The document discusses India's agrarian crisis, including rising farmer suicides, peasant movements, and agrarian unrest. It notes that the agrarian crisis is due to factors like dependence on rainfall, declining subsidies, lack of credit access, and declining investment in agriculture. Peasant movements in India include pre-independence movements against colonial exploitation, as well as post-independence movements led by socialists and communists advocating for farmer rights and welfare. Contemporary issues include ongoing farmer distress and suicides resulting from debt and crop failures.

1. Agrarian Crisis,
Distress, Unrest;
Peasant
Movements &
Suicide
Dr. S. Mehdi Abbas Zaidi
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
Shia P.G. College, Lucknow
E-mail - mehdi.abbas92@gmail.com
Contact No. - +91-9839287412

2. Agrarian Crisis
 Agrarian crises mean the sharpening and explosion
of the specific contradiction of reproduction of
capital in agriculture
 In the opinion of Prabhat Patnaik, this crisis in
Indian agriculture is “unparalleled since
independence and reminiscent only of the agrarian
crisis of pre-war and war days”.
 According to Sahai, the most tragic face of India’s
agrarian crisis is seen in the increasing number of
farmer suicides.

3. Continuum
 Farmers’ suicides are no longer limited to the
drought and poverty stricken areas of the country
but because of their massive indebtedness.
 Agrarian crisis would be affecting a majority of the
people in India and the economy as a whole in the
long run.
 And therefore, it can be argued that the crisis in
agriculture is a crisis of the country as a whole.

4. Factors
 Dependence on rainfall and climate
 Liberal import of agricultural products
 Reduction in agricultural subsidies
 Lack of easy credit to agriculture and dependence
on money lenders
 Decline in government investment in the agricultural
sector
 Conversion of agricultural land for alternative uses

5. Impacts
 It has adverse effects on:
 food supply,
 prices of foodgrains,
 cost of living,
 health and nutrition,
 poverty,
 employment,
 labour market,
 land loss from agriculture, and
 foreign exchange earnings.

6. Agrarian Distress
 Agrarian distress is mainly in terms of low
agricultural prices and, consequently, poor farm
incomes.
 Agrarian distress in contemporary India is not
confined to the pockets of backwardness; even the
regions having a high degree of commercial
agriculture, using relatively better technology and
having a relatively diversified cropping pattern have
reported high indebtedness and distress of various
kinds.

7. Reasons
 Poor policy and Planning
 Absence of direct measure to promote farmers welfare
 Declining average size of farm holdings
 Dependence on rainfall and climate
 Collapsing farm prices
 Lack of easy credit
 Lack of Mechanisation
 Profiteering by middlemen

8. Impacts
 The factors have resulted in low income for farmers which
is evident from the incidence of poverty among farm
households.
 The low and highly fluctuating farm income is causing a
detrimental effect on the interest in farming and farm
investments and is also forcing more and more cultivators,
particularly younger age group, to leave farming.
 The country also witnessed a sharp increase in the number
of farmers suicides in the last decades.
 This can cause an adverse effect on the future of food
security and the state of agriculture in the country.

9. Agrarian Unrest
 The trend of agrarian unrest in India can be traced
to the period of British rule when the nationalist
mass movements took place.
 During the post-independence period, agrarian
unrest of various types have taken place, ranging
from the legendary Telengana movement and the
PEPSU tenant movement to the Naxalite
movement.
 Inequality in living standards caused unrest among
the farmers and they tried to solve this problem
through rebellion and movements.

10. Peasant Movements
 Peasant movement is a social movement involved
with the agricultural policy, which claims peasants
rights.
 Peasant movements were usually the result of
stresses in the feudal and semi-feudal societies,
and resulted in violent uprisings.
 Recent movements are usually much less violent,
and their demands are centered on better prices for
agricultural produce, better wages and working
conditions for the agricultural laborers, and
increasing the agricultural production.

11. Continuum
 Anthony Pereira, has defined a peasant movement
as a "social movement made up of peasants (small
landholders or farm workers on large farms), usually
inspired by the goal of improving the situation of
peasants in a nation or territory".
 Peasant movements are discussed in three
categories:
 Pre-indepence
 Post-independence
 Contemporary

12. Pre-independence Peasant
Movements
 Peasant movement in India arose during the British
colonial period, when economic policies
characterized in the ruin of traditional handicrafts
leading to change of ownership, overcrowding of
land, massive debt and impoverishment of
peasantry.
 The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under
the leadership of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati,
who formed the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha
(BPKS) in 1929 to mobilise peasant grievances
against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy
rights.

13. Continuum
 All these radical developments on the peasant front
culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan
Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Indian
National Congress in April 1936.
 The movement was increasingly dominated by
Socialists and Communists.

14. Champaran Satyagraha
(1917)
 Gandhiji lead the Champaran (Bihar) and Kheda
(Gujarat) peasant struggles.
 The peasant movement of Champaran was
launched in 1917-1918.
 The main aim was to create awakening among the
peasantry against the European planters.
 These planters exploited the peasants without
providing them adequate remuneration for their
labor.

15. Kheda Peasant Struggle
(1919)
 The peasantry of Kheda consisted mainly of Patidars
who were known for their skills in agriculture.
 The Patidars were well-educated.
 Kheda is situated in the central part of Gujarat and
was quite fertile for the cultivation of tobacco and
cotton crops.
 The government increased the tax, which was not
acceptable to the peasants.
 It was lead by Gandhiji, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,
N.M. Joshi.

16. Bardoli Movement (1925)
 In the year 1925, the taluka of Bardoli suffered from
heavy floods and severe famine which affected the
crops very badly.
 This situation led the farmers to face great financial
troubles.
 The Government refused to reduce the tax rate.
 The farmers were in a very pitiable state whereby
they barely had anything enough to pay the tax, so,
the farmers of Bardoli refused to pay the taxes.

17. Moplah Rebellion (1921)
 The Moplahs worked as small agriculturists who were the
tenants of the big landlords.
 These landlords belonged to the high- caste Hindus.
 The Moplahs acquired the status of warriors by adopting
the traditional ways of Nayars. The Moplah Peasant
Movement started in August 1921.
 The government officials in alliance with the Hindu
landlords oppressed the Moplah peasants.
 Most of their grievances were related to security of tenure,
high rents, renewal fees, and other unfair exactions of the
landlords.

18. Post-Independence Peasant
Movements
 The Post-independent India saw broadly two kinds of
peasant or farmers’ struggles in the recent past.
 Peasant movements led by Marxist and Socialists- such
as:
 Telangana Movement (1946–51),
 Tebagha movement (1946–1949),
 Kagodu Satyagraha (1951), and
 Naxalbari Movement (1967).
 Farmers’ movement led by rich farmers in Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat.

19. Telangana Movement
(1946-51)
 This movement was started against the Nizam of
Hyderabad.
 The agrarian structure followed the feudal system at
this time.
 The main commercial crops of the Telangana region
were groundnut, tobacco, and castor seed, which
were cultivated by the landowning Brahmins.
 the Brahmins, Marwaris, Muslims, and Vaisyas
showed interest in gaining and acquiring the lands.

20. Continuum
 This resulted in sliding down of the status of the
peasant proprietors to that of tenants at will
sharecroppers and landless laborers.
 The cultivators were oppressed and exploited by
these intermediaries who were appointed by the
Nizam.
 The Nizam provided the irrigation facilities, most of
these facilities were utilized by the big farmers only.
 The agricultural economy also underwent many
changes; it was transformed more into a market
economy than a subsistent one.

21. Continuum
 Such change did not improve the status of the
tenants and sharecroppers.
 The Communist Party of India initiated the
Telangana Peasant struggle.
 The Communist Party started working in the
Telangana region from 1936.
 The prices of food and other commodities
increased.
 The year 1946 proved to be a crisis time for both
the tenants and the sharecroppers.

22. Continuum
 This year provided all the opportunities for
launching a peasant struggle.
 The Indian army marched into the state of
Hyderabad on 13 September 1948.
 The police action taken by the newly framed Central
Government was quick in putting down the peasant
movement.

23. Tebhaga Movement
(1946-49)
 It was a sharecropper’s movement, which
demanded two-thirds for themselves and one-third
for the landlord.
 The crop sharing system at that time was known as
barga, adhi, bhagi, etc., and the sharecroppers
were called as bargadars or adhiars.
 There were two reasons why this action led to the
insurrection on the part of the sharecroppers.
 First, they demanded that the sharing of the
produce into half was not justified.

24. Continuum
 Secondly, the tenants were required to store their
grains at the granary of the landlord and had to
share the straw and other by products of the grains
on half-sharing basis.
 The Berigal Provincial Krishak Sabha organized the
movement of Tebhaga.
 The movement spread across the 19 districts of
Bengal.
 The landlords refused to accept the demands of the
tenants and called the police.

25. Continuum
 The police arrested the tenants and many of them
were put behind the bars.
 This action made the tenants more furious and they
started a new slogan to abolish the whole Zamindari
system.
 In early 1947, such developments led the
government to introduce a bill in the Legislative
Assembly.
 The bill proposed to reform the bhagi system of the
country, which caused the agrarian unrest.

26. Continuum
 The government could not enact the bill into a law.
 The Tebhaga movement, to an extent, was
successful, as it has been estimated that about 40
per cent of the sharecropping peasants were
granted the Tebhaga right by the landowners
themselves.

27. Naxalbari Movement
(1967)
 It is a violent peasant agitation launched in March-
April 1967 in a place called Naxalbari, in Darjeeling
district of West Bengal.
 It gave rise to the Naxalite Armed struggle.
 The Naxalite leaders like Charu Majumdar, Kanu
Sanyal, Punjab Rao, Kumar Kishan, Jail Singh,
Vinod Mitra and others had played a key role in this
Naxalbari movement.

28. Causes
 Economic dissatisfaction
 Demand for reasonable distribution of benami
lands.
 Nationalisation of forests.
 Exploitation by the moneylenders.
 Propaganda of the Marxist extremists.

29. Objectives
 The prime objective of this movement was to
change the whole society, not the conditions of
peasants only.
 The movement was aimed at the total annihilation
of the big farmers, landlords and Jagirdars.
 The Naxalbari movement was a specific struggle
ideologically oriented to Marxisin Socialism. But the
agitation was a big failure because of various
factors.

30. Causes of Failure
 Selfish political interests.
 Lack of consensus among the leaders.
 Too much faith in violence.
 The leaders failed to safeguard the interests of
ordinary peasants and tribals.
 Naxalbari struggle (Naxalite struggle) are still going
but today, they rarely remain as agrarian struggles.

31. Contemporary Peasant
Movements
 The Contemporary peasant movements have
attracted media attention on some glaring issues
such as remunerative prices for agricultural goods,
reduction or elimination of government dues such
as electricity charges, canal water charges, interest
rate, etc.
 Indeed, after the Green Revolution, the farmers’
movements have become political weapons for
securing more power and money.

32. Continuum
 Most of these ‘new’ peasant movements have
narrow caste-based mobilisation for getting political
mileage.
 As a result the farmers felt victimised in the cause of
serving urban interests.

33. New Farmer’s
Movement
 A fresh farmers’ movement started in 1980 with
road-rail roko in Nasik (Maharashtra) under the
leadership of the Shetkari Sangathan led by Sharad
Joshi.
 The immediate demand of the farmers was higher
prices for sugarcane and onions.
 Then came Mahinder Singh Tikait, a Jat leader, who
organised lakhs of villagers and compelled the then
chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to accept their
demand for reducing electricity charges to the
previous level.

34. Continuum
 The movements which have been able to mobilise
rural peasants were:
 Vivasayigal Sangam in Tamil Nadu,
 the Rajya Ryothu Sangha in Karnataka,
 Kisan Sangh and Khedut Samaj in Gujarat, and
 the Bharatiya Kisan Union in Uttar Pradesh and
Punjab.
 Most of these peasant movements occurred due to
the government policy of paying low agricultural
prices for controlling the price of food and raw-
materials.

35. Peasant Suicide
 Peasant suicides in India refers to the national
catastrophe of farmers committing suicide since the
1990s, often by drinking pesticides, due to their
inability to repay loans mostly taken from landlords
and banks.
 The National Crime Records Bureau of India
reported that a total 296,438 Indian farmers had
committed suicide since 1995.
 The farmers suicide rate in India had ranged
between 1.4 and 1.8 per 100,000 total population.

36. Continuum
 Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in
India.
 Activists and scholars have offered a number of
conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as:
 anti farmer laws,
 high debt burdens,
 poor government policies,
 corruption in subsidies,
 crop failure,
 public mental health,
 personal issues and
 family problems.

37. Continuum
 According to a report by the National Crime
Records Bureau, the states with the highest
incidence of farmer suicide in 2015 were:
 Maharashtra (3,030),
 Telangana (1,358),
 Karnataka (1,197),
 Madhya Pradesh (581),
 Andhra Pradesh (516), and
 Chhattisgarh (854).

38. Continuum
 Tamma Carleton, compared suicide and climate data,
concluding that climate change in India may have "a
strong influence" on suicides during the growing season,
triggering more than 59,000 suicides in 30 years.
 A study conducted in 2014, found that there are three
specific characteristics associated with high-risk farmers:
 those that grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton;
 those with 'marginal' farms of less than one hectare; and
 those with debts of 300 Rupees or more.

39. Continuum
 The study also found that the Indian states in which
these three characteristics are most common had
the highest suicide rates and also accounted for
"almost 75% of the variability in state-level
suicides."

40. Response to Farmer’s
Suicides
 The government appointed a number of inquiries to
look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm
related distress in general.
 Krishak Ayog (National Farmer Commission) visited
all suicide prone farming regions of India.
 A special rehabilitation package (2006) was
launched to mitigate the distress of these farmers.
 The Government of India also announced an ex-
gratia cash assistance from Prime Ministers
National Relief Fund to the farmers.

41. Continuum
 The Government of India implemented the
Agricultural debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme in
2008.
 Direct agricultural loan by stressed farmers under
so-called Kisan Credit Card were also to be covered
under this Scheme.
 Various state governments in India have launched
their own initiatives to help prevent farmer suicides.

42. Reference
 Patnaik, P., The Crisis in India’s Countryside
 Mishra, D.K., Behind Agrarian Distress
 Sinha D.K., Essay on Agrarian Unrest in India
 Mondal P., Top six peasant movements in India

43. Thank You