Farmers at the gates

NARESH Tikait’s leadership of the farmers’ rally that clashed with the police on the UP-Delhi border on Tuesday would have brought back memories of the siege of Delhi in the 80s by his maverick father Mahendra Singh Tikait. But for Bhartiya Kisan Union accepting the principle of primogeniture in its top ranks, there is a major difference in the composition of the rural masses that have been agitating on the streets. The protests in the 1980s that brought Tikair Sr into prominence were highlighting the political and economic interests of the landed class while sidelining the agenda of the rural poor and landless labour.

The latest farmer rallies, however, are not just defending the interests of the landed peasantry, but include their smaller brethren who too have surplus cash crops. The roots of the latest rally lie in wider unrest involving all sections of the rural-agrarian society triggered by the Mandsaur firing of June 1 last year. Farmers from Tamil Nadu protested before Parliament exhibiting human skulls and with dead rats in their mouths while landless tribals joined marginal farmers in a memorable barefoot march to Mumbai. And on the first anniversary of Mandsaur firing, farmers in six states, including Punjab and Haryana, dumped their perishable produce on the roads.

The prime reason is that Indian agriculture is caught in the vicious trap of low growth and low returns, making it difficult to make ends meet. But the past one year has witnessed a diversity of mobilisers  — nearly 200 farmer organisations and hundreds of pressure groups. And of participation — not restricted to the wizened farmer, but cutting across caste, gender and class. This mirrors the steady expansion in the intensity of distress as more of rural population today depends on non-farming activity. The question today is not just about economic viability of agriculture alone. The Centre, aware of the incipient political time-bomb, spared no resources in reaching out to Tikait’s men. But the problem today has been informed by the social and economic changes that have taken place in the countryside since 1991.