Abstract
When farmers block a national highway to demand better prices for their crops, two important rights come face to face: the farmers’ right to protest peacefully and the general public’s right to move freely on public roads. This article looks at farmers’ protests and highway occupations in India as a distinct form of protest, different from a rally in a park or a march on a city road, because a blocked highway affects trade, emergency travel, daily wage transport and the rights of people who are not part of the protest at all. Using the 2020-21 farm laws agitation and the 2024-25 Shambhu and Khanauri border protests as running examples, the article explains what the Constitution and the law say about occupying a highway, how courts have balanced protest rights against mobility rights, what role negotiation plays in ending such deadlocks, and what practical lessons organisers, police and governments can take from these events. The article keeps the language simple so that students, journalists, farmer-union members and first-time readers of law can all follow the arguments without needing a legal background.
1. Introduction: Why Highways Become Protest Sites
Farmers usually protest for very concrete, economic reasons: fair prices for their produce, timely payment, waiver of loans they cannot repay after a bad harvest, or opposition to a new law they believe will hand their bargaining power to large corporate buyers. A field or a village meeting does not have the same effect on the government as a blocked highway, because a highway is the artery through which trade, fuel, food supplies and emergency services move between states. When thousands of farmers with tractors and trolleys sit down on a national highway for weeks or months, they create pressure that a smaller, quieter protest cannot create. That is precisely why highways have become recurring protest sites in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and elsewhere over the last decade.
This choice of location is strategic, but it is also legally sensitive. A public road is meant for the free movement of everyone, not just the protesters. So when a highway occupation stretches for months, the law has to answer a hard question: at what point does a legitimate protest become an unlawful obstruction of a public way, and who decides that line?
2. Constitutional and Legal Framework
Article 19(1)(b) of the Constitution gives every citizen the right to assemble peaceably and without arms. This right is not absolute; Article 19(3) allows the State to place reasonable restrictions on it in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order. Highway occupations sit exactly at this boundary between a protected right and a permissible restriction.
Several other laws come into play once a protest moves onto a highway:
The National Highways Act, 1956 protects highways from unauthorised obstruction, encroachment and damage, and gives highway authorities the power to remove such obstructions.
Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which has replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, a District Magistrate or an empowered police officer can issue prohibitory orders under Section 163 (earlier Section 144 CrPC) to prevent obstruction of public ways when there is a real danger to public order or safety.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) contains offences relating to public nuisance and unlawful assembly, which can apply if a protest turns violent or blocks essential movement without any lawful justification.
Motor Vehicles Act provisions and local police regulations govern traffic diversions, and state governments often use these powers to set up barricades and alternate routes rather than removing protesters immediately by force.
None of these laws say that a highway protest is automatically illegal. What they require is a case-by-case assessment: is the assembly peaceful, is there a genuine public-order threat, and is any restriction proportionate to that threat?
3. What Actually Happened: 2020-21 Farm Laws Protest
In September 2020, Parliament passed three farm laws intended to open agricultural trade to private buyers outside the traditional mandi system. Farmer unions, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, and later joined by unions from other states, opposed the laws because they feared the loss of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system and greater control by large corporate buyers over farm produce. Farmers began moving towards Delhi in November 2020 and were stopped at the city’s borders, most visibly at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur, where they set up long-term camps on the highways leading into the capital.
The protest lasted more than a year. The central government and farmer representatives held several rounds of talks, but for a long time neither side moved from its position; the government offered to pause the laws and amend specific clauses, while the unions insisted on complete repeal along with a legal guarantee for MSP. The matter also went to the Supreme Court, which set up a committee to look into the laws, though the protest continued on the ground regardless of that process. In November 2021, the Prime Minister announced that the government would repeal all three farm laws, and Parliament formally withdrew them soon after. The protest ended once the repeal was completed, though the demand for a legal MSP guarantee remained unresolved and continued to surface in later protests.
4. What Actually Happened: 2024-25 Shambhu and Khanauri Border Protest
A second major round of highway protests began in February 2024, led largely by two farmer platforms, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, under leaders including Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarvan Singh Pandher. This time the central demand was a legal guarantee for MSP on all crops, along with full loan waivers for farmers. Farmers attempted a ‘Delhi Chalo’ march from Punjab towards the capital, but were stopped by the Haryana government at the Shambhu border on National Highway 44, one of the busiest interstate roads carrying tens of thousands of vehicles a day.
Haryana authorities placed multi-layered cement barricades, barbed wire and heavy police deployment at the border to prevent the march from entering the state, and used tear gas and water cannons on more than one occasion when farmers tried to cross on foot. Jagjit Singh Dallewal went on an extended fast, prompting the Supreme Court to direct the state to ensure he received medical attention. The highway itself remained closed for well over a year, which led to a separate legal challenge before the Supreme Court asking that the blocked highway be cleared to restore free movement for the general public.
Talks between farmer leaders and central government representatives, including the Union Agriculture Minister, took place from time to time but repeatedly ended without a firm agreement on a legal MSP guarantee. In March 2025, the Punjab government carried out an eviction drive at both the Shambhu and Khanauri sites, removing the protest camps and reopening the highway to traffic, even though the underlying demands had not been fully resolved. Farmer organisations continued to hold smaller protests and mahapanchayats after this eviction, showing that clearing a highway does not by itself end a movement; it only changes its form.
5. Which Side Did What: A Simple Breakdown
Farmer unions: organised the marches, decided the highway as the protest site, negotiated collectively through named leaders, and used tools such as hunger strikes and repeated attempts to march to increase pressure on the government.
State governments (Haryana and Punjab at different points): were responsible for maintaining order at the border, and used barricades, prohibitory orders and, in 2024, tear gas and water cannons to control the crowd; Punjab later carried out the eviction that reopened the highway in 2025.
Central government: engaged in negotiation through ministerial-level talks and, in 2021, ultimately repealed the three farm laws in response to sustained protest; in the 2024-25 round, it held talks on MSP but did not concede a legal guarantee.
Courts: intervened mainly on two narrow issues, protecting Dallewal’s right to medical care during his fast, and hearing petitions about reopening the blocked highway for the general public, rather than ruling directly on the farmers’ policy demands.
6. How Courts Balance Protest Rights and Mobility Rights
Indian courts have repeatedly held that the right to protest does not include a right to occupy a public road indefinitely. In the case arising from the Shaheen Bagh sit-in protest of 2019-2020, the Supreme Court held that public ways and public spaces cannot be occupied for an indeterminate period, and that dissent must be expressed in designated places, not by blocking roads meant for everyone. This principle has since been cited in disputes over highway blockades by farmer groups as well, including in petitions asking courts to direct the clearing of the Shambhu and Khanauri borders.
At the same time, courts have been careful not to treat every highway protest as automatically unlawful. They generally look at how long the obstruction has lasted, whether alternative routes exist for the public, whether the protest is peaceful, and whether the government itself has engaged meaningfully in negotiation rather than simply seeking removal. A protest that continues for a short period during active negotiation is viewed very differently from one that drags on for over a year with no real dialogue.
7. Negotiation as the Real Solution
Both rounds of farmer protests show that force and barricades can, at best, manage a highway occupation temporarily; they do not resolve the underlying economic dispute. The 2020-21 protest ended only after the government agreed to repeal the laws, following months of talks and one Supreme Court-appointed committee. The 2024-25 protest showed the opposite pattern: the highway was eventually cleared by an eviction drive without the core MSP demand being settled, so the dispute has continued to resurface in different forms even after the road reopened.
This points to a practical lesson for both organisers and governments: written, time-bound commitments reached through genuine negotiation tend to produce a more lasting end to a highway protest than physical removal of the protesters. Removal can restore traffic quickly, but it does not by itself restore trust or resolve the grievance that caused people to occupy the road in the first place.
8. Practical Implications for Different Stakeholders
For Protest Organisers
Choose the intensity of the protest (a symbolic sit-in versus a full highway blockade) in proportion to how serious and long-standing the demand is, since long blockades invite stronger legal and physical pushback.
Keep clear, identifiable leadership so that negotiation channels remain open and government representatives have someone authorised to talk to.
Maintain a peaceful character at all times, since any violence weakens the constitutional protection under Article 19(1)(b) and strengthens the case for prohibitory orders.
For Police and District Authorities
Use prohibitory orders and barricading only when there is a genuine, specific public-order concern, not as a routine first response to every highway sit-in.
Keep at least one lane or an alternate route open wherever possible, so that the restriction on mobility is proportionate rather than a total shutdown.
Ensure that any use of force, such as tear gas or water cannons, is preceded by clear warnings and is proportionate to the actual threat on the ground.
For Governments (State and Central)
Open negotiation early rather than after months of blockade, since delayed talks tend to harden positions on both sides.
Put any settlement in writing with clear timelines, since vague oral assurances are a common reason why farmer protests resume after apparently ending.
Recognise that clearing a highway by force addresses the symptom, not the underlying economic grievance, which will likely resurface in another form.
9. Conclusion
Farmers’ highway protests sit at a genuine constitutional crossroads between the right to peaceful assembly and the public’s right to free movement on national highways. Indian law does not give either right an automatic victory over the other; it asks for a proportionate, fact-specific balance, worked out through prohibitory orders, judicial review and, most importantly, negotiation. The 2020-21 farm laws protest ended in a negotiated repeal, while the 2024-25 Shambhu and Khanauri protest ended, at least on the highway itself, through an eviction drive with the core demand still unresolved. Read together, these two episodes show that clearing a road is not the same as resolving a dispute, and that lasting solutions to highway occupations are more likely to come from honest, time-bound negotiation than from barricades alone.
Author: Parbati Bose
Turning law into solutions.