London, United Kingdom – As they demonstrate against new laws which could devastate their livelihoods, thousands of Indian farmers, mostly from the northern states of Haryana and Punjab, are taking to the streets to protest.
The ripples from the largest mass resistance against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are being felt in the United Kingdom, a country with significant Punjabi diaspora communities.
Many here say the laws threaten their ancestral lands, which they fear could be swallowed by corporate interests.
“Many of them still have land out there, or close family and friends who are farmers,” Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, a member of Parliament with the main opposition Labour Party, told Al Jazeera. “My parents and my grandparents were farmers in Punjab. My uncles and cousins, they are out there [in India] protesting.”