Indian Farmers’ Coalition Plans Nationwide Protests for November 26
10 November 2026, New Delhi: The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the coalition that led India’s year-long farm law protests in 2020 and 2021, has called for nationwide demonstrations on November 26, deciding at a national convention in Karnal, Haryana, on October 12 to hold what it described as massive protests in New Delhi and across the country.
November 26 marks six years since farmer unions began their encampment at the borders of the national capital in 2020, a protest that lasted more than a year before the federal government repealed three contested farm laws. The SKM’s presidium, which includes leaders such as Ashok Dhawale, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, Rakesh Tikait, Rajan Kshirsagar and Joginder Nain, said state-level SKM bodies would finalize the exact locations and scale of the November 26 actions in the weeks ahead, with organizers forecasting that lakhs of farmers would take part across the country.
Trade deal opposition tops a list of seven demands
Opposition to the free trade agreement India is negotiating with the United States, along with other pending trade deals, sits atop a list of seven demands the coalition adopted at conventions held in New Delhi on July 28 and 29. The coalition is also demanding a law that would guarantee a minimum support price (MSP), the floor price the government sets for farmers’ produce, at a rate of input cost plus 50 percent, with government procurement extended to cover all crops rather than the limited set currently purchased. Further demands include a comprehensive waiver of farm loans and compensation of Rs 25 lakh for the families of farmers who have died by suicide.
The remaining demands include repeal of four federal labour codes in favour of a monthly minimum wage, restoration of the rural employment guarantee scheme to 200 days of work a year at a higher daily wage, withdrawal of a proposed seed bill along with amendments to electricity and food security legislation, and stronger protection of farmers’ land rights against acquisition for infrastructure projects and corporate land pooling schemes.
Weeks of smaller actions preceded the call
The November 26 call followed a series of smaller mobilizations through October, including village-level mahapanchayats, or gatherings, held on October 3, and district and tehsil-level demonstrations on October 23 that the SKM tied in part to objections over the conduct of a special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The coalition’s October 12 meeting at Karnal’s Jat Bhawan also renewed calls for the removal of India’s Chief Election Commissioner over the rolls revision, alongside its core agricultural demands, according to the coalition’s own account of the meeting.
The SKM was formed in 2020 as an umbrella body bringing together dozens of farm unions from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other states to coordinate opposition to the three farm laws the government introduced that year. It has remained active since the laws were withdrawn in late 2021, continuing to press for a legal MSP guarantee that successive governments have not granted, framing the November 26 date as both a commemoration of the earlier protest and a renewed push on its outstanding demands.
The coalition has said its mobilization will continue beyond November 26 in the form of further multi-day actions until its demands are met, though it has not set an end date for the campaign. State units of the SKM are expected to announce specific march routes, rally sites and participating districts closer to the date, with the coalition’s national leadership coordinating messaging from New Delhi in the interim.
The SKM itself has pointed to the toll of the 2020-21 protests in making its case for the planned action, citing 736 farmer deaths during that agitation as part of its argument for a stronger legal safeguard on crop prices. Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the states that supplied the bulk of the earlier protest’s participants and that remain the SKM’s organizational strongholds, are expected to again anchor much of the November 26 mobilization, based on the coalition’s own account of where its affiliated unions are concentrated.
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