From Champaran to the Delhi Borders: The Unyielding Spirit of Peasant Movements

In 1917, when Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Champaran, Bihar, the British administration ordered him to leave the district, terming him a ‘disturber of the peace’. The white indigo planters had imposed the tinkathia system (a colonial practice obliging peasants to grow indigo on three-twentieths of their landholding) on the farmers—meaning that they had to cultivate indigo on 3/20 of their most fertile land, even if the farmers’ children starved to death. Gandhiji united the farmers and crafted the first successful experiment of satyagraha (non-violent resistance) in India.

Following this, in 1928, came the ‘Bardoli Satyagraha’ under the leadership of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, where farmers allowed their lands to be confiscated in protest against the 22% hike in lagaan (land revenue) imposed by the British, but refused to bow down. It was this very movement that bestowed upon Vallabhbhai the title of ‘Sardar’.

Then, in the 1980s in independent India, came that historic era of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) under the leadership of Chaudhary Charan Singh and Baba Mahendra Singh Tikait, when lakhs of farmers pitched camp at Delhi’s Boat Club for weeks with their hookahs and bullock carts, forcing Rajiv Gandhi’s government—which held an absolute majority—to bow before them.

And just recently, in 2020–21, the country witnessed the historic farmers’ movement on the borders of Delhi that raged for 378 days, where, after enduring biting cold, blistering heat, and the martyrdom of over 700 farmers, the three controversial farm laws ultimately had to be repealed.

The question is: Whether under a white colonial government or an indigenous one, why must the farmer always lay down his life on the streets even for his legitimate demands?

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The Double Standards of Power: Farmer vs Corporate

In the third chapter of his book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaanv’ (Desolated Farming, Dying Villages), author N. Singh undertakes a sociological analysis of the entire history of peasant movements.

He points out that whenever the country’s big industrialists face an issue, policies are altered behind the closed doors of FICCI and CII. Corporate loans running into lakhs of crores of rupees are written off in a single stroke.

Yet, when the farmer toiling in the fields demands relief from hiked electricity bills, a solution to fertiliser shortages, or a guaranteed floor price covering his cost of production, he is branded an ‘andolanjivi’ (a habitual agitator), ‘stubborn’, or ‘anti-development’, and rewarded with baton charges and tear-gas shells.

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The Bitter Truth from the Book

Underlining this bitter truth in ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaanv’, the authors write:

“In all the peasant movements that have taken place since Independence, there has been a remarkable similarity in their demands—they never ask for any charity from the government. They merely ask for a fair price for their hard labour. But the perspective of those in power has always been that the farmer must be deliberately kept poor in order to provide cheap raw materials for industrial growth and cheap foodgrains to the urban middle class. If the farmer becomes prosperous and begins to sell his harvest on his own terms, how will cheap labour in the cities and massive profits for industries survive? This is precisely why the powers that be in every era adopt the strategy of dividing peasant movements along the lines of caste, religion, or region to crush them.”
— ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaanv’ (Chapter 3)

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What is the Real Solution?

1. Do not let movements become political weapons: Rather than becoming camp followers of any single political party, farmers’ organisations must evolve into a non-political, rational, and united pressure group (lobby) representing farmers across the entire country.
2. Autonomy of a Farmers’ Commission in Parliament: An autonomous ‘National Farmers’ Commission’ should be instituted on the lines of the Election Commission or the Supreme Court, whose recommendations must be legally binding on the government.
3. Protection for the families of martyred farmers: Farmers who lose their lives in movements must be accorded the status of national martyrs, and their families must be given a permanent guarantee of livelihood.

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A Question Worth Pondering (The Message of the Book)

If the farmer who puts food on the entire nation’s plate must face nails, iron spikes, and barbed wire on the roads just a few kilometres from Parliament to claim his due rights, are we truly a sovereign and sensitive republic?

To understand these pages of history with impartiality, every conscious citizen ought to read this chapter of the book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaanv’.