Interrogating the Farmers' Movement in India

Globalisation and the State: Interrogating the Farmers’ Movement in India* Muzaffar Assadi ** Abstract The 1980s mark the beginning of a new trend in the farmers’ movements in India. A spate of new movements, from Shetkari Sangathana (SS) in Maharashtra to Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) in Karnataka and Bharatiya Kisan Union in Uttar Pradesh, began challenging the wider exploitative relations between the agrarian society/system, on the one hand, and industrial/international/western capital on the other. Over the past decade two issues have been in focus in the discourse of the farmers’ movement in India: globalisation and the Indian state. This paper traces the reasons for the farmers’ movement’s formulation of its own perspectives on globalisation and the state. Finally, it analyses the effect of two kinds of politics, Politics of Apologia and Politics of Placing, on the farmers’ movement in India. In the present context of post-colonialism, globalisation has become a fuzzy word for two important reasons: The first is the difficulties involved in locating the actual process (Hirst et al. 1995) and the subsequent semantic confusion. The second reason is the larger myths/euphoria and the notions that globalisation has created and perpetuated over the years. The myths are that it is a western liberal project (Greider 1997) to modernise (Appadurai 1997) the Third World, overlooking the fact that the western agenda of modernisation has historically failed to solve a host of problems afflicting the Third World (Kiely and Philmarsheet 1998). The other myths are that it would introduce uniform social relations based on homogeneous interests and tastes, bring in new cultural practices (Thomson 1999), introduce ‘borderless situation’ (Hilton 1998), and bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. It is in this context that globalisation has been viewed vividly (Dibaja 1998): ‘dissemination of the economy, polity, and culture of one sphere to another’; ‘increasing homogenisation of world culture’; ‘a society without borders’; ‘a loose combination of free trade agreements, the internet and the integration of financial * This is a revised version of the paper presented at the UGC-sponsored national seminar on ‘Social Movements and State Response: Public Policy Perspective’, organised by the Department of Political Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad, during March 22–23, 2000. The author wishes to thank the anonymous referee for comments. ** Reader in Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Mysore, Manasagangothri, Mysore - 570 006. Vol. IV, No.1 Assadi: Globalisation and the State 43 markets that is erasing borders and uniting the world into a single lucrative but brutally competitive market place;’ ‘compression of the entire world on the one hand and a rapid increase in consciousness of the world.’ All these arguments recognise that globalisation1 is a new phenomenon, a new phase, a process, a situation. Thereby, the 1990s have been called the decade of ‘Globalisation.’ Two important issues have become controversial in the discourse of the new farmers’ movement in recent years: globalisation and the Indian state. The new farmers’ movement 2 (Brass 1995), which is seen as a part of the larger new social movements, emerged much before the debate on globalisation took root. It all began in the eighties when farmers of Karnataka, under Karnataka Rajya Raitha (KRRS), of Maharashtra under Shetkari Sangathana (SS), of Uttar Pradesh under Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), and of Tamil Nadu under Tamiliga Vyavasaigal Sangam, began agitating in various parts of the country on a number of issues. These farmers’ movements were called ‘new’ for various reasons: first, unlike the earlier struggles, which were about land, market and prices became the most important issues. Second, the struggle was directed against external agencies such as the state, and industrial capital/international capital. Third, unlike the earlier farmers’ movements, the ‘new’ movements ‘bring together entire rural populations, past and present, irrespective of the economic, ethnic, caste, religious, and political differences.’ Fourth, they believed in discoursing on a large number of issues. Thereby, they placed emphasis on creating a rational farmer within the larger framework. Finally, they believed in retrieving the communitarian life in the context of capitalism, both western and indigenous, threatening the identities, communitarian life and cultural practices. One can discern two phases in the discourse on farmers’ movements vis- à-vis globalisation and the state. In the first phase, spanning 1980–90, although globalisation never became an important issue, the issues of western capitalism, strategy of western world/imperialist countries, colonialism/neo-colonialism, and the Western paradigm of development did come up for discussion quite often, and were mediated through the internally linked issues. Generally, the farmers’ discourse during this decade centred on the issues of ‘urban vs rural,’ ‘Bharat vs India’, remunerative prices, writing off of loans, agrarian backwardness, industry-oriented policies, etc. It was during the 1980s that the movements largely retained their ideological cohesion. Broadly, the farmers’ movement during the 1980s believed that India’s prevailing structural backwardness was mainly due to external linkages, i.e., capitulation of India to western capitalism. It was a deliberate ploy and a larger strategy to perpetuate subjugation of the Third World countries, including India (Assadi 1997a). It is in this context that Third World countries have not been able to escape or delink themselves from the western world. Moreover, the working class 44 Journal of Social and Economic Development Jan. - June 2002 of the western world is deliberately pampered so as to checkmate the possible broader coalition taking place between the working class of the Third World or ex- colonial countries and that of the western world. During the colonial period, the former colonial countries exploited the colonies through methods ranging from extortionate land taxation to slavery, bonded labour, establishment of religious institutions, terms of trade, etc. This legacy continues even in the post-colonial present in various forms, which have given space for ‘neo-colonialism’ or ‘internal colonialism’ to operate. The latter, internal colonialism, is ensured through ‘procurement levies’ in periods of scarcity at prices well below open market prices, dumping in domestic markets of products imported at prices exceeding the internal market prices, restricting the movements of goods, etc.’ It is here that one can locate the discourse on conflict between Bharath and India operating—the native and traditional nomenclature of the country. This discourse /argument came largely from Maharashtra, which does not mean that other movements were hesitant to use the language of Maharashtra. For example, the Karnataka movement used the concepts halli and pattana, representing rural India and urban India respectively. Nonetheless, the argument of ‘Bharath vs India’ is obvious in the following argument3: ‘India corresponds to that notional entity that has inherited from the British the mantle of economic, social, cultural and educational exploitation while Bharath is that notional entity which is subject to exploitation for the second time ever since the termination of the external colonial regime. In brief, the Black Britishers have replaced the white ones to the benefit of Bombay rather than that of Manchester.’ (Joshi 1981). Here lies the radicalism of the movement, especially in the construction of an idea about linkages and subsequent exploitative relations. This radicalism, however, became very ambiguous when the farmers’ movement combined several ideological streams such as Gandhism, Nehruvian command economy, Marxism, and dependency theory. The ambiguity became a fact as globalisation took centre stage during the 1990s. This decade also saw a vertical split in the farmers’ movement in India. This division has made the movement refashion its tools and strategies to address the issues emerging from globalisation; it also made the farmers’ movement defend opposite ideological streams — liberalism/capitalism on the one side and Gandhism/dependency theory on the other; third, it made the farmers’ movement form larger collectives at the international level and thereby helped them to address the issues; finally it helped them to construct new discourses/debates about the identity, paradigm of development, cultural practices, etc. However, it had one adverse effect: it diluted the militancy of the farmers’ movement at the all-India level. Vol. IV, No.1 Assadi: Globalisation and the State 45 Globalisation, the State and the Farmers’ Movement At the outset, the concern of the farmers’ movement stemmed from the larger implications of globalisation on the agricultural/agrarian economy, including different categories. Two perspectives are quite evident from within the farmers’ movement. One perspective saw in globalisation the larger threat and strategy of western world/western capitalism to trap the Third World, including India in ‘neo- colonialism’. The second perspective saw in globalisation ‘the birth of the Indian village into an integrated world where the Indian farmer will have a fighting chance despite longstanding suppression by the State’ (Joshi, n.d). Three important issues in agriculture became a major concern of the farmers’ movement, especially during

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