Thread by @Reuters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is struggling to beat back his biggest political challenge in years from #FarmersProtests movement which began with disgruntled farmers traveling to New Delhi on tractors and is now gaining wider support at home and abroad reut.rs/2NFZn1w

Simmering in makeshift camps housing tens of thousands of farmers since last year, the movement has seen a dramatic growth in recent weeks, getting backing from environmental activists, opposition parties and even A-list Western celebrities

At its heart are three new farm laws passed by the government last September.

The new farm laws allow private retailers to buy farm goods directly from growers, circumventing India’s government-controlled wholesale markets

Led by farmers from India’s northern Punjab state, the movement has spread to the country’s northern and western farm belts and is now nearing its 100-day mark

Sugarcane farmers from the politically important Uttar Pradesh state, who are suffering lengthy delays in crop payments, are joining forces with rice paddy and wheat growers from other states in opposing the new farm laws

Western Uttar Pradesh’s sizeable Muslim population, whose opposition to the Modi government’s citizenship law in 2019 was quietened by heavy-handed policing, has allied with Hindu farm leaders to join the ongoing protests

For over 60 years, Indian farmers have been selling grain to the government at state-guaranteed prices through these wholesale markets, and they say the new laws leave them at the mercy of large private retailers

Pop superstar @rihanna, Swedish climate change activist @GretaThunberg and U.S. activist @meenaharris, the niece of U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, all tweeted in support of the farmers this month, drawing a rebuke from India’s foreign ministry

India’s wider civil society, which has seen its ambit steadily narrow during Modi’s term, has also thrown its weight behind the farmers’ movement alongside academics and students. Read more reut.rs/2NFZn1w by @MayankBhardwaj9 @DevjyotGhoshal