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

The Kisan Andolan or the Indian farmers’ protest of 2020-2021 is one of the longest and biggest (and victorious) social movements in the history of independent India. This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach to contextualise 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 (India). Her research and publications have focused on the Sikh Diaspora in Europe, the link between the agrarian crisis and international mobility from Punjab, Sikh minority status and Sikh responses to Hindu majoritarianism both in India and in the West.

David Singh is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). His research interests focus on land politics, resource extraction and green energy infrastructures, the making of citizenship and nations from a political ecology and critical agrarian studies perspective. David’s Ph.D. dissertation 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.