Agrarian Crisis

The agrarian crisis of Maharashtra predominantly comes out in the form of its nationally largest, yet scanty and inefficient irrigation sector, and development backlog faced by about two-thirds (62.10%) of its geographical area, with 57.29% of the total and 45.68% of the state’s tribal population. Low crop yields and net negative returns for cultivating most of the crops across seasons result into the farm household level indebtedness and highest number of farm suicides death toll at the national level for over a period of three and a half decades.

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Farmer Suicides in Punjab

Vol. 57, Issue No. 25, 18 Jun, 2022

Sukhpal Singh, Manjeet Kaur, H S Kingra

The article is based on a primary survey carried out to ascertain the magnitude and determinants of deaths of farmers by suicide in six districts of Punjab. It recommends the provision of financial compensation to victim families, waiving of debt, and strengthening of public healthcare and education system as the main policy measures for addressing this tragic phenomenon.

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Agrarian Crisis and Farm Incomes in India

Vol. 57, Issue No. 16, 16 Apr, 2022

Vikas Rawal

Farm Income in India: Myths and Realities by A Narayanamoorthy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021; pp 384, `1,695.

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Water and Agricultural Transformation in India

Vol. 56, Issue No. 30, 24 Jul, 2021

Mihir Shah, P S Vijayshankar, Francesca Harris

An argument for twin propositions is presented in this two-part paper: (i) that solving India’s water problem requires a paradigm shift in agriculture (Part I), and (ii) that the crisis in Indian agriculture cannot be resolved without a paradigm shift in water management and governance (Part II). The second part describes the paradigm shift needed in water, which includes rejuvenation of catchment areas of rivers, a shift towards participatory approaches to water management, focus on green water and protective irrigation, and widespread adoption of water-saving seeds and technologies, while building transdisciplinarity and overcoming hydro-schizophrenia in water governance.

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Agrarian Crisis and Agricultural Labourer Suicides in Punjab

Vol. 56, Issue No. 13, 27 Mar, 2021

Sukhpal Singh, Manjeet Kaur, H S Kingra

Punjab’s economy is engulfed in a serious agrarian crisis. The capitalisation of agricultural production processes has squeezed employment opportunities and wage rates in the farm sector. The agrarian crisis in the state has pushed the agricultural labourers towards low earnings and debt traps, which have led them towards death by suicide. Based on a door-to-door and village-to-village survey of 2,400 villages falling in the jurisdiction of six districts of Punjab, the present study reveals that 7,303 agricultural labourers died by suicide in the state during 2000–18. The financial compensation, debt waiver, provision of healthcare and education of victim families along with safeguarding of legal entitlements regarding wage enhancements and land rights, and agro-industrialisation are main policy measures for addressing the act of suicide by agricultural labourers.

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Does Feminist Historiography Have An Emancipatory Potential?

Vol. 54, Issue No. 31, 03 Aug, 2019

Everyday acts of resilience of ordinary women do not necessarily aim to overthrow existing hierarchies and gendered oppressions. The article proposes a renewed understanding of resistance and in doing so, attempts to recover and recast notions of vulnerability and resilience as useful variables that we, in fact, inherit from existing feminist epistemological groundings. How does feminist scholarship engage with narratives that overlie vulnerabilities and contextual specificities, unable to be accommodated easily within the “sights” and “sites” of feminist resistance?

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How Can We Understand India’s Agrarian Struggle Beyond ‘Modi Sarkar Murdabad’?

Vol. 53, Issue No. 50, 22 Dec, 2018

India is witnessing a new wave of agrarian protest. Grounded in a deep crisis in the country's agricultural sector, these protests express a deep sense of disappointment in the economic policies of the Modi regime. This article discusses how the new agrarian struggle should be understood as a symptom of the disintegration of the Modi regime's project of authoritarian populism. However, the author proposes that addressing India's agrarian crisis will require far more than simply ousting the Modi government. He argues that today's crisis is grounded in the neo-liberal reforms that have shaped India's political economy since the early 1990s, and it is therefore necessary to counter the crisis with a definite break with neo-liberalisation.

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Farmers and Their Nation

Vol. 53, Issue No. 45, 17 Nov, 2018

The cultivating millions need a responsive nation; they have decided not to flee or desert it.

Majoritarian Rationale and Common Goals

Vol. 51, Issue No. 37, 10 Sep, 2016

Atul Sood

Looking at existing policy instruments and goals, and the economic and social outcomes they promise to deliver, it is argued that majoritarian politics and social and cultural outcomes are not part of fringe thinking. The politics of hate actually works to build a consensus for ruling class economics. It is not surprising, therefore, that the only "nationalist outlook" of our times is to stand firmly behind the policy programme for the global investor.