Chicago April 18, 2024
The Indian farmers’ movement has posed the biggest challenge to Narendra Modi’s government since it came to power. With elections approaching, farmers are mobilizing once again to challenge rural impoverishment under a destructive neoliberal model.
Just over three years ago, Indian farmers mobilised is one of the biggest social movements the country has seen for decades, and delivered a significant blow to the government of Narendra Modi. Since the beginning of this year, they have resumed their protest campaign.
An umbrella organization of farmers’ unions from the states of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh issued a call for a “Dilli Chalo” march to Delhi in February. The farmers faced heavy-handed state repression at the Punjab-Haryana border. One twenty-three-year-old farmer, Shubhakaran Singh from Punjab, succumbed to a head injury that he received while advancing toward Delhi.
The Dilli Chalo call was spearheaded by two groups, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM). SKM (Non-Political) is a breakaway faction from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a collective front of farmers’ unions across the country that led the farmers’ movement in 2020–21. On February 23, the SKM itself joined the ongoing call for protests.
The SKM then issued a further call asking the farmers’ organizations to go to the Ramleela Ground in Delhi for a conference. More than fifty thousand farmers from around the country took part in the assembly held on March 14, which culminated in a plea for unity among all the farmers’ organizations. The farmers’ organizations also unanimously urged the electorate to defeat the Modi government in the upcoming elections.
At the root of the problem is the skewed nature of capitalist development undertaken in India immediately after independence and the failure of land reforms in most Indian states, with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, West Bengal, and Tripura. In most states, land reform ended up being a theoretical aspiration that was never turned into a reality.
In the absence of egalitarian agricultural reforms, government efforts to promote agrarian development ended up benefiting the rich and landed rural farming classes disproportionately. Class and caste inequalities thus widened alongside agricultural growth and increasing productivity.
Greater inequality also resulted from the Green Revolution, under which ownership of land, resources, and accessibility of agricultural credit enabled the rich and landed rural peasantry to reap disproportionate gains. This trajectory of inequitable development resulted in mass poverty, unemployment, and a decline in purchasing power for the rural peasantry. This in turn led to lagging growth in the size of the internal market and dampened the progress of industrialization.
A decline in rural and agricultural spending also adversely affected employment generation in rural areas. Cuts to subsidies for fertilizers, fuel, and power sent agricultural input costs spiraling. The opening of international trade also coincided with a fall in the international prices of nonfood grain crops like cotton and oilseeds. At the same time, the protection provided by the government to the peasantry in the form of agricultural subsidies and MSP weakened.
It is no surprise that this agrarian crisis has been pushing farmers from all classes — rich and poor, landed and landless — to demand a change in their economic circumstances. Despite the multifaceted nature of the crisis, debates in the Indian media tend to focus on peripheral aspects of the question. Once again, the pages of national newspapers are filled with discussion of MSP or diversification of agriculture — not to mention constant reports on the disruption farmers’ blockades have been causing for ordinary people — while the deeper issues are overlooked.
The primary impact of the farmers’ movement has been to bring these material issues back to the forefront of discussion. This wave of farmers’ protests has once again dented Modi’s image of invincibility. According to Badal Saroj of the SKM, the movement has led to a consolidation of the political opposition in states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and to some extent Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh:
Owing to the organic nature of the struggle, the movement has pushed the situation beyond the control and expectations of the government. The issues that they intended to conceal are back in everyday discussions of the people.
The farmers’ demand for a legally guaranteed MSP at the rate of C2 + 50 percent has been publicly endorsed by the opposition bloc that calls itself the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). The leader of the Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi, made the following pledge:
If the INDIA bloc comes to power after the general elections, we will give a legal guarantee to MSP. Whenever farmers have asked for something from the Congress, it has been given to them. Be it loan waiver or MSP, we have always protected the interests of cultivators and will do so in future.
We have to recognize that the depth of the agrarian crisis makes it impossible to resolve it through quick fixes. The perseverance of the farmers reflects the excruciating situation through which they have suffered over the last few decades. This will motivate them to keep mobilizing again and again. Through their continuing struggle, they will keep bringing the material issues faced by the people of India back on the agenda, irrespective of who gets elected this year
