UP, home from Australia for his wedding party, was killed. Police released CCTV showing the tractor hitting a barricade and flipping. His grandfather Hardeep Singh says he was shot first. The post-mortem did not mention a bullet, and a medical board ordered by the Delhi High Court found skull fractures and no metal, but said it could give no definite opinion on foul play.

Then protesters drove into the Red Fort, climbed the ramparts and raised the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh religious flag, on an empty flagpole. Fact-checkers found the tricolour was never removed, and the flag was not a Khalistan flag. But breaking into the Red Fort on Republic Day was wrong in itself.

Actor Deep Sidhu, who had campaigned for the BJP’s Sunny Deol in 2019, was there, livestreaming. He called it a symbolic protest. The Morcha blamed him, the Committee and what it called a government conspiracy, and two groups quit the protest. Delhi Police said 394 personnel were hurt and named 37 farm leaders in its cases. Sidhu was arrested in February and bailed in April; he died in a road crash near Delhi on 15 February 2022, aged 37.

Online, BOOM found posts calling for a repeat of the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre. Many thought the protest was finished.

On 28 January, the Ghaziabad administration ordered the Ghazipur camp cleared by midnight. Police massed, and the water was cut off, allegedly by the administration. It looked like the end.

Then Rakesh Tikait broke down in front of the cameras. He alleged a plot to have the farmers attacked, and vowed not to drink water unless it came from his own village.

The clip spread across western UP and Haryana. Overnight, farmers poured back into Ghazipur, and on 29 January a mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar backed him. The twist: Tikait had admitted voting for the BJP in 2019.

That same day at Singhu, a group claiming to be local residents attacked the camp. Stones flew both ways, a man from the protest site slashed a police officer with a sword, and police arrested 44 people. Alt News reported BJP workers among the ‘locals’.

In early February, Delhi’s border roads grew iron nails, behind concrete walls and barbed wire. Police said the nails were only being ‘repositioned’; they came out in October 2021. Internet was cut around the camps and in 17 Haryana districts. Twitter withheld about 250 accounts on a government order, including The Caravan, then restored them hours later.

On 2 February, Rihanna shared a CNN story on the internet cuts and asked why nobody was talking about it. Greta Thunberg shared a campaign ‘toolkit’. The foreign ministry called celebrity hashtags ‘neither accurate nor responsible’, and stars like Akshay Kumar tweeted #IndiaTogether.

Delhi Police arrested 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi over the toolkit, linking it to a group they called secessionist. On 23 February, Judge Dharmender Rana gave her bail, calling the evidence ‘scanty and sketchy’ and finding no call for violence in the toolkit.

Citizens are conscience keepers of government in any democratic nation.Judge Dharmender Rana, granting Disha Ravi bail, 23 February 2021

In late September 2021, junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni was filmed warning protesters it would take him two minutes to set them right. On 3 October, at Tikunia in Lakhimpur Kheri, a convoy of three SUVs drove into protesting farmers. Prosecutors say Teni’s son was in the first, a Mahindra Thar. Four farmers and journalist Raman Kashyap were killed. In the fury that followed, protesters beat to death two BJP workers, Shubham Mishra and Shyam Sunder Nishad, and driver Hari Om Mishra. Eight people died, on both sides.

Ashish Mishra was arrested on 9 October; he and his father say he was not in the vehicle. The state’s special investigation team called the farmers’ killing a deliberate, pre-planned conspiracy, and in December 2022 a court framed murder and conspiracy charges against him and 12 others. He is an accused, on trial, and has not been convicted. He is on bail, and in August 2026 the Supreme Court refused to relax its conditions. Four farmers were charged over the lynching. Teni stayed a minister and lost his seat in 2024.

In Karnal in August 2021, a video showed SDM Ayush Sinha telling police to break protesters’ heads if needed. Farmer Sushil Kajal died that night; his family blamed the baton charge, officials said a heart attack. Haryana ordered a judicial inquiry.

A crowd of tens of thousands over a year is not a choir of saints. Here is what people on the protest side did wrong.

• December 2020: more than 1,500 mobile towers in Punjab, mostly Jio’s, were damaged or cut off. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said he would not let Punjab slide into anarchy.
• December 2020: former cricketer Yograj Singh made remarks at the protest widely condemned as hateful towards Hindus. His son Yuvraj distanced himself.
• March 2021: protesters beat BJP MLA Arun Narang in Malout and tore his clothes. The Morcha condemned it.
• April–May 2021: a young activist from Bengal died of Covid after camping at Tikri; her father alleged she had been sexually assaulted by men who travelled there with her. The Morcha barred the accused.
• All year: roads stayed blocked. In October 2021 the Supreme Court said farmers could protest but not block roads indefinitely.

The worst came at dawn on 15 October 2021. The body of Lakhbir Singh, a Dalit Sikh labourer from Tarn Taran, was found tied to a police barricade at Singhu, mutilated. A Nihang group said he had desecrated a Sikh scripture; his family rejected that. Four Nihangs were held. The Morcha condemned the killing and distanced itself from the group. We could not find a verdict; the men held are accused, not convicted.

No belief about sacrilege turns a lynching into justice. The movement has to own Singhu, just as the state has to own Lakhimpur.

On 19 November 2021, Guru Nanak’s Prakash Purab, Modi went on television, defended the laws once more, and announced all three would go. He apologised, saying perhaps something had been lacking in the government’s tapasya. Critics noted that UP and Punjab would vote within months.

On 29 November the Lok Sabha passed the repeal in about four minutes, without debate, and the Rajya Sabha followed. A government letter on 9 December promised an MSP committee with union members and the withdrawal of cases. On 11 December, the tents came down and the tractors rolled home in victory marches.

There was no war at Singhu, but there was a death toll. Farmers lived on the road through a freezing winter, a scorching summer and Covid’s second wave. They died of cold, heart attacks, road accidents, illness and some by suicide.

In November 2021 the Morcha put the toll at nearly 700. On 1 December, Agriculture Minister Tomar told Parliament his ministry had ‘no record’, so compensation did not arise. By August 2022, Punjab said it had paid ₹5 lakh each to the families of 789 farmers. A study of 460 of the dead found an average landholding of 2.59 acres and an average age of 56.

In March 2022, panel member Anil Ghanwat, who leads the Shetkari Sanghatana, made the Supreme Court committee’s report public: 61 of the 73 farm groups it heard had backed the laws. The Morcha, which had boycotted it, called the report fake. The MSP committee was set up in July 2022; the Morcha refused its three seats. By July 2026, RTI replies obtained by Newslaundry showed it had spent about ₹54 lakh and produced no report.

In February 2024, unions led by Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher set off on ‘Dilli Chalo 2.0’ for a legal MSP. Haryana sealed the Shambhu and Khanauri borders, and police dropped tear gas from drones. On 21 February, Shubhkaran Singh, 21, from Bathinda district, died at Khanauri; his autopsy found metal pellets from a firearm in his skull. Haryana said 12 of its men were seriously hurt by stones and sticks. The High Court ordered a judicial inquiry, said the death looked like excess police force, and had words for the protesters too.

Children were being used as shield, this is absolutely shameful!Punjab and Haryana High Court, 7 March 2024

Dallewal began a fast on 26 November 2024. On 19 March 2025, Punjab’s own AAP government, whose party had backed the 2020–21 protest, had police detain him and Pandher and clear both camps. He ended his fast on 6 April 2025, after about 131 days. As of October 2026, there is still no law guaranteeing MSP.

These claims still come back every time farmers march. Here is what the record says.

The farmers’ protest was not what its loudest enemies said. It was not a Khalistani plot, a rich man’s picnic or an opposition puppet show. It was tens of thousands of farmers and labourers, Sikh and Hindu, from Punjab, Haryana and western UP, who sat on a road for a year because they did not trust a law written without them.

Nor was it what its fans say. There was a Red Fort break-in, a beaten MLA, a hate speech, smashed towers and a man lynched at Singhu. Condemning is not the same as preventing.

The government was no cartoon villain either. The reforms had serious backers, and it offered real concessions. But it passed the laws without the people they were for, its ministers called protesters Maoists or puppets of China and Pakistan, and nails went into the roads.

The farmers won the repeal, not the MSP law they really wanted, and they are still marching for it. The lesson: you do not change the lives of millions of farmers without sitting down with them first. Preferably over langar.