"I cannot be intimidated, I cannot be thought." The women leading India's farmers' protests. The message to women was clear. Go back home. Since November, hundreds of thousands of farmers had gathered at different sites on the outskirts of the Indian capital to demand the repeal of three agricultural laws that they say would destroy their livelihoods. In January, as the New Delhi winter set in, the Chief Justice of India asked lawyers to persuade elderly people and women to leave the protests. In response, women farmers- mostly from the rural states of Punjab , Haryana and Uttar Pradesh- scrambled onto stages, took hold of microphones and roared back a unaimous "No!"
Text by Nilanjana Bhowmick Photographs by Kanishka Sonthalia
WOMEN FARMERS PROTEST
"I cannot be intimidated, I cannot be thought." The women leading India's farmers' protests. The message to women was clear. Go back home. Since November, hundreds of thousands of farmers had gathered at different sites on the outskirts of the Indian capital to demand the repeal of three agricultural laws that they say would destroy their livelihoods. In January, as the New Delhi winter set in, the Chief Justice of India asked lawyers to persuade elderly people and women to leave the protests. In response, women farmers- mostly from the rural states of Punjab , Haryana and Uttar Pradesh- scrambled onto stages, took hold of microphones and roared back a unaimous "No!"
Text by Nilanjana Bhowmick Photographs by Kanishka Sonthalia
Kanishka Sonthalia
Kanishka Sonthalia (b. 1990) is an independent documentary photographer currently based in Brooklyn, New York.
