This paper will explore farmer’s mobilisations in India from the perspective of agrarian relations. Firstly, by describing some of the major features of rural social movements in India after independence; secondly, tracing the shifts in the nature of rural mobilisations that happened in the 1970s and 1980s; and thirdly, by following these movements into the era of globalisation. At this point, the author will try to delineate further shifts that have occurred in the nature of these mobilisations, marking them out from the earlier movements.

Early rural mobilisations in post-independence India were a continuation of pre-independence mobilisations around the agrarian (land) question. The “new farmer’s movement” of the 1970s was led by the products of the Green Revolution of 1960s. This movement was strikingly different from the peasant movements of the 1940s and 1950s; these new movements raised the slogan of higher prices for agricultural produce as the most important demand of the “farmers”. They also demanded lower subsidy for agricultural inputs, lower irrigation charges and zero taxation of agriculture. In the 1990s and 2000s, the farmer’s movement has been weaker as compared to the 1980s. The fervour that was so visible in the 1980s is not visible in the subsequent two decades.