Emerging in 1970s and gaining farther momentum in 1980s, the neo farmers’ movement in India has exposed some newer contradictions of Indian agrarian society. Unlike the earlier mobilizations of the small and marginal peasants along with the landless agricultural labourers against the zamindars and landlords, the farmers’ movement, concerned mostly with the demands of the upper stratum of the rural society, poses certain interesting questions about the relatively long tradition of mobilization of the peasantry. This was the decade when farmers of green revolution area began to rally around political parties and leaders.

Reasons

• Terms of trade going against the agriculture
• Declining purchasing power
• Unremunerative prices
• Agricultural becoming losing proposition
• Increase in input prices
• Declining per capita income from agriculture

Features

• These movements do not believe in romanticising their life style or social life. They are more inclined to economic issues like protests for MSP, Debt waiver etc.
• They advocate transcending local boundaries, emphasizing internationalism over narrow nationalism.
• Unified and undifferentiated struggle is a key tenet, rejecting the division of social categories based on economic status. This stance prevents them from labelling their movement as solely representing affluent peasants, as they view all social segments aexperiencing poverty due to biased government policies.
• Their contention is that successive governments’ biased policies have led to growing rural poverty, leading them to assert that the “debt of the farmer” is a manufactured concept by the government. This declaration manifests in their call for “Kharja Mukti.”
• The core objective of the farmers’ movement is analysing backwardness through the lens of achieving fair prices for agricultural products. They believe that remunerative prices can trigger a trickle-down effect, ultimately eradicating rural poverty and underdevelopment.
• Gail Omvedt, a prominent researcher on peasant movements, argues that these movements present a novel perspective on exploitation. In contrast to traditional movements, they contend that exploitation is rooted in a larger market system that extends beyond localities, potentially encompassing national or even global markets.
• Use of new techniques: like social media ,music and gaining international tractions has been new methods to used by farmers in their movement.

Ideology of the Neo Farmer Movement

• Farmers’ movement lacks a singular ideology due to fundamental differences in addressing farmers’ issues.
• The Karnataka movement identifies as Gandhian, with some alignment to Dependency theory. It attributes Third World underdevelopment to post-colonial exploitation, including cheap goods, technology dumping, and urban-biased policies.
• Maharashtra’s Shetkari Sangathana stands out with its “Bharat versus India” ideology, emphasizing native and traditional values versus exploitation inherited from British colonial rule. Sharad Joshi argues that “India corresponds to that notional entity that has inherited from the British the mantle of economic, social, cultural educational exploitation; on the contrary “Bharat” is that notional entity which is subject to exploitation a second time even after the termination of the external colonial regime
• The movement critiques state intervention and supports economic freedom for farmers’ prosperity.

Social base and related criticism of neo farmer movement

• These Neo farmer movement are often criticised for their class bias . The Neo Farmer movement are often criticised for their class bias. It is often argued that the Neo Farmer movement is highly biased towards market-oriented farmers than those who are living in the subsistence economy. All through their struggles, these movements have raised such issues which have helped either the rich farmers or the middle farmers. For example, their argument in favour of writing off loans, remunerative prices, declaring agriculture as an industry, abolition of tractor loans etc. ultimately helped the big or the rich/middle peasantry or the farmers.
• Even the movements have not addressed the issues beyond irrigated are The issues of non-irrigated areas have received scant focus in their discourse.
• It is also said that these movements have never become all caste movement. For example Punjab and Uttar Pradesh movement has become JAT movement. In Tamil Nadu there is very low representation of Dalits and Muslims.
• Nonetheless they have not been effective in bringing radical transformation in the country side. This is because of the fact that the neo farmer movement, from the very beginning, were unable to overcome the internal conflicts as well as contradictions. Secondly, they did not carry any radical agenda from within- for example they never bothered to demand radical land reforms, nor were they concerned about the atrocities perpetrated on marginal classes including the Dalits in the country side.

The neo farmer movement did bring about a paradigm shift in the discourse, analysis and perception about farmers in India. It made the policy makers to address the deep rooted crisis of agriculture as well as agrarian classes in India. It has also helped the farmers to be a part of international movement against such issues as globalisation, imperialism and capitalism.