KARNATAKA- Farmers Agitation

November 22, 1980 KARNATAKA Farmers' Agitation Lalitha Natraj THE farmers of Karnataka provided a big surprise for everyone, and a jolt to Gundu Rao's government by launching an agitation a few months ago, In a state not known for overt agrarian unrest this is indeed a remarkable deve- lopment Perhaps the only comparable agitation of fanners in the past was in the early fifties in the Shimoga district when the socialists spearheaded a farmers' agitation. Popularly called the Kagodu Raitara Satyagraha it ended, as most such uprisings unfortunately do, mainly due to internal dissensions. There has been no other major demonstration of bitterness by fanners, certainly not on an organised scale and the state has also not witnessed the kind of landlord- peasant struggle-, in however sporadic a form, as several other states have.