NEW DELHI — Thousands of farmers who had been occupying the outskirts of India’s capital called off their protest Thursday and claimed victory after reaching a deal with the government that would see the formation of a committee to consider guaranteed prices for crops and criminal charges against protesters dropped.

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       The announcement marked the end — for now — of a bitter, year-long mass movement opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effort to liberalize India’s agricultural sector, which produces a perennial surplus of crops. Officials from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party argued that new laws could make the market more efficient by effectively dismantling a system of local markets and allowing some corporate food growers and buyers to enter the sector, but the overhaul faced stiff opposition from farmers from India’s north, who saw it as a giveaway to conglomerates and doggedly camped on the highways outside New Delhi to demand the laws’ repeal.

       Modi relented last month and said he would nix the three laws in a rare setback for the Indian leader, who faces crucial elections in several agricultural states in 2022. But farmers vowed to remain in their encampments until the government introduced more subsidies and withdrew criminal charges against protesters, among a litany of other demands.

       In a statement issued Thursday by the Ministry of Agriculture, the government said India’s security agencies had agreed to drop cases against farmers and a new committee would consider how to set minimum support prices for crops.

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       The farmers, while exultant, said they would wait until this weekend to hold a celebration and then head home. But many hinted that their struggle may not be over so quickly. The Indian Farmers’ Union said in a statement Thursday that “we have won this fight, but we will keep protesting until we succeed in getting a law on the minimum support price.”

       Harinder Kaur Bindu, head of the union’s women’s wing, said by telephone from the tent city in Tikri, on Delhi’s city limits, that the farmers may very well be back in the coming weeks and months if the government shows any sign of backtracking on its promises.

       “As we know how this government has behaved in the past, we are still skeptics about its sincerity,” she said. “We’re mentally prepared for another round of protests.”

       Shams Irfan in Chandigarh, India, contributed to this report.

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