The farmers' protest will go down in history for training the spotlight on the relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the family-controlled diversified conglomerates headed by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, India's two richest men. This relationship had always been a cause of disquiet among a segment of the intelligentsia and the political class, but never before did it assume the shape of mass outrage against the troika of Modi, Ambani and Adani, evident from the repeated burning of their effigies ever since Punjab burst out against the three new farm laws.

It is hard to recall a moment in India's history when the effigies of tycoons were burnt outside the premises of enterprises they owned, by people who were not even on their rolls. Not even the Birlas and the Tatas, who ruled the roost during the pre-liberalisation era, were subjected to such ignominy. This was because even though the Tata-Birla houses gained from the government's preferential treatment of them, they did not dominate our lives as Ambani and Adani do today.