In photos: India’s financial capital has turned into a protest venue for desperate farmers

Thousands of protesting Indian farmers have flooded India’s financial capital, Mumbai.

Weathering years of distress in the rural economy, they are now demanding loan waivers, higher prices for their produce, and land-ownership reforms. Around 50,000 such farmers plan to surround the state government headquarters, where their representatives will talk to Maharashtra’s chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on March 12.

This is not the first such protest against difficult conditions and government neglect. But the size and scale of this march, which began six days ago in Nashik, 180km northeast of Mumbai, shows that the crisis may be approaching a breaking point.