Farming the Revolution review – low-key look at Indian farmers’ street-camp protests

You might suspect that documentaries like this – quietly didactic, discreetly partisan, yet dry enough to seem faintly journalistic, and sprinkled with just the right amount of visual sugar to look arty and aesthetically pleasing – are factory-farmed in vats somewhere, genetically engineered to appeal to eggheads on the film-festival circuit. Farming the Revolution takes exactly that kind of low-key, observational look at the 2020-21 protests in India over three farm acts that unions felt would highly disadvantage farmers and enrich large corporations. Titles throughout explain some of the background, and there are plenty of clips of union organisers and speakers at protest rallies explaining why the farm bills were felt to be a bad thing, but there’s no getting round the fact that it’s a pretty niche topic unless you are especially interested in Indian agricultural policy.

That said, it’s interesting the way the protest turned into a year-long occupation on the outskirts of Delhi, a temporary suburb of squatting protesters who travelled miles, mostly from Punjab state, to lend their support and make their voices known. The film’s midsection features some interesting coverage of the logistics of feeding so many people, and if you watch very closely you may pick up some tips for making rotis on a mass scale. The people we meet are mostly very likable if not especially articulate, apart from the union organisers, and it’s nice to hear how much they valued helping one another to make the protest work.

The participation of women is highlighted, both by the film and the protest organisers, but still one wonders about how everyone kept it all together for such a long time without apparent strife, violence or disruption within the camp. Naturally, things got hairy when the protests broke out in Delhi itself, with an incursion at the Red Fort and much hysteria from the Indian state which tried to paint the protesters as separatists or religious zealots. Neither India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, nor the mainstream Indian press come out of the story well, but there is a muted happy ending of sorts.

• Farming the Revolution is at Bertha DocHouse, London from 30 August.