For five parts we have argued in words. Now the words run out, and the people move. This is where the story leaves paper and hits the cold tarmac of a highway — where a disagreement over three laws became one of the largest and longest protests the world has ever seen.
1Why Punjab lit the match first
Farmers from many states joined in. But the first, fiercest fire was lit in Punjab — and by now you already know why. Three reasons from earlier parts come together here.
1. The most to lose. Remember Part 2: the government buys roughly 85% of Punjab's rice and 74% of its wheat at MSP. No state leans on the mandi-MSP system more — so no state was more frightened to see it touched.
2. The deepest dependence. The Green Revolution (Part 1) built Punjab's whole economy around wheat and paddy sold through that system.
3. The strongest unions. Punjab has a long, organised tradition of farm unions — more than 30 of them — and a Sikh culture of seva (selfless service) and standing firm against injustice.
Put simply: Punjab had the most to lose, the deepest roots in the old system, and the best-organised people to fight for it. That is why the match was struck there.
2The spark: Punjab erupts, summer to autumn 2020
Long before anyone reached Delhi, Punjab was already ablaze. The protest did not begin at the capital — by the time it got there, it was months old. Follow how it built:
Rail roko means "stop the trains" — sitting on railway tracks to halt them as a protest. A morcha is an organised, sustained protest or agitation — a word that will define this whole story.
3One voice: the birth of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha
Dozens of unions, dozens of leaders, dozens of egos — a movement can splinter on such things. To avoid that, on 7 November 2020 the unions joined into a single umbrella body: the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the "United Farmers' Front," coordinating around 40 major unions and, through them, hundreds of local groups.44Samyukt Kisan Morcha formed 7 Nov 2020; an umbrella of ~40 unions coordinating 400+ organisations. Wikipedia, "Samyukt Kisan Morcha"; SKM statements.
The SKM deliberately had no single supreme leader. Decisions were taken collectively by a committee. This was a strength (no one person could be bought, jailed, or discredited to end it) and later a difficulty (it was slow to agree and hard to negotiate with). Keep it in mind — it shapes everything that follows.
Some of the major unions and leaders behind the movement (a partial list)
| Leader | Union | Base |
|---|---|---|
| Joginder Singh Ugrahan | BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) — Punjab's largest | Punjab (Malwa) |
| Balbir Singh Rajewal | BKU (Rajewal) — key spokesperson | Punjab |
| Dr Darshan Pal | Krantikari Kisan Union; SKM secretariat | Punjab |
| Gurnam Singh Chaduni | BKU (Charuni) | Haryana |
| Rakesh Tikait | BKU (Tikait) — pivotal at Ghazipur (Part 7) | Western Uttar Pradesh |
| Hannan Mollah / others | All India Kisan Sabha & many more | Nationwide |
4"Dilli Chalo": the call to march
Blocking Punjab's trains had made noise, but not change. So the SKM raised a bigger, bolder call: Dilli Chalo — "March to Delhi" — for 26–27 November 2020.55"Dilli Chalo" march called for 26–27 Nov 2020 over the three farm laws. Outlook India; PIB. The plan was direct: take the demand to the doorstep of national power and refuse to leave until it was heard.
And crucially, they did not pack for a day trip. Tractor-trolleys were loaded with months of rations, firewood, diesel, quilts, and bedding. This was the tell that Delhi missed at first: these farmers had come to stay.
"We have brought enough rations to last six months. We are not going back until the laws go back." — a sentiment repeated by countless farmers to reporters along the route.
5The road to Delhi: barricades, water cannons and trenches
The government did not want a farmers' army camped in the capital. So as the trolleys rolled south, the BJP-run Haryana government tried to physically stop them from crossing the state on the way to Delhi.
The roads became a battlefield of obstacles. Police used water cannons and tear gas; highways were dug up with trenches; lanes were choked with boulders, sand piles, concrete blocks, and layer upon layer of steel barricades.66Haryana used barricades, dug-up roads, boulders, sand, water cannon and tear gas to stop the march; multi-layer barricades, concrete blocks and container walls at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur. The Tribune; Deccan Herald, Nov 2020. On a freezing late-November day, elderly farmers were hosed with cold water.
But the farmers came through. They filled the trenches with their own tractors, hauled the barricades aside, and pushed on. One moment became the movement's first great image:
A young farmer climbed onto a moving police water-cannon truck and reached down to switch off its jet, even as it blasted the crowd. The photograph — one young man against the machine — became an instant symbol of the whole movement's spirit.
6The refusal at Burari
When the farmers reached the edge of Delhi, the police made an offer: go to the Nirankari ground at Burari, a fixed spot inside the city set aside for protests. Many expected the farmers to accept. They refused.
The farmers saw Burari as a trap — a fenced field, away from the seat of power, where a protest could be quietly ignored until it faded. Some called it an "open jail." Instead, they sat down exactly where they had been stopped: on the great highways at the gates of the capital. That single decision turned a march into a year-long siege.
7The three gates: Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur
The farmers dug in at the border points where the highways enter Delhi. Three became legendary, and a couple more mattered too:
The main protest sites at Delhi's borders
| Border | Where | Who mainly gathered |
|---|---|---|
| Singhu | North, Delhi–Haryana on National Highway 44 | The main camp; huge numbers from Punjab. The movement's "capital." |
| Tikri | West, Delhi–Haryana (towards Bahadurgarh) | Vast camp stretching for kilometres; Punjab & Haryana unions. |
| Ghazipur | East, Delhi–Uttar Pradesh | Western-UP farmers under Rakesh Tikait — the site that saves the movement in Part 7. |
| Shahjahanpur / others | South, Rajasthan–Haryana; and Palwal | Farmers from Rajasthan and beyond. |
Notice the shape of it: farmers ringed Delhi from several sides at once. The capital was, in a real sense, encircled by its own countryside.
8From sit-in to city: the protest becomes semi-permanent
Here is the part that stunned the world. A sit-in usually lasts days. This one built a civilisation. The farmers turned the highways into long villages — a "pind" (village) on tarmac.
They didn't just protest at the border. They moved in and built a working town on the road — kitchens, homes, clinics, schools, and all.
What grew there, over the months, is almost hard to believe:
| What appeared on the highway | Detail |
|---|---|
| Langars (free kitchens) every 100 metres | Running 24 hours a day; one alone claimed to serve over 10,000 meals daily — free to anyone, protester or police.77"Langar, ration, tractors and cards — how farmers are ready for the long haul at Singhu," ThePrint; a langar every ~100m, one serving 10,000+ daily. |
| Homes on wheels — then brick houses | Tractor-trolleys became bedrooms with fans and beds; as summer neared, some built actual brick ("pucca") houses on the road.88"After massage centres and gyms, farmers construct brick houses at Singhu border," Deccan Herald, 2021. |
| Libraries, schools and a newspaper | Small libraries and tent-classrooms appeared; farmers even started their own newsletter, Trolley Times, from December 2020. |
| Clinics, gyms, laundry, solar power | Free medical and dental camps, a "gym ka langar," washing machines, foot-massage machines, and solar panels for electricity. |
This mattered beyond comfort. A protest that can feed, house, heal, and teach itself cannot simply be waited out. By building a self-sufficient town, the farmers made their most powerful statement without a word: we can stay here longer than you can ignore us.
9How big was it, really?
Because this book is honest about numbers, let me be careful here. Crowds this large, spread across many sites for many months, are almost impossible to count exactly — and both sides had reasons to inflate or shrink the figure.
Hundreds of thousands at the gates
At their peak, the border camps together held hundreds of thousands of people. Separately, on 26 November 2020, India's central trade unions held a nationwide general strike that they claimed drew up to 250 million workers — often described as one of the largest organised protests in human history. That giant figure was the broader strike (workers of all kinds), which the farmers' march coincided with and fed into — not a headcount of farmers alone.99The 26 Nov 2020 general strike called by central trade unions was reported at up to ~250 million participants nationwide; it overlapped with, but was broader than, the farmers' march. Contemporary reporting (Reuters; Al Jazeera).
The honest summary: the farmers' camps were enormous and sustained for over a year, and they sat inside the biggest wave of protest India had seen in decades. Exact totals, though, deserve a pinch of caution from every direction.
10Two ways to see the very same scene
Staying neutral, as promised, the same protest city looked completely different depending on where you stood:
| How supporters saw it | How the government and critics saw it |
|---|---|
| A peaceful, disciplined, self-organised democratic uprising — feeding even the police through langar. | A months-long blockade choking highways and a whole region's rail and road, hurting ordinary people and businesses. |
| Citizens being fenced out of their own capital with trenches and water cannon. | A movement heavily concentrated in Punjab & Haryana, not truly all of India's farmers. |
| Ordinary farmers funding it themselves through village collections and seva. | Questions about how such vast, well-run logistics were organised and paid for. |
Both readings contain truth. The sharper accusations that flew soon after — the "Khalistan" charge, the "toolkit," the claims of a foreign hand — are so important, and so contested, that they get a whole part to themselves: Part 8.
11Where we go next
By December 2020, the camps were dug in against a brutal winter. Rounds of talks between the SKM and the government began — and, one after another, failed. The two sides were talking past each other, exactly as Parts 4 and 5 predicted they would.
And then the movement hit its most dangerous moment — the day it nearly shattered. A tractor parade on Republic Day. A flag on the Red Fort. A death, a hundred accusations, and one night of tears that brought it all roaring back to life. That is Part 7.
Part 6 — the seven things to carry forward
- Punjab lit the match first — most to lose, deepest dependence, strongest unions.
- The uprising began in Punjab months early — dharnas, a rail roko from October 2020, and state counter-laws.
- On 7 November 2020 the unions united as the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, deliberately with no single leader.
- The "Dilli Chalo" march (26–27 Nov 2020) broke through Haryana's water cannons, tear gas and trenches.
- Farmers refused the Burari ground and instead sat at Delhi's gates — turning a march into a siege.
- Three great camps — Singhu, Tikri, Ghazipur — grew into self-sufficient protest cities with langars, homes, clinics and schools.
- It sat inside the largest wave of protest India had seen in decades — though exact numbers deserve honest caution.
Sources & further reading — Part 6
- Business Standard / Deccan Herald / The Tribune — Punjab's rail roko (31 unions; tracks blocked from late Sept–Oct 2020) and the state's October 2020 counter-laws.
- Wikipedia — "2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest" and "Samyukt Kisan Morcha" (formation on 7 Nov 2020; ~40 unions; leaders).
- Outlook India / PIB — the "Dilli Chalo" call for 26–27 Nov 2020.
- The Tribune / Deccan Herald — Haryana's barricades, dug-up roads, water cannon and tear gas; multi-layer fortifications at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur.
- ThePrint / Deccan Herald / Foundation for Agrarian Studies — life at the camps: langars, tractor-trolley homes, brick houses, gyms, clinics, and the scale of the sit-ins.
- Reuters / Al Jazeera — the 26 Nov 2020 nationwide general strike and its reported scale.
Dates and named unions/leaders are drawn from contemporary reporting and public records; footnotes mark the key sourced facts. Crowd figures are given as ranges with explicit caution, since large multi-site protests cannot be counted precisely.