2014 saw the creation of Telangana state from an area that was previously the north-west of Andhra Pradesh. With Hyderbad becoming the capital of Telangana, the ruling party of Andhra Pradesh – the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) – chose the city of Amaravati as the state’s new capital.

Huge development plans were rolled out to make Amaravati a world-class city, “the Singapore of India.” With a whole new infrastructure and plans to create a vibrant capital to attract international business, Amaravati’s future seemed assured.

The government needed land around the city to make this development possible and appealed to the farmers. They offered them a promising deal: in exchange for pooling their land for development, they would become partners in the new city and receive substantial benefits for every acre they agreed to provide. This was hailed as a great model for development when it was launched in 2015, one that would include marginalised rural communities in the new urban project.

Within a year, tens of thousands of the region’s farmers had agreed to contribute 33,000 acres of land to build the new city – 90% of the total land set aside for development.

The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), led by Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, came to power in the Andhra Pradesh state elections in May 2019. Several months after this change in government, Jaganmohan Reddy announced a new plan for Andhra Pradesh: three capitals rather than one, with the vision of decentralisation.

Amaravati will now be one of three capital cities, with the executive capital in Visakhapatnam and the judicial capital in Kurnool. As a result, the development budget will be spread between the three cities rather than focused on Amaravati, and the commercial value of the land contributed by Amaravati’s farmers will decrease significantly.

The construction work that had already begun has largely ground to a halt, and the farmers – who had agreed to pool their land with the promise of increased living standards and a share in a flourishing new urban development project – feel cheated.

For many farmers who joined the land pooling scheme, a return to their former farming practices is simply impossible. Most of the land has lain fallow since 2017, when construction work began, and much of it has already been dug up as foundations were laid for major highways and new buildings. It can no longer be cultivated.

As a result, the farmers cannot farm their land but have not received the compensation and benefits they were promised. Since construction work stopped in 2019, alternative employment in building work is no longer available either.

Many of these farmers - people from marginalised communities - have lost their livelihoods.

Peaceful protests began immediately after Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy announced the decentralisation plan in December 2019 and have continued every day since, running for over three hundred days to date. More than 28,000 farmers have taken part, as well as women’s organisations and other human rights groups.

The opposition parties – with the exception of the BJP – have all expressed their support for the protests.

There have been widespread allegations that the YSRCP government and the police force have been using inhumane tactics to stifle dissent. For example, on 28th October 2020, a number of farmers, engaged in peaceful protest, were handcuffed by police for no clear reason, in violation of Indian law.

Fifty-eight protesters are known to have died while protesting, and over two hundred have been arrested.