The farmers have been protesting at Khanauri and Shambhu borders for the past one year. The images from the protest sites🦄 remind me of the documentation project—‘March to Delhi’—that I had undertaken in 2020 when the large-scale farmers’ protest began and went on for over a year. I was intrigued by the sheer scale of the protest and was curious to know about the issues of farmers, their concerns and why they were protesting in one voice against the three farm laws. ‘March to Delhౠi’ was an attempt to record one of the biggest protests in the history of the nation. It helped that I was based in Delhi and was geographically closer to Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders. I could go back and forth and record the whole timeline of the protest. It was a sincere and honest attempt to document the lives of protesting farmers.
ܫEach image is a direct representation of their daily struggles and perseverance. The resilience shown by them to not bow down in front of the regime was my motivation to meet them every single day resulting in more curiosity to document it as a visual narrative. While these images are from the 2020-2021 protest, it’s an ongoing project.
Text & Photographs: Mayank Makhija
A farmer gestures as others shout slogans during a sit-in against farm laws at Singhu border near🌜 Delhi.
Women farmers participate in farmers’ protests against farm laws on the occasion of International Women’s Day (20📖21) at Tikri border.
Securi🐼ty personnel stand guard behind a barbed fence barricade to stop farmers from entering the national capital during their protest against the farm laws at Singhu near Delhi.
Farmers carrying flags arrive to take part in a protest blocking the KMP motorway, marking 100 days of farmers’ protests near ⛎the Kundli border on the🔯 outskirts of Delhi, in Haryana.
(This appeared in the print as 'Delhi Is Still Far')
