The farmers sitting on protest against the three contentious farm laws, which the government has long projected as agricultural reforms, but which its critics say will do away with the minimum support price (MSP), leaving them at the mercy of big corporations, have been on the road for close to a year. It’s not been very different for photojournalist Rohit Lohia, who has travelled thousands of kilometres in the last 11 months, documenting this agitation on the Punjab-Haryana border. 

The subjects he has shot stand out for their steely resolve. And the stories he has gathered, brimming with anger and determination, are now set to be part of a larger collective of documentation by well-known photographers from across the country. Their images are now part of the 20-minute film, 0 km [zero kilometres], recently released on the 75th year of India’s Independence. Produced and presented by Samyak Drishti, an online photography monthly magazine published by Padma Shri Sudharak Olwe, it captures the struggle of the protesters, their pain and the spirit of solidarity. “It is nothing, but an archive of one of the most significant resistance movements that India has witnessed in recent times,” Mumbai-based Olwe tells us. The film was officially released by Omar Badsha, a South African documentary photographer, artist, political and trade union activist and historian.