Angry Indian farmers besiege capital in trucks

Angry Indian farmers besiege capital in trucks

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They take early morning cold showers in the open and spend lazy afternoons reading newspapers on neatly spread foam mattresses. Sitting cross-legged on a piece of cloth under their trucks, they play cards to fill the time.

Meals are prepared in enormous pots stirred with wooden spoons the size of canoe paddles. Food is served in hundreds of makeshift roadside soup kitchens. Washed clothes are hung neatly to dry on ropes stretched between tractors.

Protesting farmers are sitting next to their tractor parked on a highway, during a protest at the Delhi-Haryana state border, India.

"We aren't going to leave this place,“ said Gurpreet Singh, 26, a biotechnology student from a farming family. "It's a fight for our survival.“

Every day, thousands more join the protesters.

The protests started in September but drew nationwide attention last week when the farmers marched from northern Punjab and Haryana, two of India's largest agricultural states. On their way to the capital, they pushed aside concrete barricades set up by police and braved tear gas, batons and water cannons.

A farmer sits next to his tractor as he joins farmers protest at the Delhi-Haryana state border, India.

Now, on the outskirts