The highway in the gallery

Photographer Gauri Gill's ongoing exhibition in New Delhi brings the outside world into the white cube

- Somak Ghoshal

In 2020, the Union government introduced three farm laws which were perceived by millions of farmers around the country as being biased towards big business and detrimental to their own interests. Soon, protests began to be staged all around, even during the pandemic, with a special intensity in the National Capital Region, where farmers from Punjab held a sit-down until the laws were repealed in 2021.

Photographer Gauri Gill spent all of 2021 documenting this showdown by the Punjab farmers on the highways leading into Delhi. Unheeding of the elements, changing seasons, outbreak of disease and, of course, the iron hand of the state bent on suppressing dissent, hundreds of men, women and children of all ages pitched camp outdoors for over a year.