Photo by Jaskaran Singh

I don’t think I had much of an intention of Spice on the Beat becoming a political outlet when I first started it. However, over the last few years, we have seen the fine line between politics and human rights diminish as acts have been passed that make you question the morality of the government. After a while, I felt like there was something more that I could do; an interesting way to get people involved and tuned in to the issues that have been suppressed over decades. I have a platform and a knack for writing, and to use the two to stand up for injustices felt like a no-brainer. Nevertheless, I would be doing a disservice to my blog, my culture, my people, my family, and my roots if I didn’t find a way to talk about the Farmer Protests that were currently occurring in India. In what has become one of the biggest protests in the country, tens of thousands of farmers have set up camps outside of New Delhi to fight India’s newest laws. The laws, which were once used to protect the farmers and their profits by guaranteeing at least the minimum price for crops, are now being changed to “modernize” them. Rather than working with the farmers to come to an agreement, the people were met with barbed wire fences, police brutality, water cannons, tear gas, internet outages, and unlawful arrests.