Dispatch From India’s Farmers Protest

The Ongoing Protests Have Become the Longest Stand-off in the Country Since India Achieved Independence

For more than four months now, about 200,000 men, women, and the elderly have been camping on the roads leading to Delhi, barricaded from the nation’s capital by concrete walls, trenches, concertina wires and nails on the road. The farmers are demanding the repeal of three laws that the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enacted in violation of India’s Constitution and due parliamentary procedure last September. They also seek the legalization of a national Minimum Support Price index, an assured price fixed every year by the government, on farm …