About the Lecture

The current protests by the same Sikh Jat peasantry (and the allied Hindu Jat protestors in Haryana which was part of erstwhile Punjab till the 1960s) draws upon the same base that has fuelled agrarian protests in Punjab going back a 120 years, tracing an arc through the opposition to the British to insurgency in Punjab. The motivations of the current protest are born out of the implementation of the Green Revolution in these two states. The talk hopes to cover both this history and motivation.

About the Speaker

Hartosh Singh Bal is the political editor of The Caravan magazine. He was the political editor of Open magazine and has worked with The Indian Express, Tehelka and Mail Today. He is the author of Waters Close Over Us, A Journey Along the Narmada and co-author of A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel. He trained as an engineer and a mathematician. He was based in Punjab as a reporter for The Indian Express for seven years