In ‘Farmer Power’, Sudhir Suthar Talks About How Indian Farmers Built The 2020-21 Movement

In 1966, the renowned American sociologist Barrington Moore published a book that would influence generations of scholars studying agrarian politics. In "Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship", Moore categorised Indian peasantry as "unable to resist any form of oppression", lacking the material and intellectual prerequisites for democratic society. He was spectacularly wrong. 

In September 2020, around 300,000 Indian farmers began a journey towards Delhi that would last over a year, proving that India's peasantry had not only acquired those prerequisites but could teach the world a thing or two about sustained democratic resistance. Sudhir Kumar Suthar's Farmer Power captures this extraordinary moment, but it does much more, it documents how a movement challenged seventy years of assumptions about Indian agriculture, democracy, and the nature of protest itself.

The Neoliberal Gambit That Failed

To understand why farmers camped on Delhi's borders for over a year, we need to grasp what was actually at stake in those three farm laws. Since the 1990s, India had been gradually opening its economy to global markets, a process often celebrated in air-conditioned conference rooms but felt very differently in the fields. The three laws introduced in June 2020 weren't sudden aberrations; they were the culmination of decades of policy direction that sought to transform Indian agriculture from a state-supported sector into a privatised, corporate-dominated marketplace.

Suthar's book excels at explaining why farmers in Punjab, Haryana, and later across India saw these laws as existential threats rather than opportunities. The government promised efficiency and market choice, but farmers remembered Singur and Nandigram, places where land acquisition for corporate projects had devastated communities. They knew that contract farming, however benign it sounds, often means farmers becoming wage labourers on land they once owned. Most crucially, they understood that dismantling the minimum support price system would leave them at the mercy of corporate buyers in an unequal market.

What makes Suthar's account invaluable is how it situates these protests within broader global resistance to corporate agriculture. From La Via Campesina in Latin America to farmer movements across Europe protesting subsidy cuts, there's a worldwide pattern of rural communities pushing back against the industrialisation of food production. India's farmers weren't parochial or backward-looking; they were part of a global conversation about who controls food systems and who benefits from agriculture.

The Yellow Flag and the Hybrid Revolution

Here's where Suthar's analysis becomes genuinely groundbreaking. This wasn't a movement that fit neat categories, neither purely left-wing nor traditionally conservative, neither dominated by large farmers nor exclusively representing small landholders. It was what Suthar calls a "hybrid" formation, bringing together groups with different interests under one umbrella agenda. The yellow flags that became the movement's symbol weren't borrowed from any existing political party. As one activist explained, "All the colours have been taken over by political parties or ideologies; we are left with only yellow."

This hybridity functioned through multiple mechanisms. Politically, it defended farmers' rights whilst pragmatically accepting some market reforms. Institutionally, it ensured representation of various groups, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha alone brought together over 40 farmer organisations. Most innovatively, it created what Suthar calls a "hybrid communication system" that merged WhatsApp groups and social media with traditional village meetings and word-of-mouth networks. When the Haryana police tried to stop farmers at the state border, it took just hours for the entire strategy to shift, farmers simply camped where they were stopped, turning barricades into protest sites.

The protests transformed India's highways into something unprecedented. These weren't just blockades; they became living communities where traditional Punjabi culture flourished alongside contemporary music, where langars fed thousands daily, where farmers held workshops on constitutional rights and screened documentaries about agrarian crises. The roads became what Suthar beautifully describes as "vibrant and lively sites of active, democratic, deliberative politics."

Why This Matters Beyond Agriculture

The farmers won, the laws were repealed in November 2021. But Suthar's book argues convincingly that the victory matters far beyond agricultural policy. In an era when governments worldwide claim popular mandates to push through reforms without consultation, when protest is often dismissed as disruption, and when dissent is increasingly criminalised, India's farmers demonstrated that patient, peaceful, organised resistance can still prevail.

The government's response, oscillating between aggression and conciliation, from water cannons to negotiations, revealed something crucial about contemporary Indian politics. Despite having one of the largest parliamentary majorities in independent India's history, despite controlling most media narratives, the government was forced to retreat. Not because of violence or disruption, but because farmers simply refused to move until they were heard.

For anyone trying to understand not just India but how democracy functions in the twenty-first century, Suthar's book is essential. It documents how ordinary people, derided by some as "Khalistanis", dismissed by others as tools of the opposition, asserted their citizenship through the most fundamental democratic act: saying no to power. It shows that social movements can succeed not by mimicking political parties but by creating new forms of organisation that transcend traditional boundaries.

Farmer Power is ultimately a book about possibility. It reminds us that history isn't made only in parliament or corporate boardrooms but sometimes on dusty highways, one tractor at a time, and that democracy's strength lies not in how smoothly governments can implement policies, but in how effectively citizens can resist when those policies threaten their livelihoods and dignity.