#OutlookMagazine Available on Amazon | It’s Lohri—the festival of harvest and bonfires; the day the farmer community is celebrated. But the mood is far from festive at Shambhu—a prominent toll point at the Haryana-Punjab border on National Highway-44 that has been closed since February 2024. Once a busy interstate passage, it has now been converted into a protest site for farmers.

Hundreds of trucks, tractors and trolleys—covered with blue, black and brown tarpaulin sheets—are parked on the highway. Some occupied and some locked, they double up as homes of protesting farmers—women and men, old and young—who have been coming to Shambhu from different districts of Punjab and Haryana for the past one year.