Farming the Revolution takes us to the heart of the massive year-long protests against the Indian government’s then newly enacted farm laws during the COVID lockdown. Over half a million protesters gathered – men and women from all generations, religions, classes and castes – joining forces at massive protest sites that sprung up across the borders of Delhi. The film invites us to experience the small-scale struggles and giant spirit of this historic farmers ’movement, and to think about what it means in our own local context.
From the film’s director, Nishtha Jain:
Over the last five years, public discontent has been growing with the Indian government’s failure to implement many of its 2014 election promises, the large-scale sale of public companies and assets to private corporations, growing religious intolerance, and the take- over of institutions meant to protect democracy. There’s been an increasing crackdown on human rights, threatening brave voices of dissent with detention. In 2020, a similar fate awaited the Indian farmers when they began their agitation against the newly enacted farm laws. But the unthinkable happened: in a radically peaceful way, over a period of a year, the protesters reinvented the very meaning of power.
Over a period of thirteen months, my team and I were witness to the exceptional bravery of the protesting farmers, to their speaking truth to power, and their remarkable resourcefulness. Their determination, perseverance, discipline and patience were deeply inspiring. Spearheaded as the movement is by extraordinary leaders, the film’s protagonists didn’t just hope or pray for success, or weigh their chances when it came to action. They embraced a totally different language. They came to win and they did!
The scale and duration of the protest, while being awe-inspiring, were also a challenge. It was the year of the COVID lockdown. I was fortunate to be able to put together a young and dedicated team, which stayed on till the end to capture the collective energy of the protest and the individual transformations of the protagonists.
The film gives the viewers an almost day-to-day experience of the protests, through changing seasons, while challenging popular misconceptions about farmers as country bumpkins or conservatives. We meet evolved, wise, educated, informed people – many tall leaders, writers, poets and singers.
Surrounded by police barricades, the farmers create a zone – a zone of possibilities, a zone of freedom within which the normal laws of the police state don’t apply. It becomes a place of optimism, hope, and action. A zone of camaraderie. The farmers tend to the sick, feed each other, and continuously upgrade their shelters to adapt to the elements. They transform their farm implements into sleeping platforms, libraries, schools, and stages of protest. The culture of sharing, community and jugaad (indigenous ad hoc problem- solving) is on full display here. There are mini- universities/ communes with libraries, community kitchens, film screening spaces. In this unprecedented assemblage of people from all caste and class backgrounds, urban and rural, young and old, with women participating in large numbers, we see how roots in faith and revolutionary thinking may coexist.
