Fourteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Since November of 2020, thousands of farmers have occupied the borders of Delhi to protest three pro-corporate agricultural bills that threaten to devastate their livelihoods. Hailing from the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana, among others, these farmers have boldly challenged the authority of the neoliberal Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The ongoing farmers’ protests have spread far beyond India’s capital city, as solidarity actions have been held in every state of the country as well as in numerous cities around the world. As the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the disastrous failures of the neoliberal capitalist world system, these protests have offered progressives and leftists everywhere renewed hope that mass working class mobilizations can stem the global tide of right-wing authoritarianism. My paper aims to map the contours of this transformative promise alongside the challenges to its realization. Drawing primarily upon in-depth interviews with young organizers on the front-line in Delhi, I demonstrate how the protests have not simply rejected the Modi regime’s proto-fascism but offered alternative modes of political life altogether, at the same time as these alternatives are qualified by persistent social cleavages. I argue that the diversity of tactics employed by the farmers, who have set up community kitchens, learning facilities, and arts and performance venues, exemplify the principles of mutual aid, direct action, and intersectional and international solidarity. However, deep-seated caste divisions and the hegemony of nonviolence run the risk of undermining these developments if they remain unaddressed.