Spaces and Times

It was early morning in Tikri, but the bustling roads were full of life. The aroma of brewing tea rose up in makeshift kitchens. Farmers from Punjab and Haryana, who were braving the January cold to protest the government’s neoliberal agricultural reforms at Delhi’s borders, slowly made their way out of their trolleys. Like most of us, they began their day reading the newspaper over a cup of tea, but their publication of choice was Trolley Times, available at the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Library. Located on the pavement, between two trolleys parked at Pillar Number 783, the makeshift library houses hundreds of books in Hindi, Punjabi and English, donated by the movement’s allies.

“Every morning, a few farmers come asking for the day’s , and we have to remind them that it only comes out once every five days,” Ajaypal Natt, one of the newspaper’s founders, told me. The first edition was published on 18 December 2020. Produced by the movement and available for free at the library, has become the chronicler of the farmers’ protests.